Preston Brothers: Lucas Part 7

Without so much as a flinch, I say, already making my way to the right area, "So we need to find all the right colored threads, right?"

She nods.

Good. I can do that. It's time-consuming and mind-numbing and it'll take my thoughts away from her, her bed, her naked in her bed.

She told her dad she'd dated. Oh, hey random thought I tried to forget about. Nice of you to sneak up on me like that.

I place my hand between us, palm up. "List me."

We spend two and a half hours in the store without so much as a single complaint from me. Maybe because I still feel guilty about last night, or maybe because she's smiling and happy and no longer sad, because I wasn't lying when I said I didn't like seeing her sad. Or... maybe because I can't stop thinking about her "dating" other guys. What does that even mean? She goes on dates, then they drop her off at home and she goes to her room and knits me gloves? Or does she go on a date, sneak the guy back to her room through the bas.e.m.e.nt door and have wild monkey s.e.x with them in the same bed I was just fantasizing about? Wait! Am I sleeping in another guy's sweat and leftover s.e.x juice when I get into her bed at night? What the f.u.c.k, Lane?!

"Are you okay?" she asks, sneaking up behind me. Sneaky Lane. I don't like Sneaky Lane. Sneaky Lane sneaks guys into her room and does sneaky things to them. "You look lost."

I am lost, Lane-drowning in visions of you with faceless guys having over-the-top s.e.x in positions I've only ever seen on the Internet. Obviously, I don't say that to her. That would make me insane. "I'm fine," I tell her. "Did you see anything else you like?"

She nods, her eyes bright. "And now that I'm not saving for college, I can buy all the things!"

I pout, and her hands go to my chest again. I should pout more often.

"We should finish up here and find somewhere to feed you. You look hungry."

I exhale loudly and place a hand on her waist, the other holding the basket filled with different colored threads. "I am hungry," I tell her, just not for food. I tighten my grip so I can pull her closer to me. Her arms are at her sides now, her t.i.ts pressed against my chest. She got them right after she turned fourteen. Her t.i.ts, not her arms. I remember because it was the summer I spent the most time in the lake. I was too embarra.s.sed to show exactly how my body reacted to her body. Stupid uncontrollable body and stupid uncontrollable hormones.

"Where's the list?" she says, her voice hoa.r.s.e. She clears her throat, repeats the question. Her cheeks are red. She's blus.h.i.+ng. Fidgeting. Her eyes won't meet mine. Her body's reacting to my body. To the closeness. So... maybe not-so-stupid uncontrollable bodies. I like that she's blus.h.i.+ng. That she hasn't pulled away. That she's bending over, giving me a clearer view of her t.i.ts as she picks up the list from the basket. She turns to face the wall of threads but doesn't move too far, her back's to my chest, my hand on her waist, the top of her head an inch below my chin. Coconuts, lime, and Laney. "What number are you up to?" she asks.

One, I almost say. It's not the answer she's looking for, but it's the only number in my head. I have one year left with Laney. One year to make her see me the way I see her.

One.

I'm holding her hand.

I don't know how it happened, when it happened, but we're crossing the road toward a diner and we're holding hands, and not in the way I hold Lachlan's hand when we cross the road, but in the way I hold my girlfriend's hand. Because I have one of those... a girlfriend, not a hand. Grace has been my girlfriend for about six months, and she's the only girl I've ever stuck with through an entire summer. Grace is shorter than Lane, blonde, beautiful. She runs track, like me, and knows the demands and the self-control it takes to be where we are. She's also easy-not s.e.xually, but that, too, I guess-but she's fun and we get along, which makes me an a.s.shole for enjoying holding another girl's hand more than hers because like I said, she's my girlfriend.

"I'm still so full from breakfast," my non-girlfriend, hand-holding partner says. "I'm probably just going to get a salad."

I laugh out loud. "You? A salad? You'll be going straight to the back of the menu-dessert-and you'll probably order two different ones."

"Or not!" Laney exclaims, nose in the air. "I'm trying to watch my figure." She pats her stomach.

"Shut up. You have an amazing figure. Especially considering you do absolutely nothing to maintain it."

She stops in the middle of the road, causing an oncoming car to brake and swerve slightly. "You think I have an amazing figure?" she asks.

Girl's blind. Naive. And also completely unaware of her surroundings.

