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

by Jay McLean

  The day after Mrs. Kennedy paid Lane and me a visit at the hospital, two things happened. UNC called, offered me back my scholarship. I told them I’d think about it. The biggest thing, though, was that Lane’s lawyers showed up at the hospital, along with Mrs. Kennedy, and they helped guide us toward a decision that would affect Laney’s future, her life.

  In the back of the van, the twins fight over an iPad, Lachlan licks the window, Logan listens to gangsta rap through his giant Beats headphones and Leo reads. Everything is back to normal. Only, it’s not. Because I’m on the way to my graduation ceremony, while across town, Cooper Kennedy’s pleading guilty, accepting a plea bargain that puts him away for eight to ten years. The back half to be spent in minimum security where his mom will do everything she can to help heal him. He wasn’t a bad person, she told us, he’s just really troubled. I wanted so badly not to believe her, but he’s her son. And truth is, my mother would’ve done the same.

  I sit in a robe in the middle of a row of chairs, listening to Grace (the valedictorian) relay her speech about what a great four years high school has been, how high school is and will always be the greatest years of our lives, how excited we should all be about our future, how the rest of our lives start now. Next to me, Lois settles her head on my shoulder, excused from the alphabetized seating and name calling so I can help her up the steps and onto the stage. She didn’t want to use her crutches.

  Two days ago, she was released from the hospital under the doctor’s advisement, not hers. That night, she and Brian also celebrated their freedom, away from the hospital, away from debt. Their “insurance” covered everything.

  Names are called, one after the other, and the families cheer and they clap, and when my and Laney’s names are called, we slowly make our way up the steps, shake hands with Principal Jenkins. The cheers intensify, all for Laney, now known by the town as The Girl Who Got Shot.

  After the ceremony, I help Brian move some bags from his trunk to the minivan. Laney’s moving in with me. At least temporarily. She’s set on life going back to normal, which means Brian going back to work. I’ll be taking her to rehab, check-ups, taking care of her. I called Lucy, asked if we could have the cabin and they use the apartment, just for the summer, to save Lane from climbing the stairs. I also asked if she and Cam could help out with the boys so I can focus on Lane. Of course, she said yes. She’s a Preston.

  “I stripped the sheets so we should be safe,” I tell Lane, opening the cabin door for her. “And I filled the pantry, bought everything you like. I got some good recipes online, stuff even I can make. And I brought over all your craft stuff. I figure you can still use your hands so…” I drop her bag by the front door and pat down the couch for her.

  “I love you, Lucas,” she says, her smile heard in her words. “And I love that you’ve done all this for me.”

  “It’s no problem.”

  “But you know what I’d really love?” She leans on her crutches, exhausted.

  “Rest. Of course. I’ll get the bed ready.”

  She laughs. “Luke.”

  “What?” I check over her. No blood everywhere. “What’s wrong?”

  “I want you to pick me up, carry me to the bedroom, and I want you to make out with me for, like, five hours straight.”

  I grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I run a finger between her bare breasts, around the dressing covering her wound, down to her panties, and back up again. We made out for a total of five minutes before she wanted me to take off my t-shirt, which of course I did. Then she asked me to take off hers, then her bra, then her pants, and then we made out for another minute more before she winced in pain and I told her we should stop. So now she’s lying on the bed, her leg elevated, looking up at me while I smile down at her. “The doctor said we should wait a couple of weeks, make sure everything’s healed before we start sexing again,” she says.

  “You asked him about it?”

  She shakes her head lazily, worn out from the long, active day. “I think he could tell by the way we were around each other.” Her words are slow, drawn out, and I can tell she’s losing the fight to fake it.

  “You should rest, babe. I’ll go start dinner.”

  She nods, and less than two minutes later, she’s asleep.

  Once I’ve prepped dinner and it’s in the oven, I go back in to check on her. She’s sitting up in bed, and I watch from the doorway as she slowly puts her top back on. “You need any help with that?”

