by Anna Bloom
“Anyway. After I left your room, I, uh, took a moment to think about what I was becoming. You were fourteen, Lyra. The things I wanted to do to you, with you, they weren’t right. They made me a monster. Made me realize I was nothing better than my old man.” My voice began to tremble, but I forged on, the truth working its way out from me, unwilling to stop. “I never told you back then. Luca knew, but you were too young, but on a bad night, hell, any night, I used to hear my dad fucking my mom.” My words tightened, squeezing through my larynx. “And I knew she wouldn’t have wanted it. I mean she hated him, he was despicable, which means…”
Lyra reached for my hand, winding her fingers through mine and squeezing, catching me like an anchor on a boat washed out to sea.
“That night in your room, you were so angry. You kept pushing me, telling me that everyone else was doing it, why couldn’t we? But how could we? You were a child, and I wasn’t. It would have made me like him in ways I couldn’t bear. So, I left.”
Her eyes opened, searching mine, pale-blue, soul defining. She rolled onto her side, pushing our joined hands into my lap.
I skipped a section and then carried on.
“I had nothing on me. Literally the shirt on my back and that was it.” I tried not to look at her watching me. Not that easy. “Sometimes when people say they have nothing but the shirt on their back they mean that and also a fifty in the back pocket of their jeans.” I shook my head. “No fifties. So I hitchhiked. No idea where I was going. Some people were kind, gave me some food, guess they felt sorry for the starving and filthy kid with nowhere to go. I seemed to be heading West, not that I knew it then. I got lucky in some towns, some wealthy benefactors were happy to feed me up to spend some time with me.” I smiled and shook my head.
“Benefactors or women?” She snuggled closer, curving around my outstretched legs. Let’s hope I kept my balance otherwise we’d both be sliding off.
“Who cares. They kept me alive. Anyway, I got to Boston, probably took me longer than it took you to come on your first day. Then I was here, with no plan, no reason why, actually not a single why in my life at all.”
Lyra lifted her head. “You don’t know why you came to Boston, the same city you’d told me to go to years before?”
“Lyra, I didn’t remember that conversation.”
She tapped her temple. “I bet part of you did. You were pretty insistent that day, telling me that I had to stick to my dream, that I couldn’t waste myself on a shit town like Florida.” She laughed wryly. “Guess you couldn’t predict you’d leave and break my music.”
Ahhh… was it still broken this week when I hadn’t been with her? Interesting. I hadn’t asked Greene for fear of looking too interested, and I couldn’t speak to Shaun without wanting to beat him to a pulp.
“Am I telling this story or not?”
“You are.” She closed her eyes again.
“So I had nothing. I got a job in a bar, and then one day there was a bunch of students in. It had felt like a lifetime since I’d played piano, was a lifetime. It was an Open Mic night and I just took the chance. I played and then afterward a girl came up and introduced herself. Asked if I was at the college. I told her the truth, which she seemed to find rather amusing, and she offered me a deal. She could get me into college, help me land on my feet, if I helped her really piss her parents off. I guess they expected her, or wanted her, to settle slightly above a Bus Boy in a dive of a bar. I took the deal. It was the only way to stay alive.”
“So? That was four years ago. And since then?”
I sighed in a chest hollowing way. “The deal got complicated.”
“Complicated? You fell in love with her?”
I gave a small shake of my head. “No, her father decided to play her back,” I whispered, unable to hold my gaze and look at her. “And I got tangled in the web of it all.”
Lyra remained curled on her side. I could feel her stare without seeing it.
“I know, poor little rich boy.” I snorted. “I should have left, but one thing led to another and then before I knew it the situation was bigger than me. Even if I’d wanted to, I don’t think I could have left.”
I lifted my face to meet hers.
“Because you were waiting for me perhaps?”
“I was angry with you, Lyra. Still was right up until we met again; even more so then. You’re the reason I left my mom.” This was the whole truth, and nothing like the truth all at once. The perfect paradox for my life.
