by H. M. Irwing
He must have been able to read just what she was thinking from her expression for he said,” I have to go. I will come by tonight.”
He paused then to look at Lucy hesitatingly, but she only nodded eagerly. She needed him gone. Gone quickly before she did something stupid. Something she would love to do but would later regret. Strip him and bed him, and not necessarily in that order, although eyeing his mostly exposed body, there was not much else left to strip.
Lucy licked her lips avidly and watched his every move as he got dressed. It was strangely as erotic as having the more intimate session with him earlier. She stood there as he approached her, fully dressed. He reached into her open shirt to wrap his hands about her waist and hauled her up against him in a deep hug that said more than anything of how he really felt for her.
“Just bear with me, Lucy. We will work through this.”
Lucy nodded her head, willing to give him that. She knew he wanted to reassure her, but Lucy didn’t know how they could be anything more, not with the many obstacles already in their path. But she kept her silence as she watched him walk out her door. Then she sank back down to perch at the edge of her bed, her head low, clasped between her hands.
“Lucy! Come on down. It’s time for dinner.”
Lucy lifted tear-drenched eyes to stare at her open doorway.
“Coming!” She hollered back shakily, then moved towards the bathroom needing to splash her face and remove all traces of distress first. Her heart practically trembled at the effort to contain herself. But, oddly enough, this time she had no yearning to break into song.
Chapter 11
“How was your day, dear?”
An innocuous question, but the conversation about the dinner table immediately erupted into a bout of discussions over how the day had gone.
Every one of them had a different tale to tell. They may have each shared their time with the other, but in no way had they experienced the day in quite the same way. Lucy took a moment to marvel at that freak streak of nature. It was one concept she became more and more aware of with time. Her difference mattered not a bit with her family. They shared their love, their time, and their personal space with her much the same way as she returned the favour and yet each of them would derive different satisfactions from the experience. They were each one different. Inside and out. Unique in their differences.
Lucy lifted her hand to gingerly finger through her shorn hair, not at all liking the fact that it was so short anymore. Did Jace prefer it short or long?
She lifted a fork and knife to cut her meat before spearing it on the edge of her fork, drawing it near and closing her mouth over it. Lucy chewed slowly and swallowed, not tasting it as she did.
The main hoopla revolved around Emily’s choice in dress. A choice Cat deemed risqué. A fact Lucy failed to notice herself. But then Cat’s focus shifted to their death-defying trip in Woggy.
“That car should be sold for scrap,” declared Patrick Little, not for the first time.
“What? No!” Denied Lucy, unexpectedly, backtracking on what she herself had thought earlier. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that deathtrap. It had been Jace’s gift to her; she could not value it enough.
The unexpected outburst caused the table to erupt in a multitude of protests and that made for a decent discussion, one Lucy was glad to join in on, defending Woggy with a lot more vigour than she thought she ever would.
No satisfactory solutions were successfully churned out, though. But then Lucy hadn’t expected any. It was sufficient to have her voice heard and understood. Old Woggy was just that—old!
The Neils were not discussed. They no longer deserved a mention. Jace was not brought up at all either, if one could ignore the fact that the Woggy played subtle references to him. Or were those references not so subtle at all?
But the Neils weren’t far from everyone’s minds, casting a bleak shadow over everyone’s natural cheer. Losing a lifelong friend was hard for anyone, and pain of this break would resonate in the Littles’ hearts for some time to come. The walk that followed dinner this time saw Lucy and her parents grabbing their coats and heading out the door after Emily and Cat excused themselves to trot upstairs and pore over the day’s purchases. The night was unusually chilly for summer. Short bursts of laughter and conversation carried over the winds to them from neighbours immersed in their own celebrations over the last week of the year.
The loose gravel crunched noisily beneath their feet, lending a low underscore to the natural high in the expected symphony that would follow. Lucy hadn’t long to wait. For no sooner had they cleared the first bend than her dad started.
“Your mother and I have been discussing things,” her dad began.
“Things?”
“Among other things,” he murmured pointedly, ignoring her prompt, “we were concerned over what’s developing between you and Jace.”
Lucy’s breath caught. Had they seen him depart from the house earlier? Lucy was afraid to look closely into her dad’s eyes to find that out. Instead she kept her eyes pinned to the ground.
“Your mother and I love Jace, as if he were our own. But is he right for you, Lucy? You are just starting out with your whole life ahead of you. You will soon enrol in studies that will decide your future. Getting embroiled in Jace’s lavish lifestyle will be a step back that may be difficult to unravel. It will have consequences that will change you.”
“You think I can’t handle it?” Lucy asked, unsure if she was voicing her own fears or his.
“I think you already have too much on your plate.” Patrick Neil refrained from mentioning what that too much was, but they both knew he spoke of her biological father, her missing brother, and her trip to the States. Something she was avoiding thinking of for the moment.
Dad paused here, giving them all a moment to think. Mum leaned in to pat Lucy’s shoulder comfortingly. She knew they had her back, that they were just worried for her. She knew too she was overwhelmed by so much in such a short time. In less than a week, her life had changed so drastically in so many ways. It was as though Santa held back the big bag of presents, most of them unwanted, only to load them all on her over the week leading up to New Year.
