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

by Chloe Liese

  “Well,” I said, “I don’t have the best parental relations. You have my empathy.”

  “Thank you.” Teo smiled, and goodness he was a handsome fellow. Obviously no one compared to Lucas, but Teo was objectively attractive. Shockingly strong as well—as in, little body fat, every-muscle-defined kind of strong. I hadn’t known ten-packs existed, but I’d definitely bumped into one upstairs.

  “Well, I’ve got to run.” I blew Nairne and Jamie a kiss. “Good to see you, Teo. Sorry about the…confusion.”

  “No worries. It seems to be our pattern.” Teo grinned knowingly, and I blushed a furious crimson. At the Thanksgiving feast last weekend at Nairne and Zed’s, Teo had barged in on Lucas and me, to my absolute mortification. Lucas had just dragged me into their downstairs loo, slammed the door shut, and fumbled halfheartedly for the lock, but clearly, he’d missed. While Lucas had me bent over the sink, driving into me, fingers swirling over my clit and quickly bringing me to the brink of a powerful orgasm, Teo had waltzed in whistling, already beginning to unbutton his trousers to take a piss.

  Nairne peered curiously between us, but I avoided answering her by blowing a kiss to her and Jamie once more and then waving goodbye to Teo over my shoulder, before I flew out the door and shut it quickly behind me. The air’s frigid nip cooled my burning cheeks. Then a cabbie came, whisking me back to the man who was always responsible for the fire inside me.

  Going out to lunch was a bad idea. I had to steer Lucas by the elbow twice, wincing as I did it because I knew it drove him mad, but it was that or let him plow into two poor souls, and at six-four and sixteen stone, he’d flatten them. Exiting the restaurant went better because he followed directly in my wake, but getting back to the office wasn’t so smooth. When he pulled in front of Farthington and exited the cabbie, he caught his toe on the curb and lurched into my arms.

  That moment nearly made me cry. Not because I pitied Lucas for his vision loss, but because of how dejected he looked as he straightened and quietly asked if I was okay. He’d nearly fallen and knocked his skull, and he was worried about me.

  The rest of the day passed sullenly. Both of us absorbed in work, we stayed until nearly eight o’clock and caught a cab home. Lucas couldn’t drive at night—actually, I wasn’t sure he could drive at all—and I made him crazy with my driving.

  We ate takeaway, bleary-eyed and exhausted, and when I’d scraped the plates and thrown them in the dishwasher, I told Lucas I simply had to shower off, then head to bed.

  He was in the middle of making himself a stiff gin and tonic and didn’t pause his mixology as he spoke. “All right, darling, I’ll be up soon.”

  Rinsed off and tucked into bed, I began the semblance of prayer I’d taken up since I’d lost the baby. It wasn’t anything formulaic or deeply spiritual; I simply tried to think about something I was grateful for, something I needed to work on, and something that inspired me. It was meditative more than anything, but sometimes as I did it, I felt that amid the vast chaos, there was some ordering redemption, a substantiation of love even in the heartache.

  I hadn’t believed in anything like that until I’d known that kind of love myself. Love that burst like a new bud from the soil of life’s pain. The man responsible for such a revelation walked into the room and made my heart thrum.

  “Hello, handsome.”

  He smiled faintly. “Good evening, my love.”

  His hands drifted methodically down his shirt, buttons popping open quietly, one by one. Then he shucked his trousers too and left me with a long stretch of muscular, beautiful man. He disappeared briefly in the bathroom, then came back, looking even more tired.

  I turned on my side, facing Lucas as he lifted the covers and slid into our large bed, his tall form filling it significantly. His powerful leg hooked over mine and an insistent muscled arm reached around me and dragged me flush up against his warm chest.

  Soft kisses trailed along my neck, and a hand settled on my chest, palming my breast. “What were you muttering about before I came in?”

  “Just my little prayers or…whatever they are.”

