“How long had you been together?”
“Since high school. We were sweethearts and then we grew apart, and then we were these different people, still trying to have the old relationship, but we couldn’t remember why we were even trying anymore. It was . . . it was hard. Really hard.”
“I’m so sorry.” I proceeded to tell her about Royce (otherwise known as King Douchebag) and all of his escapades, some of which I could finally laugh about, and that seemed to bring Lilia out of her sad moment.
“Why were you even with him in the first place?” she asked as we walked back to the office.
I shrugged. “I have no idea anymore. Our parents were friends and he had money. He was one of those people who had everything on paper, but didn’t deliver when it came to real life. He was also an asshole. That was the biggest problem. I ignored a lot of things because I was trying to give him a chance, but he definitely used up all his chances and then some.”
I was glad to be rid of him, because now I had Lucah, and I understood what having the right man in your life was like.
“Well, if you ever want me to set you up . . . “ I said, and waited for the reaction from Lilia.
“Oh, no. That’s okay. I’m good.” Her panicked expression made me burst out laughing.
“I’m only kidding. I know how much I hate being set up, so I never do it to someone else. It’s cruel and unusual punishment.” I had sort of set up Fin and Marisol. Or I had let Sloane set them up and that had worked out. So far.
“Agreed.”
I was still laughing about my ex as I sat down at my desk, but I cut off abruptly when there was a knock at the door.
“Oh, hi Violet.” I hadn’t seen her much lately, and I’d almost forgotten she was working here. It had been nice, actually, but now here she was.
I had to get over my jealousy issues. I really did. A few more sessions with Lilia should nip it in the bud.
“Hi, Rory. How are you?” We exchanged the normal office small talk, but there was obviously something she wanted to speak to me about. Again.
I was getting really tired of her using me as a Lucah Information Source, but maybe that wasn’t what she wanted to talk about. I hoped not. Anything would be better than that.
“Do you need to talk?” I said in a lowered voice.
“Oh, no. I just wanted to see how things were going. We should another lunch again soon.” I tried to see what her ulterior motive could be and came up with nothing. Unless she wanted to take me out to lunch to pump me for information. You know, keep it out of the workplace.
“Yes, we definitely should. Next week? I’ll check my calendar and get back to you.”
“Great.” She smiled and then marched right back to her office. Wait and see. I was going to wait and see . . .
Fuck that. She was up to something. I could smell it. Now I just needed to figure out what it was.
“She’s obviously trying to get him back,” Sloane said that night when I went to check on her. She was tucked on the couch with some more painkillers, a glass of water and a whole stack of fashion magazines, courtesy of Ryder.
“Really? I don’t think it’s that,” I said as I swiped one of the cookies off a plate that Ryder had also left.
“Then what could it be?”
“I don’t know.” Since we didn’t know, we devolved into wild speculation.
“I am fairly certain she is not trying to steal my identity,” I said after Sloane had thrown out this wild plot that was like something out of a spy novel.
“Well, I don’t trust her and I haven’t even met her. I never trust ex-girlfriends. You never know what they’re up to.”
“Or she could just be trying to send out an olive branch and be my friend,” I said, which seemed like the wildest theory of all.
“No, she’s definitely up to something,” Sloane said, throwing her magazine on the floor with a smack. “If being in fashion and working with a bunch of women has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t trust anyone.” That was true, but she was in a cutthroat business. Then again, so was mine.
“I wish I could talk to Lucah about it, but I think that would be a bad idea. We already dealt with the jealousy thing, so I don’t want to go back on that.” Although his way of dealing with my jealousy . . . I could definitely do that again.
“Yeah, that’s a slippery slope. It’s too bad she was his ex, or else you could just ask him to spy on her. Do his magic.” She wiggled her fingers as if she was casting a spell.
“It’s not magic. It’s just a lot of computer stuff and other things that he knows how to do that I don’t.”
“Well, you know what I would do, in this situation.”
No, actually, I didn’t, but it was bound to be something crazy.
“I’d hire my own personal investigator.” Yes, it was crazy.
“No. No way. That’s insane.”
“Why? If she’s really plotting something, then you could take care of it before it ever happened. Who knows? She could be plotting to kill you.” I definitely didn’t think she was out to kill me, but all this talking with Sloane was making me more paranoid. This had been a bad idea.
“Okay, we’re not going to talk about this any more, and we never talked about it in the first place. There. Done. The end.” I picked up one of the magazines and pretended to read it.
“Fine. Whatever you say.” Sloane joined me and picked up the magazine she’d dropped earlier. “But I warned you.”
“Shut up, Sloane.”
I didn’t tell Lucah about Violet wanting to have lunch again. Part of me felt dishonest, like I should have told him, but then part of me thought that informing him of it would make it into a bigger deal than it was. After all, she was just a coworker. Having lunch with a coworker didn’t warrant me making a huge deal.
Except she was his ex.
I went around and around and around.
