Lucas - A Preston Brothers Novel (Book 1): A More Than Series Spin-off

by Jay McLean

  I tap Lane’s shoulder. “Come on. Lachy’s about to break out his dance moves. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.”

  She takes my offered hand, walks with me to the dance floor.

  “Watch me!” Lachlan yells, and he moves to the center of the circle and attempts what I guess is break-dancing, but really, he’s just rolling around on the floor. Still, my brothers and I pretend like it’s the greatest thing in the world, our hands in the air, our shouts of “Woah” and “Yeah” spurring him on.

  Next to me, Laney laughs.

  “The sprinkler,” Logan yells. “Do the sprinkler!”

  So Lachlan stands, does the sprinkler dance.

  I throw my arm around Laney’s shoulders, dip my head, speak close to her ear so she can hear me over the music. “You having fun?”

  She tilts her head back, smiles up at me. “I am.” Then she motions over to where Cam and Lucy are sitting with their friends. “It was such an amazing ceremony, and Lucy looks so beautiful.”

  “She’s the second most beautiful girl here,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. When I saw her get out of her car, my stomach did that stupid twisty thing. It shouldn’t be fair that one person can hold that much enchantment, that much grace. It took Leo shoving me and practically forcing me to trip over a pile of chairs for me to tear my gaze away from her. “You can look, but don’t touch,” he warned.

  I was just looking.

  Laney coos, fanning herself dramatically. “And Cameron…”

  I tense.

  She smirks. “He’s so dreamy,” she sings, teasing me about my assumptions all those years ago.

  “Shut up.” I shove her away jokingly. “I totally thought you were into him, okay?”

  Her smile falters, her hands going to her purse to fish out her phone.

  “I have to go. Cooper’s waiting,” she tells me.

  I rear back, my lips pressed tight. “Really? You can’t even stay for my speech?”

  She looks as disappointed as I feel. “I wasn’t sure how long the ceremony would go for, and I told him I’d be there an hour ago.”

  I sigh. “All right, Cinderella. Let me walk you to your carriage.”

  “You cold?” I ask her, walking under the twilight sky toward the temporary parking lot.

  She rubs her hands on her arms. “A little.”

  I shrug out of my jacket and gently place it on her shoulders. “You really do look beautiful tonight, Lane.”

  “Stop it,” she murmurs, backhanding my stomach. It’s like having Old Laney back.

  I fake hurt, but she doesn’t. She grasps her hand, her eyes wide. “Have you been hitting the gym?” she asks.

  “I have,” I say. “Under your boyfriend’s advice, actually. He suggested I need more power in my start, so…”

  With a smile, she says, “I’m glad you guys are getting along so well.”

  “You know what they say, right? Keep your friends close, your enemies closer…”

  “Lucas,” she warns.

  I nudge her side. “I’m kidding.” For forty-six long ass seconds, we walk in silence. Then I say, “Not that it matters, but I just wanted you to know that I won’t be around for a few days.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I’m going to hit up Vegas with Lucy and her friends—kind of like their honeymoon.”

  She stops walking. “Vegas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does your dad know?”

  “No,” I say through a chuckle. “He thinks I’m visiting Jason in Jersey.”

  She chews on her lip, looks down at her feet. “Vegas, huh? It’s like stripper capital, right?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not really going for the strippers.” I laugh.

  She looks back up at me, her brow knitted. “Then why are you going?”

  “I just need to get away for a while, clear my head.”

  “Is something going on? Are you okay?”

  No, I’m not okay. I’m in love with you, Laney. And you’re in love with someone else. “I’m all good. Don’t worry about me.”

  She starts walking again, slower than before. “So are you nervous about your speech?”

  “Not really.”

  “Have you got it planned out?”

  I chuckle when she pats down my jacket, searching for the written speech. “I don’t have it written out if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  She stops searching and pouts up at me. Yeah. I love Old Laney. “I’m sad I’m going to miss it. What are you going to say?”

