“It really is,” I answered her, turning to Lucas and angling his chin down to kiss him. I winked as I went up on my tiptoes. He hadn’t been expecting it, but after a heartbeat, he caught on. Then, a heartbeat after my lips brushed his, he took over the kiss.
Lucas’ strong, long fingered hands gripped my waist tighter, pulling me flush against him, hip to hip and chest to chest. He kissed me urgently, not going for chaste like our first kiss. Not at all. His tongue sought mine passionately, exploring and claiming every inch of my mouth. He stole my breath, leaving me panting and no longer remotely cold by the time we pulled apart. Instead, my whole body felt warm and feather light. I stared at him in wonder.
Until I turned to see Victoria, that is. All the kinetic energy pinging around in me drained when I got a load of her hateful expression. If looks could kill, hers would be a war crime.
“Well, I need to go get ready for tonight,” she said into the pregnant, hostile silence that had descended. I could tell that she was more than ready to leave. “Jason and I will see you at the show at the Lounge in a few weeks, right?”
Lucas went still but he was still staring down at me. “Yes, I guess so.” The fact that she was seeing someone was apparently was a surprise to him. He recovered a second later, but continued to stare at me, rather than her. “That’ll be fun. See you there.” He sounded totally unconcerned.
Victoria traipsed off, presumably to get ready for her gig. Lucas and I stared at one another. There were so many things going on in my head that I had to physically shake it clear. The fact that he was looking at me so intently wasn’t helping.
“I think we need to talk,” I told him.
13
Lucas
“Are you mad at me?” I asked Rae as we walked back to the car. She’d said that she thought we needed to talk, but instead of talking, she was totally silent. If my experience with Victoria was any indication, silence meant she was fucking furious. The longer the silence went on for, the bigger the eventual explosion would be. Given the sea change that had taken place in my brain at the pool, I was now doubly terrified that Rae would tell me to fuck off forever.
Rae looked over at me in apparent surprise. “Mad? No. I’m just organizing my thoughts.”
I didn’t trust that response at all. I steeled myself for an outburst, but it never came. By the time we were pulling into the garage at my condo, I was wondering if my life was in danger.
Part of me welcomed death—Victoria was seeing someone. Not just any someone either. I assumed her Jason was Jason Kane, lead singer and guitarist of Axial Tilt. Kane was almost obscenely famous. His music was everywhere, and up until this moment, I’d quite enjoyed it. I made a mental note to delete him off every playlist as soon as possible.
The recent success of Edelweiss was probably due in no small part to a recent collaboration between the two groups that had brought Kane and Victoria together. The fact that Victoria was dating him, a bonafide rock star who liked to perform shirtless and probably had more groupies at his disposal than I had bad code, was an ego blow. To say the least. So much so that I almost laughed at it. Yet, somehow, I was less upset than I’d thought I’d be. Maybe the pain would hit later.
“Ok,” she said as I let the car park itself. “I’m ready to talk now. I really appreciate you waiting.” Rae’s tone of voice was completely normal. “Sometimes people rush me when I’m thinking, and that does make me mad. So, thanks.” She smiled.
I blinked. “No problem?” I hadn’t meant it to be a question, but it came out that way out of concern and disbelief.
Her smile turned thin. “I have four issues I want to talk about. The first is the fact that you didn’t tell me that your Victoria was the lead singer of Edelweiss. She’s famous enough that I would have appreciated a heads up about that.”
After a moment, my head bobbed up and down. “I didn’t realize how popular they’d gotten. Sorry. I wasn’t trying to keep you in the dark about that. Promise.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Ok.”
“Ok?” I didn’t like that my statements were coming out as questions, but I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. I was becoming a parrot.
“Yeah.” She paused. “The second thing is that you knew she might be there. You knew that we might run into her, but you didn’t tell me. Why did you do that?”
This was why I thought she’d be the angriest. I resisted the temptation to swallow nervously.
“I wanted your reactions to be genuine.” My voice sounded confident, but in reality, I was anything but. I sighed. “Honestly? I thought that Victoria and I would be back together by now and that we’d never have to even have this conversation.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “That’s kind of a shitty answer.”
I’m kind of a shitty guy. Why do you think Victoria left me in the first place? The insecure thought pinged through me unexpectedly.
“I’m sorry.” It was true, I was sorry. Actually, I was pretty ashamed. It had been a shitty thing to do, and I’d done it because I was afraid she wouldn’t want to follow through with her end of the deal when actually faced with Victoria. I underestimated her. Immensely.
She was searching my face for something, but I don’t know if she found it. Eventually, she shrugged. “Next time, I’d appreciate a heads up if you plan out any elaborate set ups.”
“I can do that.” I was still stunned she wasn’t yelling at me. Maybe women were only irrational and volatile in relationships? This pleasant, reasonable conversation we were having was a nice surprise.
“Next is the fact that Victoria is seeing someone. It seems you didn’t know that. Are you sure you want to continue with this plan?”
Rae was looking at me like she wasn’t sure if she wanted me to say yes or no. In truth, I hadn’t considered the possibility that Victoria would go and get herself in a relationship with someone else. I’d not factored it into my mental calculus. But it didn’t really matter. I wanted Victoria back. Whether or not she was seeing someone else was really irrelevant.