I pull on her hand and drag her off the road and onto the safety of the sidewalk while I wave an apology at the driver who's cursing at us. "You do. But I'd prefer it if you were alive." I open the diner door for her and she stops just inside, scanning the place for what I know is a corner booth, a table made for 4-6 instead of just the two of us because I know what she'll do the minute we sit down. She'll dump the contents of the paper bag I'm holding and mark off all the items on the list to make sure we got everything she wanted. And she'll do it alone because she doesn't trust me, all because of that one time I read her handwritten 5 as an 8 and got the wrong colored threads and the store was closed the following day, a Sunday, and she couldn't finish her project on the weekend and swear, she acted as though I set her hair on fire.

We get a corner booth. She orders two desserts. I order a steak sandwich and loaded fries, and she hands me her phone as soon as the waitress leaves because she knows I need to work out how many calories I'm about to devour to calculate how many miles I need to run to burn it off. I type in her PIN number, the same code she uses for everything, a code I memorized from her bike lock when we were twelve. Then I glance up at her. She's too busy, focused on marking the items off the list, which gives me a little time to go through her phone and look for any interaction with guys she may have dated/had monkey s.e.x with.

I go through her text messages first. An invasion of privacy? Maybe. A way to placate my insanity? Definitely.

The first three sets of messages are from who I'd expect. Me, her dad, her mom.

Then there are a bunch with numbers but no names linked to those numbers. Are we still on for tonight? one reads, dated last Sat.u.r.day. What the f.u.c.k?

"Having trouble?" she asks.

I drop the phone, caught red-handed, even though she would've never known if it wasn't for my guilt-ridden overreaction. Her eyes narrow, her gaze dropping to the phone now on the table, a clear view of the message I'd just read.

She smiles.

That's good. At least she hasn't picked up the fork and threatened to stab me in the eyes. "Was that an accident, or are you curious about something and don't want to ask?" she says.

I push the phone aside. Stupid thing gave me away. "What do you mean?" I ask, feigning... I don't even know.

"You seemed to have a reaction to me telling my dad that I'd dated. I'm surprised you haven't brought it up yet." She says this so casually, like she's asking me about how many calories might be in the brownie she just ordered and not the copious amounts of s.e.x she's having in our bed. Okay, it's not ours, but it may as well be. Now she's ticking off items on the list.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

My d.a.m.n jaw is ticking with the visions blowing up my brain. Stop having s.e.x in our bed! I clear my throat and lean back in my seat, one arm on the table, the other balled at my side. "How many guys have you dated, anyway?" Good question. Good start.

She shrugs. Casual Laney is as unpleasant as Sneaky Laney. "A few."

"A few?" I ask, leaning forward. "A few like, between three and five, or a few as in... there's a number but you've lost count?"

She smiles again.

She ticks. Again.

I wait.

She looks up at me. "Why does it matter?"

"Why keep it a secret?"

"You've never asked before."

I sigh. "Do I know any of them?"

"Again," she says, her smile spreading. "Why does it matter?"

"I do know them, don't I? Am I friends with any of them?"

Her coffee arrives the same time my water does. She waits until I take a sip before saying, "Dumb Name and I went out a few times."

I spit out my drink. "What?"

She's laughing, wiping at the list now splattered with my post-mouth water. Luckily, I missed her recently-purchased items. "We didn't want to tell you in case you were all excited about the prospect of your two best friends dating. Needless to say, it didn't work out."

"You're serious right now?" Why is my chest tight? Why is my fist tighter? I'm going to punch something. Not here. Not now. But I will. After I drop Laney off. Yeah. I'm going to drive to Dumb Name's house and punch him right in his dumb face.

Laney shrugs. "It was toward the end of freshman year. He came up to me after school all nervous and he said he always thought I was beautiful but I was always your girl, you know? But then you dated a bunch of girls that year so he figured it was just in his head-you and me-so he asked me out, and I don't know... for a moment, he made me feel beautiful, so I said yes and we went out a couple of times. He was my first kiss."

I can't speak, too busy stewing, replaying her words over and over.

She goes back to her list. Tick tick tick.

Then our food comes and we eat and she talks and I barely listen.

She pays for our food, makes another joke about not needing money for college anymore, and as she packs her stuff back into the paper bag, a girl approaches, around the same age as us. "Hi," she says, smiling brightly between the two of us. She kind of looks like Grace, the forgotten girlfriend, the girlfriend whose hands don't feel anywhere near as good as Laney's. Only the girl in front of us has brown hair, wider hips, bigger b.r.e.a.s.t.s than Grace. "Are you guys leaving?" she asks, reaching into her pocket.