  “I don’t know.” We get to her boyfriend-bought car, and I lean against it. “It’ll be easy, though, I’ll just speak from my heart.”

  She copies my position, our sides touching. “You should practice on me,” she says. “What better person is there to trust to tell you if it sucks than your best friend.”

  I hide my smile, look down at the ground. Then I clear my throat, shove my hands in my pockets to keep me from touching her. “I guess I’m just going to talk about a boy—a kid, really—who fell in love with a girl at an age and a time when love felt bigger than the world around them. How he was her strength when she needed it, her voice when she didn’t have one. I’ll say something about the way he looks at her as if there’s no one and nothing else out there that could possibly hold his attention as much as she can…” I chance a peek in her direction, wondering if she can hear it in my words—that I’m speaking from my heart. But she’s looking down at her shoes, her breaths shaky. I add, “He’s always loved her, way before he realized that she loved him back. But I could see it in the way he looked at her. He hoped that one day she’d see him the way he saw her. And he saw her, Lane. I mean, Cameron—he was always able to read her—to see her in ways she didn’t see herself. He knew what she wanted, what she needed, and she never had to say a word. And I think, ultimately, that’s what true love is, you know? To want to be someone’s hero when they’re faced with villains. To want to be the one who saves them. To be their Wonderwall.” I choke on a sob, visions of Laney dancing with my dad in our living room filling my mind. I clear my throat again. “And I’ll end it by saying that I wish, more than anything, that I can one day be the man he is.”

  Silence fills the space between us, while the laughter of the wedding party brings everyone else together. “Wow,” she whispers, sniffing once. “That didn’t suck at all.”

  “You think?” I ask, stepping in front of her.

  Her smile contradicts the sadness in her eyes. “I should go.”

  “I know.” I swallow the pain of her pulling away. “Cooper’s waiting.” I reach around, open her door for her. She starts to get in but stops when I say her name. “Cooper might not be too thrilled with you showing up wearing my jacket,” I tell her.

  “Right.” She quickly removes my jacket, hands it back to me.

  I step back, watch her start the engine, hands on the steering wheel, getting ready to pull away, and I question myself. Wonder if this is worth the searing ache in my heart.

  “Lucas,” she says, her eyes meeting mine. “You already are that man. You just need to find a girl who’s going to make you want to prove that.” Then she drives away, farther and farther. More and more space.

  LOIS

  I pull over on the side of the road just outside the Preston property and I cry. I cry and I cry and I cry some more, and I don’t know why I cry but I can’t get Lucas’s words out of my mind, out of my system. I shouldn’t have shown up to his house the night of my birthday because now everything is blurred. The friendship, the feelings, the lines.

  I settle my breaths, settle the beating of my heart and try to focus my vision, but like everything else, it, too, is blurred.

  My phone rings, and I shut my eyes tight, knowing who it is. He’d been calling relentlessly for the past hour but I’d been selfish, enjoying the feeling of being part of the Prestons’ world again.

  I clear my eyes, re-apply the little makeup I wear, force myself to smile and
start the journey to his house. The security guard lets me through the gates, through the pristine streets, and onto the Kennedys’ driveway, and I can’t help but feel the shift of emotions when I stare up at the mansion, my skin crawling. Because I don’t belong here.

  The front door’s unlocked so I let myself in, just like Cooper had suggested I do in one of the many texts he’d sent me. The house is dark, eerily silent, and fear runs up my spine, creeping deep in my chest. Ever since the night I met his mother after she “walked into the doorframe,” I’ve been afraid of what’s concealed by the walls of this home. It feels like walking into a haunted house during Halloween, monsters and secrets lurking in every corner.

  “Cooper?” I call out.

  He doesn’t respond, so I make my way up the stairs and toward his room. He’s here, sitting on the edge of the bed, in the dark, a bottle of bourbon in his hand.

  “What are you doing, Coop?”

  He doesn’t lift his head when he asks, “Did you have fun?”

