They're Strictly Friends (Tough Love Spinoff Book 1)

by Chloe Liese

  He kisses my hair gently, whispering against its curly madness. “I love you, Elodie. My dear little one.” Papa squeezes me tight, but now I can’t see him anymore. His grip keeps getting tighter, and now it’s much too tight…

  “Elodie! Fuck.” Lucas’s voice drifted around the edge of my consciousness. His warm hand cupped my face. It comforted me even as I became very tired. His voice picked up, and I sensed his body right near mine. “Elodie? Wake up, talk to me, sweetheart.”

  I groaned.

  “What are you saying?” His breath whispered over my face, minty clean from his arduous toothbrushing, and the perfect undertone of his own natural taste. I wanted to kiss him one last time before my head burst. God, it hurt to think.

  “Sweetheart, I can’t understand, I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, and I heard the panic hidden barely beneath the surface. His hands drifted over my face, his fingers tracing my lips like they’d reveal my senseless silent mutterings. His hands never left my body, gentle and soft as the wind that licked against my skin and hair.

  Just like on the trail with Papa.

  Why was Lucas with me and Papa on the trail? And where had Papa gone? Why couldn’t he help me? Why hadn’t he ever helped?

  “Head hurts,” I croaked.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Slowly I opened my eyes and blinked at him.

  “What happened?”

  I’d never seen that look on Lucas’s face, and if I never did again, I’d be fine. Murderous. Terrified. He looked poised to kill. “You threw yourself in front of a moving vehicle on my behalf, and but for your freakishly good reflexes, you’d have been dead, Elodie.”

  I blinked some more and groaned. “Oh.”

  A dark laugh burst out of Lucas. “Yes, oh. Now your neck, your limbs. Does any of it feel numb or odd? I don’t want to move you if your spine—”

  I wiggled everything slowly, felt sensation everywhere, then swung my head side to side. “I’m okay.”

  “That’s a generous use of the word,” Lucas grumbled. Gently his arms wrapped around me, and he swept me up.

  “Lucas, we’re a ways from home. You can’t carry me that whole time.”

  He snorted as he walked briskly. “I’m not taking you home. You’re going to the bloody hospital.”

  “But I’m heavy.”

  “One of these days, Elodie, you’ll learn to stop underestimating what I’ll do for you. Besides”—he hoisted me gently higher in his arms and pressed his cheek to the top of my head—“we both know you’re light as a feather.”

  One concussion, two bruised ribs, and a stupefying conversation with the discharging physician later, I left the hospital knowing that this incident had shifted the dynamic between Lucas and me back into unfavorable territory. We both knew why I’d done what I had, and both reasons terrified Lucas—because his sight was getting worse, and because I loved him enough to trade my life for his.

  I wasn’t willing to hear his objections, and he wasn’t remotely open to my defense on those points, so we came home and lived with a new, weightier bank of unspoken words between us. This had to stop, and we both knew it, because it was going to fall like an avalanche on our heads.

  A week after the incident, as I’d suggested that morning I’d been hit, we watched Jamie for our dearest friends. Tucked into Nairne and Zed’s sofa, we were entertaining baby Jamie while they went out for Nairne’s birthday dinner. Nairne had only agreed to it on the condition that we’d stay over once they were back and spend some time with her.

  Lifting Jamie hurt my ribs, so Lucas held Jamie beneath his chubby arms while our little godson bounced over and over. At five months, Jamie was now a bit more fun. With a stronger neck, he held his head up and looked at you curiously. He’d give gummy smiles and make the silliest little noises.

  Lucas leaned in and gave him a massive raspberry, which made Jamie shriek in delight. I watched them both and tried not to cry as I smiled. Lucas was so good with children. He held them confidently, knew exactly what to say and how to delight them. He would be such a good father.

  “Loulou?”

  He was making a ridiculous face at Jamie, singing some nonsense to him and sang, “Yes, Elodie?”

  I laughed, then winced because it hurt my ribs. Lucas did a double take and frowned at me.

  I waved it off. “I’m okay. But I want to talk. We’ve been dancing on eggshells—”

  Lucas sighed happily and kissed my hair. “Dancing around or walking on eggshells.”