  “Ah.” He kissed my cheek, then breathed deeply as he buried his nose in my hair. “You’re beautiful in this light. All soft, warm curves and those chestnut curls.”

  I pulled my head back to be able to see him. As he was more likely to do lately, Lucas frowned before lifting a hand to shift me so I was in his vision field. I was rewarded with a wide genuine smile.

  Moments like these were difficult. Lucas was grappling with an impending, shattering loss. His vision was what let him feast on the beauty of the world, and I was his favorite subject. Now when he looked at me, I was the reminder of what he’d one day not have—the ability to ravish me with his eyes, to describe how light touched my hair, how shadow kissed my curves. I nearly drowned in the sadness of it sometimes, and I wasn’t the one losing my sight.

  Lucas rolled his eyes. “You’ve that look on your face.” He shook his head as his fingers slipped softly through my curls. “Too damn close to pity.”

  I stopped his hand in my hair and brought it between mine. “I have never, nor will I ever, pity you, Lucas.” His sharp eyes perused me, and I saw his unease. I kissed the calloused pad of his palm and breathed him in. “Just sad.”

  The palm I’d been kissing turned and stilled my jaw. “What for?”

  “You’re hurting. You’re grieving. And I love you. I think I’m grieving for your grief?” I slid my hands along his chest, over the scant blond hairs dusting his hard chest. Beneath my palm, his heart beat, firm and steady. “I want to help; I want to understand. I’m afraid if I don’t, we’ll lose each other.”

  When I touched his cheek, Lucas flinched. I kept forgetting that his peripheral vision was the worst. He’d had no idea my hand was coming. He kissed my palm to tell me all was well.

  “Does any of that make sense?” I asked.

  He rolled tiredly onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “Yes…”

  I nestled against his body and wrapped my arm around his waist, bumping along the defined ridges of his stomach. “It sounds like you want to say something else.”

  His head shook on the pillow. “This darkness that narrows in, the distance it creates between us…I don’t always know how to breach the gap.” He turned his head my way, and the severity of his features halted my breath. “I don’t know how to take defeat lying down, I never have. But now I’ve got you, and perhaps one day, we’ll have another little one. I’ve got to figure out how to brace for the blow I can’t avoid, take it like a man, and pick myself up afterward so I can get on with life.”

  I slid my hand up his torso, up the column of his throat toward his face, so this time he’d feel my hand coming for its familiar touch along the scruff of his jaw. My other hand interlaced his and squeezed tight. “Sometimes we need another’s hand to stand us up and keep us steady.”

  He grimaced as his eyes searched mine. “I’m sorry, Elodie,” he whispered as he kissed my hair.

  “Why should you be sorry, Lucas?”

  “For all of it, darling.” He sighed, his fingers tracing my collarbone, drifting down to the swell of my breasts. “For making you suffer along with me, for burdening you with worry, for doubting…” His voice drifted off as he swallowed. “It’s so bloody complicated.”

  I nodded. “Complicated, yes. But we take it—”

  “One minute at a time. Yes, I know,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes.

  His tone was sharp, and it was hard not to feel wounded by it. “I don’t say that condescendingly, Lucas. It’s something I tell myself as much as you—”

  “You’re not going blind, Elodie,” he snapped. Lucas sat up, the sheets drifting down to pool in his lap. His smooth skin stretched over strong muscle and broad bone, the form of a powerful athlete, a beautiful man, glowing in the soft lights from our bedside lamps. “You don’t look at me and wonder if this is the last day all my features will fit into your narrowing view. Your mis
takes don’t include bodily collisions and missed steps.”

  I swallowed tears, reaching my hand to soothe his back, but before I was there, he arched away, avoiding a touch of love he couldn’t bear. “I’m going for a run.”

  “Lucas—”

  “On the fucking treadmill. Don’t worry. I’m not so stupid as to attempt a jaunt outside,” he mumbled, drawing up his shorts and walking out of the room. He clipped his shoulder against the doorjamb and steadied himself, long fingers gripping the frame so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “Go to bed, Elodie, please.” And with that he flipped off the switch for our bedside lamps and left. The door clicked shut, bathing me in darkness but for the small nightlights plugged in around the room.