  She shakes her head and looks up at me with those eyes, and I’m quick to go to her, to kneel at her feet, because I’m that guy.

  “You need to stop doing that, Luke.”

  “I’m trying, babe.” Honestly, I am. “But it’s hard for me. You weren’t there—I mean, obviously, you were, but…” I take her hands, look in her eyes. “I came so close to losing you once, to having my greatest fears come true, and I’m sorry that I’m fussing over you like this, and if the roles were reversed, I’d hate it, too. But, Lane, I fucking love you—”

  She giggles, cutting me off. “You’re so romantic.” God, I miss her laugh.

  I roll my eyes. “Sorry. I fucking love you, babe.”

  “Much better.”

  “You ready for rehab tomorrow?” I ask.

  She quirks an eyebrow. “You ready for your 4:45 run?”

  “Why do I have to do that?” I whine. “It’s summer.”

  “You ran every day last summer.”

  “But that’s because I was on the track team.”

  “And you’ll be on the track team at UNC. Did you call them yet? Tell them you’re going?”

  The oven timer goes off and I exhale, relieved. “I made a chicken and cheese pasta bake.”

  At 4:45 the next morning, Lane’s alarm goes off. Mine doesn’t. She knew I wouldn’t set it, so she set hers instead. Sneaky Lane.

  “Have fun!” she shouts, and I roll over to my side and face her.

  “You’re mean.”

  She smiles. “Old times, baby. I want old times.”

  I don’t recall the last time I’d gone this long without running, and it’s not fun. At all. I almost give up halfway through my standard route, but I push on because I know it’s important to Lane. When I get back to the cabin, I shower, make breakfast. I take it to the bedroom on a tray and she sits up, puts on her new glasses. “You’re the best boyfriend ever,” she says, then looks down at the food: juice, yogurt, granola and dry toast. She looks up, nose scrunched.

  “You have to eat healthier. No spleen means low immune system.”

  She frowns. Those eyes. “But I’ve been eating hospital food for weeks and this is…”

  “This is mine.”

  “Thank God!”

  I get her tray from the kitchen. Coffee, Pop Tarts and a Snickers bar.

  She licks her lips, looks up at me. “I swear, as soon as I’m healed, you are totally getting a handy.”

  “I can give myself handies, Lane. This,”—I point to her tray of sugar—“totally earned me a blowy.”

  “You’re such a dork.”

  “Will you at least let me shower with you?”

  “You just had a shower.”

  “But not with you.”

  “Luke…” She drops her Pop Tart on the tray. “I have to shower without the dressing and—”

  “And I’ve seen your wounds,” I tell her.

  “But not lately and they’re all oozy and gross.”

  “Did you miss the part where I told you I love you?”

  She sighs. Concedes. I win.

  And just FYI, fooling around in a shower is fucking rad.

  When we leave for Laney’s rehab, Dad and Lachlan (dressed in a police costume) are waiting outside the cabin. “What are you doing, Lachy?” I ask, holding the door open for Lane to hobble through.

  Dad answers for him. “He wants to do a sweep of the property, make sure no baddies have been here.”

  “So cute,” Lane says.

  I leav
e the door open for him, tell him to go for it.

  Dad says, “Thought we’d swap trucks for a while. Mine’s got the bench seat in case Lane needs to have her leg elevated.”

  “So thoughtful,” she says, going over to him. She tries to kiss his cheek, but he’s too tall and Dad laughs, bends at the knees so she can give him what she wants.

  “Good luck,” he tells her. To me, he says, “Drive safe. Precious cargo.”

  The rehab facility is more like a five-star hotel, and Laney doesn’t stop looking around, touching everything she can reach. Alfie and Roger—the two male doctors in their mid-forties who are assigned to us are also the owners of the place, and they assure us that Laney will be a priority with them. Thank you, Kennedys’ Fuck You money.