  “English is so random!” I threw up my hands. “Au Français, there are rules. There are very clear reasons for expressions.”

  “Oh yes,” he said to Jamie. “Right, Jame? When you’re angry, it makes perfect sense to say, la vache! The cow! Oh, I shit my nappy, the cow!”

  I smacked his arm. “Okay, fine, maybe there are a few odd ones. And no swearing in front of the baby.”

  “I’d say we can agree that French is just as arbitrary as English, darling. But I do apologize. I interrupted you.”

  Dropping my head on Lucas’s shoulder, I took Jamie’s tiny foot in hand and sighed. “I want to talk about what happened. You’re angry.”

  “You could have died,” he said flatly. “And it would have been my fault.”

  I sat up and looked at him. “I made a choice, because…”

  Lucas held Jamie, still bouncing on his lap, but his eyes locked with mine. “Because what, Elodie?”

  I bit my lip as tears spilled over. “Do I have to even tell you?” Cupping his face, I scratched my nails along his scruff and kissed his cheek. “Don’t you feel it in everything I do and say to you?”

  Lucas shook his head and sighed heavily. “You can’t love me, Elodie. It’s a road to ruin.”

  I held his eyes with mine. “Can you say you haven’t walked just as far down that road?”

  His face tightened, and he looked away. Jamie squawked, and Lucas stood with him, pacing the room. He patted Jamie’s bum absentmindedly, then stopped to stare at a newer picture added to the mantel. Zed and Nairne and Lucas and me at their wedding—faces illuminated by the flash, prosecco in our hands, except for Nairne, who was quite pregnant with Jamie. Beaming, happy, elated.

  In love.

  Lucas looked over at me and sighed miserably. “No, I cannot say that.”

  “Meaning what, Lucas?”

  “Meaning I love you, dammit.” He stormed toward me, hand cradling Jamie’s head. “Meaning I want to redden your arse for endangering yourself for me. Meaning I want to throttle us both for letting this happen. Meaning I hate myself for my sight loss almost costing you your life. I could go on—shall I?”

  I stood and approached him. “You have a choice, Lucas. Think of what you read me a few weeks ago. Disorder is inevitable. Pain and hardship are human. They’re ours to brave, regardless of conditions or diseases or accidents. Why must you insist on demanding this perfect life as the only possible place for our love?”

  I set an arm on Jamie’s back as he fussed. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. First as my friend, now as so much more. And yet this is how little credit you give me or yourself. We are more than this, Lucas.” I stood back, suddenly feeling very overcome with emotion. “And you simply cannot accept that love can thrive amid your prognosis.”

  “Because it can’t,” he snapped. “Because loving you means releasing you.”

  I reeled back. “That’s love to you? Pushing someone away when they’re the very person that wants most to care for you?”

  “I don’t want your care!” He bounced Jamie, who continued to fuss. “I want your partnership. I don’t want to be your pet—your child—to be faffed over and babied.” He choked on emotion as he shook his head. “I want to be the man in your life, who protects you, provides for you, who’s strong and steadfast and gives you the world. Who gives you your own child to love and raise. And I can do none of that, Elodie.”

  “You will always be able to do that, Lucas.”

 
He shook his head and spun away with Jamie. “I can’t talk anymore about this right now. First I need to cool down. I’m angry, and I’m holding an infant. It’s not a good combination.”

  “Give him to me, then,” I said.

  Lucas did, but instead of staying and having it out, he walked right out of the room and into the night.

  Sixteen

  Lucas

  “Buggering fuck!” I kicked a lawn chair and ripped at my hair. Storming around Nairne and Zed’s backyard eased some of the pressure that had built inside my chest, comprised of guilt, hopelessness, and anger.

  Every time I closed my eyes, I still saw Elodie running toward me. How she’d lain on the pavement, looking like staying alive was an obligation she’d rather not fulfill. It had terrified me.