  I swallow, afraid. I’ve never seen Cooper like this, but there’s something in his tone that stops me from going to him. I stand by the door, my heart in my throat, my hands behind me. “Yeah,” I tell him. “It was a beautiful wedding.”

  He faces me now, the light outside barely exposing the anger in his eyes. “You said you’d be here an hour ago,” he says. But I don’t hear him. I hear his father.

  “I um…” I look down at the floor, unable to make eye contact. “I lost track of time. I’m sorry.”

  He stands, his shadow reaching me before he does. “Are you into him?” he whispers, his body an inch from mine.

  “Who? Cameron?”

  I flinch when his hand slams on the wall beside me. “Lucas! Did you fuck him?”

  “No!” I shout, looking up at him. “God, no!”

  He punches the wall and I shut my eyes, press my lips tight, do everything I can to stop the tears because I fear the tears will make it worse. “I have to go.” I push him out of the way so I can turn for the door but he grasps my wrist, twists until the pain causes me to yelp.

  He drops my hand as soon he hears it. “Fuck,” he whispers, switching on the light. His eyes are wide when I turn back to him, his face pale. “Lois…” He shakes his head, his breaths rushed. “I would never…” Then he grasps his hair, the anger in his eyes replaced with shock. Guilt slams into me, forcing a sob to escape. He’s so desperate, so defeated, and it’s my fault. I should’ve answered his calls, his pleas for some form of clarity. He sits on the bed and breaks down, his shoulders shaking with his withheld emotions. He says, “I’m so sorry, baby. I don’t know…” I can barely make out the words through his pain, and so I go to him, ignore my aching wrist and kneel in front of him. He looks up when I settle my hands on his legs. “I would never hurt you, Lois. You know I wouldn’t. You know, baby, you’ve seen—” He chokes on a breath, cutting him off, and I scoot closer, take his face in my hands. He grasps my wrist, gentle and safe, and he kisses it a thousand times over while his eyes meet mine, his distress palpable. “It doesn’t make sense. Why…?” He trails off, looks away.

  “Why what?” I ask, my hand on his cheek, forcing him to face me.

  “If nothing’s going on with you guys, then why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

  My guilt forces my heart to stop, but his phone rings, saving me from responding. He doesn’t go to answer it. He just stares at it flashing and vibrating on his nightstand.

  “Are you going to answer it?”

  “It’s just my dad. I was supposed to be at an important dinner meeting with him, but I couldn’t…” His jaw tenses. The phone stops ringing. “I couldn’t fake caring enough. Not tonight.” He looks back at me the same time his phone starts again.

  “Is he going to be mad?” I ask.

  “It’s my dad, Lo. He skips angry and goes straight to…” His throat bobs with his swallow. Then he stands, his hands gentle on both my wrists. “You need to get out of here before he gets home.”

  The fear rises again, doubles. Not for me, but for him. “I’m not leaving you.”

  The ringing stops, but a text alert comes through, and he stands, releases me. He picks up the phone, reads the message. “It’s my mom,” he says. “They’ll be home in ten minutes.” His eyes lock on mine. “You need to go. Now!”

  I stand so fast my head spins. “I’m not going anywhere!”

  He covers the distance between us, places his hand on the small of my back and his lips on my forehead. “I’ll call you later. I’ll be fine,” he assures me.

  His words do nothing for the panic that kicks in, along with the painful reality that I caused him to act like this. My lies and my ignoring him at the wedding caused his reaction and… I love him. I love him and I don’t want anything to happen to him. Not like it did with his mother. “Let’s go,” I tell him, taking his hand to force him to come with me.

  He doesn’t budge. “Go where, Lo?”

  “Anywhere!” I turn to him, plead with my eyes. “Please, Cooper. Let’s just go anywhere but here. I don’t want you here tonight. I want you with me. And I want you safe.”

  His sighs, and I question how many times he’s felt the same fear I’m feeling, how many times he’s watched the clock, waiting for the moment the door opens and his demons haunt him. How many times he’s locked himself in that closet, alone and afraid, and so I wrap my arms around him, refusing to leave his side.

