The Lyons Next Door (A Lyons' Heart Book 1)

by Inda Herwood

  “I prefer talking on the phone to texting,” I admit, knowing it isn’t exactly a popular thing among people our age today.

  “Me too,” he says, cracking his eyes open a centimeter for me to see. “Though if you told me your number now, I’d probably forget it.”

  “I’ll write it down for you,” I say with a laugh, knowing it’s the truth. He looks two seconds away from falling into a nice long coma.

  “Blaire? Are you up there?” I distantly hear Leigha call my name, letting me know the great debate is over.

  “I’ll be down in a minute!” I yell back, saying, “Sorry,” to Beckham when I see him wince.

  “What are you guys doing anyway?” he asks, voice quiet, tired.

  “We’re playing Twister. Catcher bet his room for Leigha’s bike.” Just another thing rich people do that I can’t relate to.

  He smirks, or at least tries to. “That sounds like my family. I wish I could join in.”

  “Really? I didn’t pin you as the Twister type,” I say, standing up from his desk chair, which was comfier than it looked.

  “I’m very flexible, like a gymnast but manlier,” he says, face totally serious.

  I chuckle, coming to stand near his bed. Looking down at him under all those covers, I imagine he must be scorching with that fever. Not able to resist anymore, I use my fingers to push away the hair covering his face, making it visible again. He really is painfully beautiful, like a moody Greek statue.

  “I’d like to see that,” I mutter, quieter than I intended. I was right. His skin is burning up.

  He moves his head to look up at me, my hand falling to the side in the process. He seems taken aback but comforted by the gesture. Or at least I hope that’s what that look says. Perhaps he really thinks I’m just a weirdo that goes around touching guy’s faces when they’re sick. It’s kind of hard to tell when his eyes look so unfocused.

  “Maybe I can bring by some soup for you tomorrow. My mom makes a mean chicken noodle. It practically heals cancer,” I tell him with an awkward smile, moving farther away from him so I’m not tempted to touch his face again. I have no idea why I did it the first time, let alone why I have the urge to do it a second.

  I lie and tell myself that he looks sad that I moved away. But before long, the expression is scrubbed from his face, and he’s saying, “Cancer, huh? I don’t think I’m there yet.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t ever get there, either.” Walking towards his door, I’m almost sad to leave his room. It’s cozy for being such a large space. Obviously lived in and loved; a nice place to be.

  “Blaire?” I hear him say, barely audible over the sound of the orchestra playing on one of his awesome record players. He has a whole collection of them sitting near his window, all looking vintage and very expensive.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you do something for me?”

  Uh, “Sure.”

  Very seriously, he says, “Kick my family’s butt at Twister for me.”

  With a smile, I tell him, “I’ll try my best.”

  Beckham

  “You need to take this. I got it at the pharmacy, which means there aren’t any herbs in it,” Leigha says with a dramatic eye roll, sitting on the edge of my bed with a bottle of purple liquid in her hands. Her pinched face reminds me of a ticked off garden gnome.

  “No, you’re lying. I can smell the lavender coming from it.” I’m sick, not senile. “Besides,” I tell her, “Blaire is bringing me soup tomorrow. I’ll just wait till then.” Cough.

  My cousin gives me a strange look. “Soup? What does soup have to do with you getting over a cold?”

  “She said it cures cancer,” I mumble, the ability to keep my eyes open growing harder and harder.

  “Oh, jeez.” She grumbles, telling me, “I doubt Blaire came into your room and told you she’s going to make you soup. She just came up here to go to the bathroom. You’re hallucinating again.” Pouring out the traitorous purple liquid into a plastic measuring cup, she determines its accuracy by closing one eye in concentration.

  “When did I hallucinate the first time?”

  “An hour ago. You called Catcher in here because you swore a giant white dragon was breathing fire at you from the corner.” She motions in the direction of my book stacks, shaking her head.

  “So…she didn’t come in here?” It seemed so real, though. I remember talking about Harry Potter, and immune systems, and…and she touched my face. I can still remember the coolness of her fingers falling against my cheek. How do you imagine something like that so vividly?