  For the first few days, when her face was scraped with road burn and bruised, I couldn’t look at her too long, or I’d just start to shake with fury. Now tonight, watching her cuddle Jamie, whispering to him in French, that rage was replaced by a bone-deep sadness. God, I wanted Elodie big with my baby. I wanted to wash her hair in the tub and make her ginger tea. I wanted to watch her breasts grow heavy and then nourish our child who had her curls and Mum’s eyes.

  Bloody fucking blindness.

  I had to let her go. I’d known it would come, but this was the crossroads, sooner than I liked but here nonetheless. My cheeks were wet. My chest hurt. I was bloody crying.

  “You stupid fuck,” I said to myself, wiping my face furiously. “This is what you knew would happen. Goddamn!”

  A whining sound pierced my mad thoughts. Then a scrape against the thick back gate to their property, adjacent to the detached garage in the alley. I strolled toward it, cautious that this was my friends’ home and they had to take security quite seriously. But as I came to the gate, I realized there was no threat.

  A black paw swiped under the bottom. I could only see it because of the bright floodlights that illuminated the yard—soft pink pads against shiny midnight fur.

  A puppy.

  I unlatched the gate, and he came barreling in, storming around my feet and nipping already.

  “Steady, mate.” I scooped him up, and he went right for my thumb. “Hungry, are you?”

  The back door swung open behind me at the other end of the yard. Nairne swiveled her wheels and squinted out, Zed standing behind her. He said something, prompting her to quickly wheel through the threshold and out onto the pavers that made the lawn accessible for her.

  Zed shut the door quietly behind them and followed her.

  “What have we here?” Zed petted the puppy’s head and managed to avoid having his hand chewed on.

  “Just a whining little fellow scraping at your door.”

  Nairne frowned up at me. “What’s going on with you and Elodie?”

  Zed dropped into a seat beside Nairne. Quiet, arms folded, while he watched a dialogue he really had no part in. Elodie was Nairne’s first, her sister in every way but blood. I was answerable to her.

  I sighed as I dropped onto a lawn chair as well, grateful to have a rogue pup to focus on rather than Nairne’s brutal gaze. Nairne spun her wheels and eyed me severely. I wasn’t looking, but I heard the former and felt the latter. The woman was incredibly intimidating.

  “You’re being too hard on her,” she said.

  My head snapped up. “She could have died. Because of me. She had no business putting herself in front of me.”

  “Christ, you’re narrowminded. Have you not once considered that perhaps there’s more to what she did than her love for you? That this isn’t all about you?”

  “Nairne,” Zed said softly. “Easy.”

  I scrunched my nose as the puppy tried to lick my chin. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Nairne just shook her head. “You need to ask her. And if she hasn’t told you, then you obviously need to work on your openness with each other.”

  I wanted to make a pun on the pot calling the kettle black, but I feared for my physical safety if I did that. Nairne’s upper body was exceedingly strong to compensate for her injury, and I’d been on the receiving end of her right hook before. It wasn’t an experience I wanted to repeat.

  Zed leaned in. “What happened?”

  “It’s not my story to tell,” Nairne insisted.

  “You can’t say shit like that, Nairne,” Zed complained. “That’s the worst cliffhanger ever.”

  Nairne rolled her eyes. “This isn’t a bloody book, Zed. You can’t get mad that she’s had traumatic life events that aren’t immediately revealed to you. Lord Almighty, man.”

  A silence fell between us, and I looked at Nairne, watching disapproval and fierce emotion tighten her features. “I’m sorry this is monopolizing your birthday evening,” I said. “You rarely get out, and here we are talking over this rubbish. Let’s go in, then, put Jamie down, have a few rounds of cards.”

  Nairne waved her hand. “I’m not done here. And it’s not your fault we never get out. We would if we had a nanny, but—"

  “We still haven’t found a nanny we feel is suitable,” Zed finished defensively.

  “No, we haven’t found a nanny that Zed’s found to be suitable. I’ve okayed six of them, but he’s impossible.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  Zed threw his hands up. “He’s my child, all right? I’m not leaving him with any woman with a nursery instruction certificate and all her teeth in her head.”

  Nairne looked about to retort, but Zed shot up from his seat. “You know what, can we not talk about this right now? Because it’s hardly pressing. Between my dad and brother, and you guys, and my father-in-law who was just visiting, again,” he added pointedly. Nairne grumbled. “We’ve lucked out so far, until the right one comes along.”