“I don’t think it changes anything,” I told Rae after a beat. “I want her back.” Thinking about her with Jason Kane made me feel vaguely nauseated. “I wasn’t expecting her to be in a relationship, but it’s new. I’m sure that my plan will still work. For all I know, she started dating Jason Kane just because she was jealous of seeing me with you.”
Actually, the more I thought about it, the surer I was that Victoria had done just that. She’d been friends with the guy for months on social media. But until today, I had no idea they were dating. They might have been keeping their relationship a secret to avoid paparazzi attention, but that wasn’t really either of their styles. Rockstars tend to be exhibitionists in a fairly big way.
Rae blinked in confusion. “Jason Kane?” she repeated. “The Rockstar?”
The man was a household name and a modern rock legend. Despite being roughly the same age as Victoria and me, Jason Kane had more Grammys and number one hits than The Beatles. He was rock and roll royalty.
I winced and nodded. “Yeah.” I shook my head in dismay. “I’m fairly certain that’s the Jason she’s referring to. They’ve been chummy for a while. I didn’t think they were dating though.”
“It must be weird to read about your ex in the tabloids,” Rae remarked.
My smile was bittersweet. “Yeah. There’s nothing quite like watching TMZ to find out who your ex is screwing. It’s not fun.”
Rae shook her head as if to clear it of Jason Kane and Victoria Priestly. “Ok. Well if you’re still committed to the plan, then I guess that brings me to the last thing.” She took a deep breath. “Lastly—and this was the thing I needed to think about for so long—but I think we need to set some physical boundaries.” Her voice had become unexpectedly soft and vulnerable sounding.
My brain was swimming with thoughts I hadn’t figured out how to interpret yet, but that tone worried me. Did she find me repulsive? She kissed me. Had she h
ated it? I hadn’t hated it. Not at all. Not remotely. In fact, I’d do just about anything to do it again.
Something important had happened to me when I gripped Rae’s little waist and kissed her to break Victoria’s heart. Something broke alright, but it didn’t have a thing to do with Victoria. It had to do with me, and with Rae. The lie I’d been telling myself, the one where this was purely about Victoria and that the only reason I was attracted to Rae was that she somewhat resembled Victoria in appearance and temperament was shattered. But I’d deal with that revelation later. I had a more pressing crisis to attend to.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know how. So, I just did my stupid parrot thing again: “Physical boundaries?”
“Yes.”
“You kissed me.” I felt this was a very important detail.
She turned in her seat to face me better. “You’re right. I did. And now I’m not sure that was a good idea.”
I paused for a moment and examined her face for clues. There were none. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” The thought that she hadn’t enjoyed kissing me made me feel somewhat ill. Oddly, it was even worse than learning about Jason Kane. Apparently, my ego was just really fragile these days.
Unexpectedly, she laughed at my words. “Uncomfortable? Did I seem uncomfortable to you?”
I could only reply honestly. “Not really.” Rae had seemed to enjoy our kiss, but maybe she was just a really good actress.
She was smirking at me, but it was short-lived. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. I think I was too comfortable, Lucas. I… I just think we should set some boundaries over what we’re going to do physically. Are you open to that?”
“Sure.” I didn’t understand what I’d done, but I didn’t want her to be unhappy. “I’m open to whatever you need to feel comfortable. If you don’t want to do anything other than hold hands, I’ll figure out a way to make it work.”
She smiled at me, and it was genuine this time. I could tell when her smiles were real when the corners of her eyes crinkled. Most of her smiles at me so far had been fake, but this one was real. I smiled back at her encouragingly.
“Come on,” I told her. “Let’s go inside, get some takeout, and make some rules for our fake relationship.”
“You know,” I told Rae as we drank a couple of beers while we waited for the food to show up, “I really thought you were going to yell at me. I keep waiting for you to start, but you just sit there all normal and calm.”
“Yell at you?” She asked, eyes wide. “Why would I do that?”
She looked a bit offended. Her red eyebrows knit together. I backpedaled.
“I, um, I just thought you were really mad at me about what happened at the pool.”
“Now you’re worried I’m mad at you because you said that,” she guessed.
I hung my head. “Guilty.”
She sighed. “Do you think I’m crazy?” Her breath slipped out in exasperation. “Why do guys always think that redheads are going to be crazy women?” She did something with her hands that conveyed frustration in a universal language. “We’re not crazy! It’s just hair!”
I smiled at her. “I think it’s just an urban legend that redheads are any crazier than anyone else. I’ll try not to jump to conclusions next time.”
She returned my smile with a wry little one of her own. “I’m hypersensitive to people thinking I’m crazy or one of those women who complain constantly and for no reason.” She sighed. “It’s actually sort of a weird thing for me.” Her voice had gotten small and hesitant all of a sudden.
I didn’t know what that meant, and was probably supposed to let it drop, but I couldn’t. My curiosity wouldn’t let me ignore a nugget of Rae trivia. “What kind of a weird thing?”
She shifted in the chair she was settled in and her gaze darted around the room nervously. “You really want to know?”