Jace was the only gift she really wanted. Jace was the one she truly appreciated, but Richard, him she didn’t know what to do with. Knyte Starr was too much of a change to even contemplate. Half a world away, and yet that was starting to have its own appeal, taking her away from all her indecisions here. But through all of it, it was her brother that was the light at the end of the narrowed tunnel.
After all this time, there was finally hope that Blaze would be found. But that budding hope blossoming in her chest was also what had her worried the most. What if it was all a fake, another line of possibilities that did not amount to anything. What if he was too changed, too traumatised by all that had happened to him to want to have anything to do with them? There had been too many dried-up and withered vines of opportunity over the years. Too many false hopes that came to nothing. Could she bear to be put through another? Lucy’s heart ached just thinking about it.
“If you’re going to the Reeves’ farm party this weekend then you three need to get started with removing all the decorations,” chipped in Mary Little.
But as an attempt to reinsert the Christmas cheer into what had turned into a sad moment of contemplation, Mary Little failed miserably. Christmas was a sore point at the Littles’. While Lucy’s dad was all for the cheer that went with it, her mother found it the hardest time of the year. Christmas, Lucy’s birthday—the real and the fake—and the Grammys, were all trigger points for her. And then there was the anniversary of the event itself; that was the very worst of the lot.
Nineteen years on from the night her brother disappeared and still there was no forgetting and no moving forward. Time had stopped from that point on in a lot of ways for Mary Little, and Lucy and the rest of the Littles had grown to accept and live with the changes that came with i
t. But it always saddened Patrick Little not to have Christmas the way it should be celebrated.
There was no decorated tree in their living room, and the decorations Mary mentioned were a few ornaments passed down through generation of Shuberts and Littles that were splayed in the least-ventured orifices of their home.
The silence fell once more as they continued down the winding slope. There was some activity along the street tonight. Mr Robins was out jogging alongside his black Labrador. Lucy watched in fascination as Mr Robins stretched out his lanky strides to keep pace with his canine companion.
Spike was a two-year-old pup, as loving as he was exuberant. She watched as he closed the distance between them then leaped unhesitatingly into her dad’s outstretched arms. Dad staggered on impact before bracing and trying to dodge the dog’s slobbering tongue.
“Spike!” called out Mr Robins, as he caught up to them. Dad returned Spike back onto his paws, but he instantly rose on his hinds and made short leaps as he continued to struggle to paste slobber on her dad’s face. Patrick Little had that effect on dogs.
“How are you, Harold?” Greeted Mary. Dad was still preoccupied trying to evade the dog’s searching muzzle.
“Couldn’t be better,” puffed out Harold Robins, still jogging on the spot.
“Good evening, Mr Robins,” Lucy said politely while waiting for Dad to disentangle himself from his current predicament.
“Call your dog off, Harold,” called out Dad, finally giving up. Harold pursed his lips together and blew out a loud piercing whistle that instantly summoned Spike to his side.
“It’s a beautiful evening for a walk,” said Harold. Lucy looked up at the full moon shining down and had to agree. The night was beautiful, almost magical, illuminated by the fluorescent hues of the moonlight. She took a deep breath of the refreshing night air and instantly smelled wet dog. Lucy dropped her gaze to glare at Spike, who gazed back unperturbed with a lolling tongue and wagging tail.
The conversation began in earnest then, and Lucy shifted impatiently while giving her mum the look. She was certain Spike was as unimpressed with the delay. Her mum caught on and worked her magic, and soon they were off again, waving farewell to Harold Robins and Spike as they went.
“So, have you decided yet, over what course you’re going to pursue, and which universities are you looking at?” Dad began on another topic Lucy was shying away from. Was there anything she could discuss without any sort of repercussion?
“No.” Lucy’s grades, while not the best, had afforded her an offer from several universities but in courses that didn’t necessarily interest her. “I haven’t decided yet.” Lucy provided the usual prevarication and declined to give a definitive answer.
“When I was your age, I was as clueless too. Daniel was the ambitious one, he was always attuned to what he had to do,” Patrick shook his head, recalling his best friend and the source of Lucy’s most recent heartache. Would her dad ever forgive her for causing the breach between him and his best friend? Was it fair for her to bask in her own friendship while her dad lost his for her?
“As a young upstart, Daniel had been fairly brimming with goals and ambition. He had a target painted dead set on his mind and he went all out for it. Made things happen,” added Patrick, wanting Lucy to appreciate some of the better qualities of his friend. But it was those same qualities that were barring her happiness.
“I, however, had to go through a journey of self-discovery before I met your mother and decided on accounting to butter my toast. More out of necessity than true ambition, mind you,” he paused poignantly, recalling some turning point in his past.
“You are a lot like me,” he continued. “I don’t want you suffering the same mistakes that I made.”
Mistakes? Did he mean his friendship with Daniel had been a mistake? Was he trying to subtly tell her that her friendship with Daniel’s son was heading the same way? But Jace was nothing like his dad! Or was he? Lucy shifted uncomfortably then, not wanting to think of the apple falling not far from the tree.