“That’s not fair. I didn’t make you leave. I just wanted more of you. But you’re Jack Cross and you don’t give more, you only ever take what you need.”
“That’s not true.” So far from the truth it could be the distance from the Earth to the sun.
“You ran, because I wanted you to be something other than my brother’s best friend. If you’d told me the full picture about your dad, I would have understood. Waited. Would have tried to leave you alone if that’s what you wanted.”
I shook my head. “Would you have?”
Her lips curved into a smile and my blood stirred with an emotion I hadn’t experienced in a long while. Hope. “Well I could have tried.”
Laughing, I nodded, my back straightening now the weight of my truths had lifted.
“So what happens now?” I asked.
“Well, let me think. Four years ago we had more than enough reasons between us to keep us apart.”
I nodded.
“And it looks to me like now we have even more.”
“If I fall out of the Collins deal, I lose everything, Lyra. And I’m not just talking about the money, or the job. I couldn’t give a crap about how a bunch of hormone raged kids play their instruments, but I’d lose the bar. Evan and I have built that from the ground up. Everyone would lose their jobs. I’d lose. I’d lose everything I’ve earned.”
She nodded and crept closer, nestling her head on my lap. I stroked her hair, counting backwards from a hundred so I didn’t stab her in the ear with an ill-timed hard on.
I curled over her and kissed her lips, an undeniable force that was exhausting to fight, pulling me closer to her. Her mouth opened and her tongue teased against mine, delicately swiping hot little licks.
Kissing Lyra had always been breath-stealingly easy, even when it shouldn’t.
My hand ran down my jersey, dancing lightly over her curves, the soft material feeling better on her than it did on me.
“Jack?” She pulled her lips from mine, pecking them once, twice, to end the kiss.
“Yes, Lyra.” I smiled against her mouth.
“You need to admit that you came here to wait for me.”
I pulled back. “But I didn’t.”
She held my gaze, burning it down into my soul. “When you can admit that, then maybe the cost of everything we’d have to lose would be worth it.”
She cupped her hand around my cheek and stared into my eyes.
I didn’t come to Boston for her, did I? I came here to escape her, never expecting our paths to cross as I stewed on my anger for her and Luca, wishing them a million curses back in our home town.
Didn’t I?
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lyra
“I didn’t see where you went last night?” Alex jogged up alongside me on campus.
“Sorry, I got…” Blasted by the past? “Caught up.”
“Where are you going now? We could go grab a coffee and something deliciously sweet. I’m starving and in need of white carbs.”
I laughed, checking him out briefly from under my lashes. Alex didn’t look like he ate more than one meal of white carbs a year. “Mm. I bet you are all about the donuts.”
“Hey, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
I stiffened up, shaking some sense into myself. Alex might seem nice enough, but the rumors about his family left a lot to be desired. Not just the racist whisperings I’d heard from Eva, but also the stuff Jack had told me about last night. Sure, I knew for a fact that
he hadn’t told me the whole truth, but I did believe what he had told me.
Jack’s pride was all he’d ever had.
I remembered all too well the angry burn in the eyes of his adolescent self that he deserved better than he’d been given.
Had he found it? I think only Jack could answer that.
“I’ve got to go and do some serious English crash course catch up.” I pointed at the library just across the road. “The build up to the gala took up a lot of my time.”
Alex nodded. “You know it’s kind of unusual for the Collins kid to have a second major?”
“Yeah, yeah I know. I just love English. If it came down to a toss between playing the violin again, or reading a book, well, honestly I don’t know what I’d choose.”
I did know. I wasn’t about to tell Alex Collins though.
“Well if you want some company, contrary to what people say, I’m not allergic to the library. It’s very calm and relaxing in there.”
I laughed again, unable to stop myself. “It’s a library, not a spa. You’re supposed to study.”
“Ah, maybe that’s why I enjoy it then.”