  The entire appointment is them telling us about Laney’s injuries, going through X-rays and other scans, and then telling us what their plan is. There are two bullets still inside Lane, one near her hip, one in her thigh. They were able to remove the one in her abdomen (goodbye spleen) and the one near her knee, but it’s the aftermath of that last one which will need the most help. The bullet clipped her kneecap, tore through her ACL. “Do we work on it like we would any other ACL injury?” I ask.

  “Yes and no,” Alfie says. “It’s going to take a lot longer to rebuild the muscles.”

  “Are you familiar with ACL injuries?” Roger asks me.

  I tell them, “My buddy tore his last year. He runs long distance so he was out a while.”

  “You run track, too?” Alfie asks.

  “I used to. In high school.” In another life.

  “You joining the team in college?” he asks.

  I look over at the X-rays. “So a lot of wading in water initially, getting it used to subtle movement, right?”

  “Right,” Roger says. “Do you have access to a pool?”

  “We have a lake,” I tell them. “But the wounds are still healing, so I don’t know about lake water. In the meantime, we can use the facilities here?”

  “Doctor Lucas Preston,” Laney announces, and the real doctors laugh. Smartass Laney.

  In the car on the way home, Laney thanks me for asking all the right questions and knowing what to say. She admits it was all a little overwhelming for her. It was overwhelming for me, too, but while she’s focused on life getting back to normal, I’m just as focused on fixing her.

  “Are you looking forward to the tryouts this afternoon, Coach Lucas?” she asks.

  “Yeah, it should be good,” I tell her. “You want me to take you home, or you want to come watch?”

  “I want to come. Leo’s going to hang with me.”

  I watch her from the corner of my eye as she sends a text on her phone, a smile tugging on her lips. “I never really noticed how close you and Leo were.”

  She nods, her smile growing when a response comes through.

  “Is that him you’re messaging?”

  “Yep.”

  “Did you guys… I mean not that it matters, but did you ever consider… you know?”

  “Dating him?” she asks, all Casual Laney like.

  “Yeah.”

  “Only to make you jealous. We had it all planned out, but then it got to the part where we had to kiss in front of you, and the thought alone was awkward enough so we vetoed that idea real quick.”

  “You had a plan?”

  She nods, giggles. “I was so desperate for you to notice me standing on the sidelines, waiting for you.”

  “Funny,” I say. “I always felt like you were the star player and I was up in the nose bleeds.”

  “You know what we are?” she asks, settling her hand on my leg.

  I lift her hand, kiss her wrist. “We’re idiots.”

  “The worst kind.” She removes her seatbelt just long enough to sit in the middle. She rests her head on my shoulder, says, “Lachy’s going to have a blast with all his friends and his big brothers coaching his team. It’s going to be fun.”

  It’s not fun. Not at all.

  Lachlan introduces me to his friends as his best friend. He introduces Cameron as his bestest friend. Traitor.

  I’m quick to realize that coaching The Misfits will be nothing like I thought. It’ll just be watching over a bunch of seven to eight-year-olds and making sure they don’t fucking kill each other.

  After three weeks of rehab and appointments and cooking and cleaning and taking care of Laney without sexing her, The Misfits are born, and the name doesn’t do them justice.

  “Quit eating crayons on the field, Bug Eyes!” Cameron yells, wearing the same uniform as the team—white and red and blue, the colors of the Preston Construction’s logo.

  “Stop peeing in your mitt!” Lincoln shouts.

  “Yeah,” says Liam. “Stop peeing in your mitt!”

  The back of the twins’ jerseys says: Twin 1 and Twin 2. Cam’s says: Best Coach. Mine says: Bestest Coach. Laney designed them. Clearly, I ordered them.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  LUCAS

  “Is that everything on the list?” Logan asks Laney, walking toward the checkout at the grocery store.

  Lane sits in a wheelchair while I push her around. She hates the chair but the crutches are starting to bruise her armpits, and we both knew we’d be in the store a long time. She wanted to make The Misfits snacks for their game later in the afternoon, and when Laney makes anything, it has to be perfect and slightly over the top. I told her sliced oranges and water was the norm. She’s baking them cookies.