She was suddenly eager for this walk to end. She was always happiest when her dad likened her to him, but at this moment, that likeness hurt. It hurt that she was the cause of his pain. Losing a best friend couldn’t be easy. Just thinking of losing Jace made Lucy want to hyperventilate.
But Mary chose that moment to clarify any misunderstanding she may be having. “Your dad’s right, Lucy. You need to start thinking about your future.” Then she added in the expected tangent, “We don’t think Jace is right for you, dear. You have nothing in common and you both are so young. I just want you to go into this, if you must, with your eyes open. Don’t just jump in because you’ve known Jace all your life. Jace as a friend will be very different from Jace as a boyfriend.” Mum paused here to contemplate what she just said then added, “You know what I mean, dear.”
Lucy just nodded her head, wanting nothing more than for this disturbing conversation to end. Jace and Lucy were not suitable. Tell her something she didn’t already know. She’d known it for years, watching him lead on helpless and willing girls only to drop them like hot bricks afterwards. He was not perfect, her Jace. But he was perfect with her. He was perfect for her.
He has been so her whole life; was she wrong in expecting that to continue? But Lucy could not even imagine life without Jace by her side. But was that the reason why she was seeing more into this than was there? Was that the reason Jace clung to her too? Have they been reading more in their friendship and the natural attractions between man and woman? Lucy didn’t know. But she had an unwanted feeling that Richard was the key to helping her understand.
There was no denying that Lucy felt so strongly for Jace. But there was no denying she had reactions to Richard’s advances either. One emotion was real and the other was not. It was clear that one was the key to understanding the other.
Lucy restrained the shiver that ran down her spine over recalling what happened earlier today, and knowing that he would be back tonight wasn’t helping matters either. She was suddenly eager to get home. Was he there in her room, on her bed waiting, already?
The return was positively snail-paced slow.
Lucy was almost beside herself with impatience. Eager to see Jace again. But would he be there? As soon as the house emerged in sight, Lucy made some vague excuse to her parents and shot forward at a running pace. She rushed up the stairs in haste. But when she got through the empty room and checked out the empty bathroom, Lucy was utterly deflated. She realised then that he might not be coming.
Her shoulders slumped as her excitement dissipated; Lucy went through the motions of getting ready for bed like a wound-up clock. She lay wide awake and tucked up in bed, unable to sleep. She checked her phone several times and had to refrain herself from calling him.
Her fingers caressed the keys to a text, but finding a jumble of confusion in her brain, she was unable to settle on a single text to convey her thoughts. Instead a barrage of messages echoed beneath her fluttering fingers. All confused, but raw in conveying her need for him.
It was well past midnight when the door to her room creaked open and the moonlight lit across his silhouette, unmistakably identifying her late-night visitor. Lucy almost wept in her relief. She shot up in bed but refrained from running right out to him. Instead, she moved back to make a place for him.
Lucy stared as Jace silently went through the motions of preparing for bed. She watched as he shrugged out of his t-shirt then unbuckled his pants. The sound of his zipper being drawn down was loud to her sensitized ears. Her heart thudded in her chest. Then, clad in nothing but his briefs, he came over to the bed and snapped her bedside lamp on. Lucy shut her eyes against the sudden glare. But then felt something hard land on her lap. His phone blinked up at her, her frantic messages scrawled across the screen.
“I missed you too,” he growled low at her, before reaching to remove both their phones and place them aside. He sank onto the bed and his arms went around her, and Lucy
melted against him in a half-sob she couldn’t hide.
The mattress creaked as his weight fell onto it and Lucy was gathered close.
Their heavy breathing broke the silence. Their hot breath fanning over each other in their unwillingness to move more than an inch apart. They held on tightly to each other, not knowing how to be together and yet not able to stay apart. Then he leaned over, ignoring her aching lips as he brushed his lips across her forehead. The light snapped off and finally, Lucy could sleep. Fatigue, held at bay until now, swamped over and took her under even as she nestled closer still in his arms and wound her own tight embrace about him.
“Bloody hell! Where are my rollers?”
Waking up to Emily hollering was not a good start to any day. Lucy blinked open an eye at her and then it dawned on Lucy that Em was here in her room. In a panicked reaction, Lucy all but flew out of bed, trying to see if Jace was still there, but he wasn’t. There was no indication that he had been here at all. Had it all been a dream? A weird déjà vu type of dream?
“I assure you, Emily, I have not seen your rollers. You would do better asking Cat,” Lucy managed to get out somewhat calmly after that. Running a shaking hand through hair that was shorn too short for the likes of rollers. Lucy shook her head in mild exasperation, taking a deep breath to calm the rapid beat of her heart.
“Well they’re not where I last left them. Cat hasn’t a clue. My party is tonight. I need my rollers now,” Emily whined, “if the curls are to set by then,” the grating sound of Emily’s whingeing faded in and out as she went in and out of Lucy’s closet, then in and out of her bathroom, searching.
Lucy groaned and crawled back into bed, pulling the pillows over her head. A quick glance at the clock told her it was past ten. She needed to be up if for nothing else then to call Jace and just talk to him. Her hand went straight for her phone.