  “I don’t think so. Here, drink up.” She hands the cup of hippy medicine to me. I take it and shove it down begrudgingly, giving her the darkest look I’m capable of with a hundred and two fever.

  “Ugh,” I groan, shutting my eyes, as if that will take the horrible taste out of my mouth.

  “Stop being such a baby. It’s not that bad.” Putting the cap back on the medicine, she turns to look at me, asking with a twist of her brows, “Why would you think Blaire had visited you? I thought you still didn’t like her.”

  I let my head fall back into the pillows, admiring their softness while I say, sounding drowsy to my own ears, “She’s not that bad.”

  I think I hear her snicker. “I guess that’s a step in the right direction. I don’t think she hates you as much anymore, either.”

  This gets my slowly failing attention, making me ask, “Why do you say that?”

  I see her outline shrug behind my wall of blankets. “When I told her you were sick, she seemed concerned. The whole time we were playing Twister, she kept looking towards the stairs.”

  The idea that she worried about me has me smiling, which Leigha easily notices.

  “I saw that,” she says, poking me in the ribs. “What’s that smile for?”

  “Nothing,” I lie, starting to feel the medicine come into effect. That, or my mattress is levitating off the floor again.

  “No, it’s not. I want to know.” Another light poke.

  “I like that she’s worried,” I mutter, feeling myself grow lighter. “It makes me feel a little better about how I worry about her.”

  Uh-oh. She looks really interested now. Somehow I know that’s not a good sign.

  “Why would you worry about her?” She moves closer to the bed, leaning in to hear my answer.

  The world is starting to grow dim around the edges now, a hazy black ring cutting out my vision, Leigha included. “Because I don’t want her to hate me anymore. I worry about hurting her feelings again. Wait, when did we get a giraffe?” I ask, and then everything goes dark.

  CHAPTER 10

  Blaire

  “Hey,” I greet Leigha when she calls the next morning, sitting at the island chopping carrots while my mom makes a batch of her famous chicken noodle soup. After I won the round of Twister, we exchanged numbers and then I left.

  “What’s up?” she asks as I tuck the phone under my chin, trying not to chop my finger off while I multitask.

  “Not much. Just helping my mom in the kitchen.”

  Mom looks over her shoulder at me from the stove, grinning like a fool.

  “Ooh, what is she making?”

  “Chicken noodle soup. I mentioned to her that Beckham was sick, and she insisted we make it for him.”

  There’s a long pause before she says, “Wait, did you mention this to Beckham?”

  I bite my lip, having forgotten that I never mentioned to her yesterday that I visited her cousin after using the restroom. It just didn’t seem important at the time. But now, I can see it probably sounds a little suspicious to her that I’m doing this for him, especially since our truce is being held together by a book and a smile.

  “Uh, yeah. I popped in to see how he was doing and mentioned I’d bring him soup. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, man.” I hear what sounds like the slap of her palm against her forehead. “We all told him he hallucinated it.”

  “Hallucinated wha
t?” Once I’m done with the carrots, Mom tosses some celery onto my board. She smirks when I sigh.

  “I tried to give him medicine last night, but he said he didn’t want it because he was waiting for your miracle soup. We thought it was the fever talking. I can’t believe you actually went in there.”

  “I’m sorry, was I not supposed to?”

  “No, it’s just he’s pretty private about his room when it comes to outsiders. He doesn’t even like his friends in there for fear they’ll break one of his precious record players.”

  “Well, he was kind of out of it. It’s not like he would have been able to throw me out.”

  “I guess so.” There’s something in her voice that makes me thinks there’s more, but before I can ask about it, she’s saying, “Would you possibly mind coming over to check on him today? I’m going with Aunt Elise and Theo into the city for some shopping, and Catcher is hanging at a friend’s house all day while Uncle Edwin is at the store. I was just hoping you’d go over and make sure he’s still breathing around one o’clock. If that’s too much to ask, I get it. I’ll just –”

  “It’s fine,” I tell her, amazed she was able to get all of that out in one breath. “I was going to drop the soup off anyway. I can do it.”