“What are you pacing for?” Lucah said the next day when he was cooking breakfast. I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it, and was completely humiliated when he called me out on it.
“Nothing. Just . . . nothing.”
Ryder came out of the shower in just a towel and gave both of us a little wave before heading to his room.
This was my first look at his bare chest, and I definitely didn’t believe him about the not working out. He was cut. So much so that the veins in his arms roped across, and it looked like he was flexing, even when he wasn’t.
Black and bold, his tattoos slashed across his skin, which was a little bit darker than Lucah’s, but he still had the trademark freckles that all the Blythe men had.
I wondered if Sloane had seen him shirtless. She probably had, and that was what had led her to go running with him and injure herself.
“Rory? Is something wrong? Is Ryder bothering you again?” Lucah whispered his name. I hated talking about him when he was in the apartment, even if he was in his room with the door shut.
“No, it’s not that.” I couldn’t tell him it was something at work, because then he’d ask, and then I would have to tell him. One of the downsides about working with your significant other. You could never lie about work.
“Then what is it? Come on, talk to me.” He left the stove and came to put his arms around my waist. A tiny voice in my head suggested that I pull him into the bedroom and have my way with him as a way to stop this particular line of questioning, but I ignored the voice. Sex wouldn’t solve this.
“I can’t tell you.” That was the truth.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s about Violet and I don’t want you to think I am being paranoid or jealous.” Love made you tell the truth, even when you didn’t want to.
“What about Violet?” he said as Ryder emerged from his room. Lucah had given him money for clothes, but he seemed to think the more ripped the attire, the better.
“Violet? Are we talking about that girl you dated in high school?” Ryder said, using his towel to scrub
his head and dry his hair. Great. Now I had to discuss this with both of them.
“It’s none of your business, Ryder.” Lucah said, shooting a look his way.
“What did I do? I just asked a question. You don’t have to jump up my ass.” He went and tossed the towel in the hamper then came back and sat on the couch.
I couldn’t continue the conversation with Lucah now, so we both just stood there as the eggs started to burn. Lucah had to take his hands away from me to go rescue them and Ryder shot me a look over the edge of the couch.
“You two can still talk with me here. Just pretend I’m part of the couch.”
“Impossible. The couch isn’t full of holes like those jeans,” Lucah said, using his spatula to point at said jeans.
“Haven’t you heard of using your imagination? Mom and Dad taught you better.” At the mention of their parents, Lucah’s face changed, and a chill entered the room. The lighthearted banter was gone, and I felt like an intruder on a private moment.
“How—” Lucah cleared his throat and turned back to the stove. “How many pieces of bacon do you want, Sunshine?”
I spun around to face him, ignoring Ryder just like he wanted.
“Two is fine.”
The rest of the breakfast was quiet, and Lucah was so preoccupied that he didn’t ask me again about the pacing. We headed off to work, Ryder headed to therapy, and Lucah didn’t say another word until it was time to kiss me goodbye.
I could taste how upset he was on his lips, and in the way he pulled back so quickly. I wanted to grab him and pull his body against mine and kiss away his pain, but I couldn’t. This was something that couldn’t be fixed with a kiss. Not with a thousand kisses.
“I love you,” I said, and he said it back, but the pain was in his words, the pain was between us. So many things seemed to be getting between us lately. But I trusted him, trusted us. Trusted what we had.
I was distracted by thoughts of Lucah the entire day, and it was hard to focus on work when all I wanted was to talk to him and hopefully bring him back from where he’d gone. When I’d first met him, he’d often go to that place, but those times had gotten fewer and farther between. Until Ryder. His brother was a constant reminder of losing his parents.
I didn’t think of that when he moved in, but I bet Lucah did.
“You looked like you needed another cup,” Lilia said that afternoon when she brought me my third cup of coffee. I was trying to cut back on caffeine, because I figured it contributed to some of my anxiety and control freakishness. Cutting back was not going well.
“Thanks.”
“Rough day?”
“Something like that. But we just had a therapy session yesterday, so I’m not going to bug you again. I’ve got this.”
She shrugged one shoulder.
“You can if you need to. I’m here. Just over there. Write me a note and make a paper airplane or something.” Paper airplanes made me think of Lucah.
Lucah, Lucah, Lucah.
“Thanks, I’ll consider it.” She went back to her desk and I sunk further into my distraction.
I couldn’t wait for work to be over, and when I met Lucah by the elevator, I wanted to throw myself on him and cry.
But I didn’t. Instead I greeted him formally and kept the three-foot buffer as we rode down to the ground floor. Some of the sadness from the morning had dissipated, but I could still see it on his face.
“Everything okay?” I asked as we walked toward the T station.
“It is now.” His kiss was bittersweet. I opened my mouth to ask him if he wanted to talk about the comment Ryder had made, but then I couldn’t. I realized that I didn’t know how to talk to Lucah about his parents. I didn’t know what to say. I still had both of my parents, and on some level I almost felt guilty for that. It might be crazy, but it was how I felt.