Shaking my head, I stepped away. “I’ll be fine.”
“And later?”
Jeez, why was he pushing this?
“I’m working.”
“At Blue’s?”
My tummy flipped. At Blue’s had a double meaning now for me.
Would I see Jack today? Things had been left open ended up on the roof of the Collins house. I’d been disappointed actually by how they’d been left.
I didn’t want to be a cheater, didn’t want to tempt Jack into making his life more complicated. But it wasn’t that straight cut. He was Jack.
And I’m pretty sure that the feeling I’d had in my soul since I was able to walk meant that he was mine.
Just mine.
Where that left us after last night’s revelations I didn’t know. Didn’t even know if I wanted to know.
Probably better I didn’t.
Fuck. Yeah right.
“Look I’ve gotta get on so I can fit in as much as I can.”
“Sure thing.” Alex smiled and watched me turn away before catching my hand. “Hey, Lyra, wait. How about drinks this week? Nothing major, just low key at the bar on campus.”
I rocked back on my heels. “Like on a date?”
“I was thinking informal icebreaker which could then possibly lead to a date, but sure, you want to dive straight in?”
“Alex.” NOOOOOO I screamed in my head. “I’m not sure that’s ethical, what with you being Alex Collins.”
He laughed, throwing his head back, startling some wood pigeons enjoying a lazy Sunday morning snooze. “Lyra, there isn’t much about my family that’s ethical.”
I peered at him closer. Did he know about the rumors? Did he agree with them? Was he just a very good actor?
I didn’t have time for this.
“Well, where I come from, our ethics is all we really own.” I stepped back.
“Lyra, that wasn’t what I meant.”
I turned away and sprung up the steps to the library, thankful that when I pushed through the doors, I seemed to be the only student awake and intent on studying first thing on a Sunday.
Two hour later, Heathcliff and I were about to fall out. I’d always loved his dark tormented ways before, seen him on a path of fate that he couldn’t deter from no matter his will. Now though, I saw weakness and cruelty.
How much was Heathcliff and how much was Jack, I didn’t know.
Maybe Heathcliff had always been my Jack, and I just hadn’t realized. A deliciously broken and dark vestige of hell in which no spark of light could be seen.
Hadn’t Heathcliff sold himself too just so he could persecute Cathy? Was that what Jack had done? Why else would he have been here other than to lie in wait to torment me?
But then I suppose he wasn’t to know I’d have the Collins scholarship, or that I’d hate the violin with all my heart.
I dropped my head onto the desk and closed my eyes.
“This really doesn’t look like studying?” Warmth flowed through me at the low familiar voice. The smell of coffee and… what was that… gravy… filled the air.
Opening my eyes, I found Jack leaning against the desk partition. In his hand he held a paper bag oozing with grease. I did a swift double take at him, for a brief flicker of a moment I could see the teenage boy I’d crushed on so damn hard it had physically hurt. The suit and cufflinks had been replaced with dark jeans and scuffed boots, with a sweater that looked sexier than anything I’d seen him wear here in Boston.
“What’s that?” I asked narrowing my eyes as he smirked at my blatant staring. “And why are you here?”
“Breakfast for the starving student. And it’s the library, anyone can be here.” He leaned low down to my ear. “But no one wants to be.”
My stomach gurgled loudly, and I grabbed at the bag, rolling my eyes, opening it and peering inside. “Gravy and grits?”
“Only the best.” He smirked and I stared openly at his face. Any smile was a welcome change to his glaring scowl, even the sexy, smirky, lip hitch.
I tore open the lid on the pot of gravy and dunked a still warm biscuit into it. “Oh my god, that’s amazing.” The flavors exploded onto my tongue and I shamelessly spoke with my mouth full.
“Letitia is a marvel.” He propped himself on the desk opposite, stretching out his long legs. “Evan says you’re working tonight.”
“And?” I scooped in another biscuit.