  “Great,” she says, sounding relieved. “I really appreciate it. He seems to be a little better today, so hopefully he won’t be too cranky for you.”

  “I won’t hold my breath,” I say, making her laugh.

  We hang up, and I go back to full-time chopping, Mom giving me looks every so often, silently begging me to tell her what Leigha and I were talking about.

  Groaning, I give in. “They’re all going out for the day, so Leigha asked if I could stop by later and make sure Beckham is okay.”

  She nods, still smiling enough to make me uneasy. “It’s nice to see such a close-knit family. We should invite them over for a barbecue sometime. I know your father is dying to break out that grill of his.” Her wooden spoon aims out the window and onto the back patio where her new outdoor furniture sits along with Dad’s shiny grill. “It needs to be broken in with a party, don’t you think?”

  “Hello, girls.” Nana walks in the kitchen just then, smiling at the two of us as she takes the seat next to me. Without asking, she grabs the extra cutting board to my right, finding a knife and an extra stalk of my celery. Just like that, she begins dicing, looking down when she asks, “What are we talking about?”

  “I was telling Blaire that I think we should invite the Lyons over for a barbecue,” Mom says, taking my board of cut veggies and throwing them in her large pot.

  “That sounds like a nice idea. I’d like to meet this boy that has our girl all hot and bothered.” I can see Nana smirk out of the corner of my eye, the urge to knock her off her stool a strong one.

  “I am not hot and bothered. We’re barely friends, let alone whatever it is you think we are.”

  “Mm-hmm. And who is this soup for again?” Mom asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

  Okay, that’s it. “What do you want me to admit?” I ask the two of them, because obviously my protests are doing nothing here.

  “Just say you think he’s cute. Go on, it won’t kill you,” Nana says.

  “He’s attractive,” I mutter, and hating myself for it. “Feel better now?”

  “A little.”

  I drop my shoulders in defeat.

  “Honey, we’re just messing with you. I think it’s nice you’re starting out as friends. It’s the basis to all lasting relationships,” Mom tells me, imparting her wisdom, though it’s futile.

  “Like I said, we’re barely friends. And I know for a fact he doesn’t see me like that.” Even as I say it, I remember the look he gave me when I was wearing Leigha’s suit. He wasn’t looking at me like a frumpy little girl then.

  I shake my head of the thought.

  It’s not like I even like him. Yes, he’s hot. Too hot for his own good, if you ask me. But he has a dark side that I don’t really want to touch, and a personality that begs to irritate the hell out of my own. It’d be like trying to mix oil and water. Not possible.

  “I still want to meet him,” Nana says, handing her board over to Mom when she asks for it. “We need to make sure he’s good enough for you before you get in too deep. He could be a drug addict for all we know.”

  For heaven’s sake. “A drug addict? Really?”

  “Well he certainly has the money to be one. And you know how these rich people are. They think the law doesn’t apply to them.” She raises her nose, forgetting that we’re a part of that category now.

  “I’ll remember that the next time you try to get out of a speeding ticket by handing the officer a fifty,” I tell her, getting a laugh out of Mom with it.

  ***

  For the third time, my hand knocks on the great door of the Lyons residence. After three hits of my knuckles, I look behind me at the empty driveway. Well, almost empty. A white Porsche Caymen sits to the right of the circular drive, gleaming with the sheen of rain falling on it, as well as Leigha’s matte black motorcycle that looks like the kind they race with on TV.

  A few minutes later I hear footsteps, making me turn back around to face the door, and then it’s opening, revealing a very tall, sleepy-eyed, and shirtless Beckham standing there, leaning on the doorframe for support. My hands slip for a hundredth of a second on the large soup pot Mom sent me over with, my eyes shooting towards his beautifully tan skin.

  Wearing low-slung pajama pants with little constellations on them, the rest of Beckham is exposed, showing off his amazing chest and tight stomach, making my own flip. His gorgeously smooth skin is everywhere except for a few spots where I see similar scars to the ones on his face. But other than that, he’s practically flawless, and now more than ever, I want a pencil in one hand and a thing of paper in the other.