We were mostly silent on the way back home. Lucah was lost in thought, and I had no idea what to say.
Luckily, Ryder and Sloane were around when we got back, so we could talk to them, and not each other. Ryder seemed to have forgotten about the events of the morning and talked freely of his therapy session, and Sloane talked about how behind she was on her fashion show and how she had to fire some of her interns because they didn’t know how to sew.
“You can fire interns?” Ryder asked.
“I can do whatever I want. It’s my company,” she said with a grin and he smiled back.
Lucah put on a performance, smiling and laughing and participating in the conversation, but it was just that. A performance. I knew him well enough now to know when he was putting it on and when he was being real. I suspected Ryder knew as well, but he didn’t make any comment about it.
We got ready for bed silently and I climbed in next to him and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Talk to me,” I said. I didn’t care what he said as long as he said something.
“What do you want me to say?” He wasn’t angry, just curious.
“You’ve barely talked to me all day.”
“What are you talking about? We just talked when we were having dinner.”
“But you were upset. I can tell. You were using your corporate spy skills to put on a show.” He turned so he could look at my face.
“And what makes you think that?”
“Because I know. I know you. Are you still upset about what Ryder said this morning?”
“No,” he said in a completely unconvincing voice.
“There. Right there. You’re not telling me the truth. I can hear it in your voice.”
He looked at me for a long time before he said anything.
“What do you want me to say?” he repeated.
“I want you to tell me what you’re thinking. I want you to be able to share things with me. Not just the good things, but the bad things. I want to know everything.” I stroked his hair, trying to make him understand.
“I know you do. I’ve opened up a lot, but it’s hard, Rory. I have a difficult time with it. I worked for so long being someone else. It’s hard to remember how to be myself. And when I was someone else, I wasn’t someone with dead parents. I got to be whoever I wanted. It was like . . . putting off dealing with losing them. And now it’s years later and I feel like I haven’t even begun to deal with it. I don’t know how. I don’t know how.”
Just like in the presentation, he was speaking with his hands. His movements were frustrated and angry and hurt. I grabbed them and kissed them because I didn’t know what else to do.
“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what to say, and I feel horrible that you can’t talk to me about this because I don’t know what to say or do to make it better. Every week you come with me to my parents’ house and I feel like I’m rubbing it in your face. Hey, here I am, my parents are alive—” Tears streamed down my face, but he held his hand in front of my mouth to stop me from going on.
“You don’t have to say anything. Just having you here, and knowing that you want to know about it, and you want me to talk is enough. I’m not jealous of you because your parents are alive. How could you ever think that? I wouldn’t want you to go through this hell. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, least of all the woman I love. Oh, Sunshine.” The tears kept coming and wouldn’t stop. Lucah moved his hand from my mouth, but only to keep wiping the tears away, even though there were too many and they splashed on the sheets.
“I can’t help it. I feel guilty. And now I feel guilty for feeling guilty, because you’re comforting me and it should be the other way around. I’m so sorry you got stuck with me.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, as if he couldn’t believe what I was saying.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry right now,” he said, cupping my chin in his hands. “But I think we need to talk. Not just tonight, but all the time. I don’t want you to hold something in for fear of telling me about it, or upsetting me. Ever. Okay?”
“Okay. But I want you to do the same. I know it’s hard for you to open up, but yo
u need to and I need to. This goes both ways.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. So how about we start now? We’ll tell each other one thing before we go to bed every night. Something that’s been bugging us all day. It can be serious or silly, but we’ll do it every night. How’s that?”
I loved the idea, and I told him so.
“Okay, so I’ll go first tonight. Yes, that comment Ryder made this morning bothered me all day and I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to shut you out. I just got a little lost in the past for a while. Having him here is a constant reminder. Sometimes I deal better with it than other times.” I could understand that. I rewarded his confession with a kiss, but he didn’t let me turn it into something more like I wanted to.
“Your turn, Sunshine,” he said, pulling back and putting his hand between us so I couldn’t try to kiss him again. There were a number of things bothering me. It was going to be difficult to decide which one to tell him.
“Since I already told you about mine, which is what started this whole thing, can I be done?” I tried to give him a cute smile that would get me off the hook.
“Yes, you may have started it, but I shared with you. So I showed you mine. Now show me yours.” He moved closer to me, and I could definitely feel “his.”
“Fine. It bugs me that I have to have lunch with your ex-girlfriend. There.” I tried to kiss him, but he definitely put a stop to that.
“Wait just a second. I think I’m going to need more of an explanation than that.” Great.
“She asked me if I wanted to have lunch with her again. She’s told me that she’s not after you, but I’m still suspicious. I can’t help it. And then she came to my office like she wanted to talk about something and then she mentioned the lunch thing and ran away. I don’t want to think that she’s up to something, but she keeps behaving like she is. So that’s what’s bugging me.” I shrugged, because that seemed to be the only thing to do.
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