Lane smiles.

I nod.

"Oh," says the unnamed girl. She reveals a piece of paper from her pocket and slides it across the table toward me. It has her name, Kate, and her phone number. She's grinning when I look back up at her, but I don't look at her long. Instead, I'm drawn to Lane, to her reaction. She's focused on packing up her things. Too focused. Like she's avoiding the situation completely.

"Um..." I look up at Kate, at her waiting expression. "I have a girlfriend."

"Oh," she says again, then focuses on Lane. "I'm sorry, I thought-" She covers her face, as if embarra.s.sed. She's not, though. Any girl who has the confidence to approach a guy who's shown absolutely zero signs of noticing her can't possibly be embarra.s.sed about getting turned down. "I thought she was your sister."

Lane finds her voice for the first time since Kate approached and uses it to say, "Oh, I'm not his girlfriend. Definitely more like his sister. It's cool."

You know that phrase... sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?

It's bulls.h.i.+t.

Words hurt.

Sticks and stones may break bones, but words dig and dig and dig deep into your heart until the hurt resonates, and your heart fails to remember the reason it beats in the first place. For a moment, almost for an entire day, Laney was that reason. Until those words: Definitely more like his sister.

I drive home in silence.

She sits in the pa.s.senger's seat. In silence.

I drop her off at her house. Still silent.

Then I drive to Dumb Name's house so I can punch him.

I don't.

I'm not really a punchy kind of guy, no matter how badly I want to be. Instead, I look him in the eye and I ask, "Why her?"

He says, knowing exactly what I'm talking about, "What does it matter? I wasn't the one for her. And besides, you're two years late. That's two years too long. What the f.u.c.k are you waiting for, Luke?"

Chapter Seven.

LOIS.

All blood drains from Dad's face.

He looks shocked.

Angry.

Furious.

We sit at the kitchen table while his new girlfriend, Misty, sits in the living room, a gla.s.s of wine in her hand. It's the first time I've met her and I wish I could've left a better first impression, but there's not a lot you can do when you've spent the last hour alone in your room, an endless stream of tears running down your face, leaking into a pillow, a pillow that smells like the boy that's caused your tears. I heard them come in, their voices loud, their laughter louder. Then Dad called my name, and I answered that I was here, so he asked for me to meet his Misty. He actually said, "Come meet my Misty." I loved that he called her his. She would love that he called her his. I loved that he sounded so happy. So, so happy. But I also knew that I had to tell him about Mom, and I knew I would be the reason why his happiness was short-lived, so I didn't bother wiping my tears, didn't bother hiding that I was going through some kind of emotional breakdown. I wanted the news to come from me, and it had to be soon because I didn't want to give Mom that victory. We've given her enough.

"I'm so sorry, Lois," Dad says, his voice breaking. "I should've been more diligent. I just..."

"You can't blame yourself for this, Dad."

"We saved for so long. You've worked so hard the past two summers for this."

"It is what it is. There are other colleges, financial aid. I can always go to community college or whatever."

"But UNC's your dream."

Because I wanted to be close to him. Because I didn't want to leave him alone. But in the past year, he's started dating again and he's on his feet and his social life has taken off and he doesn't need me around. "It is what it is," I repeat and come to a stand. "Go be with your girlfriend, Dad. Enjoy each other's company. You deserve it." I smile, but it's forced.

"Lois," he says. "How was your day with Luke?"

I shrug. "It was the same as always."

"You seem to be taking this college news pretty well. Did he say or do something to make you feel better about it all?"

I nod. "Yeah. He did." He made me realize that no matter where we were, how far away from home we were, things wouldn't change. So what if we had another four years together? It was only four years. After that, he'd go off and do his own thing, and I'd do mine, whatever that might be, and nothing would change. Three years ago, I had the same thought. We had four years of high school together. Maybe then he'd look at me differently. He'd look at me the way he looked at any one of his past girlfriends. Or the way he looked at the girl at the diner today. He'd see the wideness of my hips, the largeness of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He'd blush when I'd smile at him the way he did with her.

But he teased me all day. His hands, his words, his everything. He liked the attention I gave him, the way I'd blush when he jokingly flirted with me.

Because that's how we worked, Luke and me.