  Artist’s eye strikes again.

  “Blaire?” I hear him say over the rain, snapping me back to attention.

  “Yeah?” I say, my tongue feeling numb in my mouth.

  “Isn’t that heavy?” He nods at the soup pot.

  “Uh, yeah.” Right. I’m here for soup, not to gawk. “Mind if I bring it in?”

  His answer is to step out of the doorway for me. I’m careful not to touch him as I pass by, carrying the soup into the massive kitchen and placing it down on the counter, my arms sighing in relief.

  Turning around, I find him standing close. Real close. Like, if I bob my head even half an inch, it’s going to sink into his chest, close.

  He takes a deep breath, and for a stunned moment I think he’s smelling me. But then he asks, “Is that the miracle soup?”

  I move to the side, giving me some much-needed space from all of, well, him. “Yep, that’s the miracle soup.” I take the lid off the top, letting him get a better whiff. He sighs when it hits him.

  “Wow, that smells amazing. And I’m only at about thirty percent sniffing capacity.”

  I laugh the longer he stays standing over the open pot, taking deep inhales. “Here, I’ll put it on the stove. Maybe the steam will open your passages before you eat it.” Moving the pot over to the professional-looking stove, I turn on the burner, knowing it’ll take a little while before it heats all the way through. My mom made a big batch.

  “My cousin mentioned she hired a babysitter, but she didn’t say who. I’m sorry you had to be the unlucky number she called,” he says, taking a seat at the counter, his head slumping onto his crossed arms. And very nice arms they are. Flexed like that, they show off how toned he is.

  “I don’t mind. And I was bringing the soup over anyway. Speaking of which, how do you feel?” Bending over the island, I rest the back of my hand against his forehead, feeling him for a fever. It’s only too late I realize how intimate a gesture it is – how familiar. And familiarity is something we really don’t have with one another. Yesterday I didn’t fear his reaction to my touching him as much because he was pretty out of it with fever. But today,
those eyes don’t miss a thing.

  Pulling my hand away, and feeling more awkward than I can ever recall, I say, “Your fever doesn’t feel as strong, that’s good.”

  He smiles, small at first, but then it steadily grows, catching me off guard. “You know they make thermometers for that sort of thing.”

  I sigh, turning back to check on the soup. It’s more of a tactic to avoid his gaze than anything. “I know. It’s just kind of instinct for me. It’s what my mother and grandmother always did when I was sick as a kid.”

  I hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I thought you told me you have a great immune system?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t say I’ve never gotten sick. I just don’t get it as often as others do.” Looking around, I ask, “Do you know where you keep the bowls and silverware?”

  He points to their hiding places, and I make him a bowl of soup. When I slide it across the counter to him, he takes another deep breath before dipping in his spoon and taking a bite. A few seconds later, he sighs. “That’s so good.”

  “I know, right?”

  He takes another spoonful, and then another, eventually asking, “What makes it so good?”

  Leaning my forearms on the counter, I tell him, “She makes the noodles by scratch, as well as the broth. It stews for hours. But if you ask her, she says it’s the love that goes into it.” I smile, remembering my mother telling me the secret when I was little, and I had asked the same question.

  “Whatever it is, it’s great. Tell your mom I say thanks.” Before long, the bowl is empty, and his look of sadness has me chuckling at him.

  “So, am I supposed to make sure you take your medicine? Leigha didn’t say.”

  He shakes his head, pushing the bowl away. I, in turn, put it in the sink with the other dishes. “No, she made sure I got it before they left.”

  I smile at his grimace. “She just wants to make sure you get better.”

  “I know.” He draws out the words, seeming conflicted. “I guess I should appreciate her taking care of me. And my mom. And Catcher and Theo on occasion, too. Which reminds me.” Beckham removes himself from the stool and walks over to the living room, beckoning me to follow. Sitting there on the coffee table is my sketchbook. He picks it up and hands it to me. I hold it to my chest like a long-lost child, thankful to have it back. “Theo left you a few pictures in it,” he says, nodding to the book.