“I’ll see you there, assuming I don’t turn up to find you knocking back tequila again.”
“Firstly, it has nothing to do with you if I get drunk at work. Apparently, that’s a thing, and I’m cool with that. And secondly, I don’t really know why you’re here. I told you what I needed you to say, to admit.”
He shook his head, focusing on his brown boots.
“Jack,” I sighed. “We aren’t about to start an affair, okay? I don’t know what you think this could be, but you’ve got a girlfriend, got yourself into a right mess by the sounds of things, and I don’t want that. I don’t want it on my conscience. The Collins family might be some messed up bunch of assholes but I’m not going to dance down that line with you if you can’t be one hundred percent honest with me.”
He chewed on the inside of his cheek.
“And if you still aren’t being honest, I’d rather save myself the hurt now.” I leaned over into his space so I could meet his eyes with my own.
“Big words, Lyra Bird.”
I grimaced a smile. “Right now, big words are all I have.”
He stood, stretching, flashing me toned abs under the rise of his hoody. “I’ll see you later, Little Lyra.” I threw a ball of scrunched up paper at him.
“Not little,” I growled.
He laughed and walked away, before stopping and turning back, finding me watching his long stride. “Oh and Lyra, I hope you weren’t attached to Shaun as your tutor.”
“Jack! No!”
He sloped off leaving the sound of his laughter in my ears.
Turning back to my desk, I grinned as I picked up another perfectly crumbling biscuit.
Damn it to hell. I was screwed.
“Eddie!” I gave the big man a squeeze at the door.
“Little Lyra.”
I pulled back.
“Did Jack tell you to say that.”
Eddie frowned. “Ugh no, Miss.”
“Hmm.”
He held the door open to allow me to walk in. I’d only worked the one Sunday so far, but I already knew it was my favorite day of the week at Blue’s.
And not just because Jack might be there tonight.
And not just because now I knew he owned a bar called Blue, the nickname I’d always called him. That had to mean something, right, whether he’d ever admit it or not?
Okay, maybe a little bit of those things.
“Lyra! My woman in
my hour of need.” Evan shouted across the empty bar and I walked over, hiking my purse onto the counter.
“What’s up?”
“Hmm, let me think.” He scratched at his head. “The girls got stuck coming back from a gig in Dallas.”
“Dallas?” I knew my expression was comical. “Dallas, really? Do they do country and gospel together?”
“Hey, that’s prime Bible Belt country right there.”
I nodded. “So?”
“So I have service starting in half an hour, and no one to actually sing it.”
Okay, trigger warning flipped onto high alert. “Really? You have no one to play? So Eddie just called me, Little Lyra, and now you need someone to ‘sing at Church’.” I totally air quoted my words. “Where’s Jack? I know he’s behind this.”
“Jack?” Evan frowned. “No idea. He had some drama earlier, called me to say he might not be in.”
Shit, if my stomach didn’t plummet to my feet.
I wouldn’t see him?
Get a grip, Lyra.
Grams would have something to say about this. You can’t say one thing and do another, Little Miss Lyra. You be one or the other and then you’ll always know.
Damn, I hated when she was right.
And double damn, I’d now worked out where Jack got Little Lyra from all those years ago.
“Oh right.”
Evan glanced up at my tone. “Everything okay?”
“Yep. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Let me think. You’ve been here two weeks. Jack has almost fallen apart, broken every bottle of vodka we have, which is a major pain in the ass by the way. You’ve fainted on the job during said vodka incident and now I’ve said he won’t be here tonight, and you look like your favorite grandparent has died.”
I gasped, stepping back. “I’ve only got one grandparent. Why would you even say that?”
Evan reached for my hand. “I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant like that.” He sighed and squeezed my fingers. “Just be careful, okay? Since Jack and I first met four years ago, he’s been a ticking time bomb, liable to explode at any time.”
I dropped my gaze to the bar and a sticky mark someone had neglected to clean. “He’s changed so much.”