  “He’s delusional,” Nairne said bleakly.

  Zed ignored that. “I’m going to go get alcohol. You guys want anything?”

  I shook my head. Last thing I needed was my wits lost when I was being cross-examined by the Scottish bollock-buster.

  “As if you had to ask,” Nairne said.

  Zed nodded. “Whiskey it is.”

  “Where is Elodie?” I asked.

  “Sleeping,” Zed replied, as he cracked open the door. “She and Jamie are passed out on the couch. Anything else, you two?”

  “Tea,” Nairne and I said unanimously.

  Zed balked. “Okay, that was weird. What’s with the tea?”

  I sighed. “Tea is served in times of duress. If I have to be interrogated, at least there’ll be tea.”

  “Not coffee?” he offered. “I could make espresso.”

  Nairne and I shook our heads.

  Zed shrugged. “Suit yourselves. I’ll be back.”

  When the door snicked shut, Nairne peered at me curiously. “What’s going on between you two?”

  I focused on opening the puppy’s jaw so he’d release my wristwatch.

  “Elodie’s been odd lately,” Nairne continued. “A little distant. She’s only like that when she’s hiding something. Did you tell her what you’re going through, Lucas?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?” Nairne sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. Now was as good a time as any, I supposed.

  “I’m losing my sight. Quite steadily. I’ll be legally blind…in the near future. Totally blind within the decade, so says the ophthalmologist.”

  Nairne gaped at me. “Mother of God, Lucas, I don’t know what to say.”

  I glanced back at the house where Elodie was resting, safe and peaceful. “It’s a damn shame. Too bad, old boy. Rotten luck, mate. Any of those.”

  Nairne smiled at me wryly. “You know, I’m no stranger to the world of disability, right? You could have talked to me.”

  “I just don’t think of you like that. You’re independent, and busy, and capable, and—”

  “You don’t think of me as disabled?” she asked pointedly.

  I shrugged. “I suppose not. Not that I see dis
abled as pejorative, it’s just…blindness is terrifying, and to tell others was to accept its reality. I haven’t felt prepared to deal with it, let alone talk about it.”

  Nairne nodded. “So, what does this mean for you and Elodie, then? She’s living with you still, which she also won’t talk to me about except an enigmatic ‘It’s financially practical, Nairne. We get along well. For now, it works.’”

  I swallowed. I hated that explanation, that we were merely friends, albeit shagging each other’s brains out. Because we’d become so much more than that. I knew Elodie’s quirks, her schedule. I’d learned her body, how to please her and make her toes curl. How she liked her hair washed in the shower and how strong to make her coffee in the morning. I’d seen her mind’s agility and power in the office and at home…

  But then a car horn blared down the road, reminding me what my blindness had nearly cost Elodie. And my resolve settled deep in my heart.

  “I can’t do this to her,” I whispered.

  “Do what?”

  “Burden her with me, endanger her like I did.”

  Nairne sat up, bracing her hands between her knees. “What I’m about to say, you probably don’t want to hear, but I’m going to say it anyway, because thankfully I don’t give a rat’s arse whether or not I upset you.”

  “Way to sell it, dove.”

  She shrugged. “You’re stubborn. I’ve been where you are. And it took a blunt, equally hardheaded someone to talk sense into me, too.”

  Nairne sighed heavily as her eyes glazed over, like she was revisiting a memory. “The first time they set these bloody wheels in my hospital room, Lucas, I screamed at them to get out. I lost my absolute mind on everyone. Then I went on a two-day eating strike.”

  I gaped.

  “Yes,” Nairne said. “Ah, you assumed I was always this assimilated to my disabled life, that I didn’t go through fucking hell and grief to get there—is that it, Lucas?”

  “Perhaps,” I said quietly.

  “I’m going to tell you what the first person I listened to said to me: One minute at a time. But first, you’ve got to accept that it’s reality. You have to be present before you can even take the present a minute at a time. Otherwise, you’re living in the past. The past is dead. And if you stay there, you’ll die with it.”