  “I think so,” she says, her gaze shifting from the cart to her list, tick, tick, ticking off items.

  “I can come back if you’ve forgotten anything,” I say, because I know how important it is for her to do this. It’s not as if she has a lot of anything else going on, and I can tell she’s starting to go stir-crazy.

  Logan starts loading the items from the cart while I get out Dad’s company credit card—part of his sponsorship deal. That’s when we hear two women ahead of us gossiping about that Kennedy kid and the builder’s daughter and The Night the Town Turned Red and Blue and Black. I look down at Laney, but she’s looking down at her hands. “That poor Kennedy kid,” one of them says, “he must’ve been so lost to do something so horrible.”

  I clench my jaw, my fist. I start to speak, but Logan beats me to it. “That poor Kennedy kid tried to kill my brother’s girlfriend, his best friend, our sister from another mister, lady!” he shouts. I should tell him to stop. I don’t. He adds, “Now hurry up and buy your super-sized tampons and twelve-inch dildo and shove them up your ass!”

  Swear, the look on her face is worth listening to her bullshit. She looks first at Logan, then to me. She ignores Lane sitting in the wheelchair, the aftermath of that poor Kennedy kid. “You Preston punks!” she scolds, aghast. I smile up at her, insist I pay for her groceries. Kill her with kindness and her guilt. Once her bags are packed and in her arms, Logan calls her a whore and Laney finds her voice. “Have a phenomenal fuck you day, bitches.”

  Logan cackles, high-fives her. I tell her she just earned a handy, and she high-fives me, too. And that’s what life is like in our small town: The poor Kennedy kid, the builder’s daughter, and the Preston punks—the topic of all gossip. But gossip is like dust, floating in the air, temporarily marring the things it lands on. It’s not forever. It’s not us.

  “Hey,” Cameron says, stepping beside me as I keep an eye on the game.

  “First base is that way!” I yell, pointing to the base. “You’re running to third! Come on, boys!”

  “Yeah! Come on, boys!” Lachlan shouts, hitting the ground with a bat. “Remember, righty tighty, lefty loosey!”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Lincoln tells him.

  Cam shakes his head, lowers his voice. “It’s true, though. Lucy’s definitely not tight anymore.”

  “Dude!” I turn to him. “That’s so wrong.”

  He shrugs. “So I was just walking past Bug Eyes and Freckle Face and Snot Eater’s moms�
��”

  “You really need to learn the kids’ names, man.”

  He scoffs. “It’s hard enough for me to remember all your names. I think I’m doing pretty well.”

  I go back to watching the “game.”

  He says, “They were talking about Kennedy’s mom.”

  I ignore the twisting in my gut at the mention of his name. “What about her?”

  “Apparently she’s here.”

  I face him. “Where?”

  He points to Lane sitting in the stands wearing the team jersey. She mentioned she felt left out so I ordered her one. The back of hers says: Lucas Preston’s. Sitting next to her is a woman I hadn’t seen since before Lane left the hospital.

  “Snot Eater’s mom said they’ve been sitting together, laughing and talking for half an hour. Is it her?” Cam asks.

  “It’s her,” I confirm.

  “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The umpire calls the game, and Cam and I both whisper, “Thank fuck.” Then we gather our shit, gather the kids who belong to us. He takes the gear and my brothers to the minivan while I make my way toward Lane. She stays seated, Mrs. Kennedy stands. “Hi, Lucas,” she says, her voice soft. “Your team definitely has… potential.”

  “I don’t know if potential is the right word,” I tell her, but I’m looking at Lane who’s looking down at her hands. “Mrs. Kennedy, you mind if I have a minute with my girl?”

  “Sure,” Mrs. Kennedy says. “I’ll be down by the dugout.”

  I wait until she’s no longer within hearing distance to sit next to Lane. “That was a little rude, Luke,” she tells me.

  “What is she doing here? Is she giving you a hard time?”

  “No.” She scoffs, shakes her head. “She’s not like that.”

  “So what did she want?”

  “She wanted to thank me. And you.”