  “I need to stay, Lo. There are consequences to my actions, and I need to face them like a man.” How old he was when his father first gave him that speech? He sees the concern in my eyes, forces a smile to comfort me. “It’s okay, baby. You don’t need to save me.”

  “But I do,” I rush out, wiping at my tears. “Because that’s what true love is, right? To want to save the person you’re with?”

  We get in my car and drive to an ATM where he takes out some cash, and then we drive some more until we find a hotel two hours away. He pays with the cash he took out, mumbling something about his dad not being able to find him that way. And just like with what happened to his mother, we don’t speak about what could’ve happened to him. Because with me, his secret is safe, and with me, so is he.

  We spend two nights at the hotel, and when Monday morning comes, I leave for school, and he leaves with the promise of seeing me later in the afternoon. He does see me… but with only one eye, the other forced shut, puffy, black and bruised. He tells everyone he took a basketball to the face during a pick-up game on campus. But I know the truth. We both do. Because he didn’t go back to campus. He went home to face his demons… like a man.

  Chapter Nineteen

  LUCAS

  I choke on whatever the cafeteria lady passes as food and look up at Laney, my eyes wide. “Say that again?”

  “Have you ever had a threesome?” Her tone is nonchalant, but the red in her cheeks gives her away. Laney’s a blusher, always has been.

  Leaning forward, I glance around us, make sure I’m not dreaming because of all the things that I’ve imagined coming out of Lois Sanders’ mouth (and trust me, I’ve imagined a lot of things), the word “threesome” is not one of them. “Is Cooper, like, pressuring you to—”

  “No!” She throws a plastic fork at my head, hitting me square on the cheek and thankfully distracting me from my images of her and that asshole. “It’s just…” She leans closer, lowers her voice. “The other day we were in my room and—”

  “Stop!”

  “—and this girl sent him a picture of her making out with another girl.”

  I put on my best friend persona and act like I’m okay with the conversation. “And what did he say about it?”

  She shrugs. “Not a lot. Just that it was a girl he’d hooked up with once and she wanted to know if he was interested in doing it again with another girl added to the mix. He wrote back right away, in front of me so I could see.”

  “What did he write back?”

  “That he wasn�
��t interested and he was with someone so to stop messaging him.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I mean…” She leans closer again. “If he wanted to lie, he could’ve told me something else, right? Like the person must’ve sent it to the wrong number. But his story seems legit so…”

  “Did you argue about it?”

  “No. He said it so, like, matter-of-fact, that I couldn’t even come up with an argument.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “I don’t know.” I can see by the way she lowers her gaze, bites down on her bottom lip that she’s lying. She doesn’t trust him but she wants to and that’s eating at her, clawing away at her thoughts, and I get it. Picturing the one you love with someone else can twist your insides to shreds.

  And she thinks she loves him, and I know I love her, and so I tell her what she wants to hear: “He’s with you all the time, Lane.”

  “Yeah, on weekends. But what happens during the week when I’m not around?”

  I shrug. “It’s college.”

  “That’s what he said!” Great, the last thing I want is for me and Cooper to think alike. She adds, “But what does that mean?”

  I’m already sick of the conversation, sick of talking about him. “Can we talk about something else?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Like what?”

  “What are you doing for winter break?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugs. “My dad’s going to Savannah to meet Misty’s family and Coop’s home so he’ll probably just hang at my house.”

  “New Year’s?”

  “No idea. Why?”

  “Dad’s taking the twins and Lachlan on some fishing slash bonding trip and Logan’s been banished to my aunt Leslee’s, so Leo and I are going to have a few people over to the apartment. It’ll be low key. We’re not really down for anything big this year. But you’re welcome to come.”

  She scrunches her nose. “Remember the first time we did New Year’s together?”

  “You mean that time we hid out and spied on Luce and Cam and their friends? And Dumb Name thought it was a great idea to steal a bottle of vodka from them?”