I nodded. I was finding that I wanted to know everything about Rae. It was an insatiable hunger for information. The more I knew, the more I wanted to know. It couldn’t be normal, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I’d developed some sort of an addiction to her. Protracted loneliness must be taking its toll on me.
Still, I knew I had no right to my curiosity. “Only if you don’t mind sharing,” I added carefully. “I don’t want to be pushy or make you uncomfortable.”
“I don’t mind,” she said with a little self-deprecating laugh. “It’s just a silly story. You know that my dad died when I was a kid. One of the things that he told me, and it’s just one of those things that’s always stuck with me for some reason, was that ‘someone else is happy with less than you have’. I guess I was being a pain in the butt one time, I think I was complaining about wanting some toy. Anyway, he told me that and I’ve always tried not to complain about stuff unless it’s really, really important to me.”
I paused. Rae didn’t want to appear spoiled, so she didn’t complain? It seemed so at odds with her dominant personality. But at the same time, it made perfect sense why she’d internalize a lesson like that from a parent who died. My heart broke for her. I hated the idea that she’d had to go through something so terrible and scary as a young kid as losing a parent. I couldn’t imagine losing a parent now, and I was pushing thirty. I found myself wishing I could protect Rae from the pain.
“I don’t think you’re crazy for complaining when I do something that bothers you,” I told Rae. “Also, I complain all the time.” She smiled thinly.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
I knew it was an inadequate thing to say, but I didn’t want her to think that I considered her unbalanced or irrational. I’d been with an irrational partner before. Victoria, although she had many wonderful qualities, was the queen of becoming irrational, especially when challenged or stressed. Sometimes it was completely exhausting. By comparison, Rae was the most even-keeled, rational woman in the world.
“I’ve never subscribed to the irrational redhead theory,” I told Rae, watching her skeptical face for some sign that I had convinced her.
She rolled her eyes at me instead. “Oh, so you believe the whole ‘gingers are soulless’ thing instead? Because let me tell you, that’s not a whole lot better. I used to get teased about that at school.” Rae’s sense of humor was as dry as the Sahara.
I laughed at her sarcasm. “I’m not even going to touch that one. I’m not even sure if I have a soul. But, trust me, I think you’re great. And it has nothing to do with your hair color.”
“Well alright then,” she answered. I wasn’t sure if she was completely convinced, but she wasn’t frowning anymore. I’d take it.
“Alright,” I repeated.
I ordered pizza, which was another food I would have to cut back on when Victoria and I got back together. Rae, however, had no objections to a nice greasy, cheesy slice of heaven. Instead, she had objections to Texans making pizza on principal. Apparently, they had no right.
While I waited for the pizza to arrive, we traded off taking showers. While Rae took her shower, I did my best not to think of her, naked, less than fifty feet from me. Seeing her in that tiny black bikini had tested the limits of my usually excellent self-control. Especially once she’d gotten all soaking wet and it clung to her just so. Even the shock of seeing Victoria again wasn’t enough to dispel the image of Rae in that bikini, or the feel of her pressed against me, or the taste of her lips...
By the time the pizza arrived, I was so deep in thought about Rae that I nearly jumped out of my skin. Rae wandered out of the bathroom a few moments later.
“I’ve seen the shit that qualifies for pizza outside of New York,” she told skeptically. “If you serve me ranch dressing with my pizza, I’m so out of here. And I do mean permanently.”
If she knew what we put on pizzas in California, she’d have a seizure.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I told her, shaking my head at her. “Trust me, Homeslice is the best pizza in town. It will not disappoint you. And there will be no ranch.” I hoped my confiden
ce in the local pizza hotspot was not misplaced.
When the food arrived, I stood back and watched her evaluate it. Rae cracked the lid of the pizza box with a manicured, careful hand and lifted it just enough to smell. She then removed a piece of pizza and held it in her hand, testing the width and pliability. Finally, she delicately folded the slice and nibbled on the edge.
“Well?” I asked from my position leaning against the fridge.
“It’ll do.” I thought I detected a grudging respect in her tone, but I wasn’t going to risk asking if she liked it.
“Good,” I told her, loading myself up a plate and then grabbing a couple of beers from the fridge. “So, now that we’ve got the food thing worked out, you wanted to talk about boundaries?”
She nodded and accepted the bottle I was offering her. “Yes. I think we need to determine what sorts of public displays of affection are necessary.”
Something about the way Rae was talking made me concerned. I took a risk.
“You regret kissing me.”
She blinked. “I didn’t say that.”
Rae might say she wasn’t a lawyer yet, but I needed a damn court reporter to argue with her.
“Do you regret kissing me?”
“I—” she paused and hung her head. “No.”
I frowned. “But you don’t want it to happen again?”
Her face looked as confused as I felt. She shoved her plate away from her in what I interpreted as frustration. “I don’t know.” I waited while she took a deep breath in and out before continuing. “I think I like you more than I should.”
14
Rae
When in doubt, tell the truth. That was what my mom always told me. I doubt she ever had this situation in mind. Lucas looked at me quizzically and I felt my cheeks burning. He didn’t reply for a long, long time. His silence was my answer.
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