  Shakily, I dropped back in bed, tugging the sheets to my chin. His words hurt, but I knew why he’d lashed out. People who hurt, hurt people. Lying on my back, the familiar feeling of resignation to biting words and cold shoulders, slamming doors and ringing silence, made me realize that perhaps Nairne’s concern had been a little more on the nose than I’d wanted to admit. Was my behavior enabling Lucas to live like this? Was I aiding him in avoiding the very steps he had to take to live a fulfilling life? Sending him deeper into a spiral of despair?

  I knew Lucas could learn to once again live a peaceful, fulfilled life. Because Lucas had made such a way for me. His unrelenting belief in me, his rational insight into how hard I was on myself, the love he’d lavished on me for exactly who I was, had created a place in which I could love and value myself as I never had before. Our love had transformed my life. Could it transform his too?

  Lucas’s heart was breaking. His life was being upended as he contemplated the remainder of his existence in a world of darkness he’d never anticipated belonging to. Didn’t that require my utmost patience and understanding? My unwavering presence?

  It was hard for me to know if I was exactly where I needed to be or losing sight of healthy boundaries. I was well-practiced at being an emotional doormat, and when he was in his worst moments, Lucas was an indomitable force that could trample right over me. It wasn’t unfamiliar territory though; I could handle it. I’d dealt with that for over a decade from my parents—sharp tone, conditional affection, months of absence. I thought I’d been balancing empathy for Lucas alongside my own psychological and emotional well-being, but what if I wasn’t? What if I was just used to this kind of toxicity? And if that were the case, where the hell did we go from here?

  I scooted toward his side of the bed that smelled woodsy and male, still warm from the brief presence of his large, hot-blooded body.

  This wasn’t our end, not if I have anything to say about it. I threw back the sheets, set on getting out of bed and going after Lucas, when the large digital clock with its heinous red light showed me how late it was. I was exhausted from the day, now even wearier from our emotional exchange. Was rowing at half past midnight wise? Would any good come of two sleep-deprived, emotionally drained people rehashing the same conversation we’d had countless times?

  No, tomorrow was the most sensible, even if it weighed heavy on me to fall sleep with such distance between us.

  I heard the rhythmic pounding of Lucas’s feet on the treadmill—fast and steady. It lulled me, making my eyes heavy. Until my ears, their sensation heightened by the darkness, caught the rare din of a man crying. Each sob burst out strained, as if he’d fought and barely lost to each one as it escaped.

  Buried under the sheets, I clasped my arms round my aching chest, tears falling as I joined him.

  Twenty-Five

  Lucas

  Sweet God in heaven, that was worse than the dentist. Far, far worse. Psychotherapy: where the whole point is to do the one thing English boys are raised explicitly not to do—feel their feelings and bloody talk about them. But I knew I had to. I’d been an absolute bastard to Elodie the night before.

  It had been an exhausting day for us both. First my nightmare attempt at navigating a restaurant with my piss-poor peripheral vision. Then we’d been at Farthington until nearly eight o’clock, thanks to Gorgon, who was a massive boon for our business but also a massive pain in my arse. Most of them young, arrogant, and completely ignorant of financial regulations and processes, they’d pushed back on our numbers, and because I wanted to build a long-term relationship with them, I was set on kissing their tight arses at the outset. So, I’d agreed to a few tweaks that I refused to put on anyone under me. Meaning it all fell on my lap, and Elodie’s, since she refused to let me bear it alone.

  Thank God for her, because I was being an idiot, and hadn’t capitulated yet to voice-dictated work in our programming software. Also in thanks to my narrowing vision, I couldn’t keep my focus on the whole string of the formula to make sense of it, but I was so familiar with touch-typing that I’d made it work for the most part.

  Thing is, when you’re writing complex formulas, one slip of the finger that you don’t catch and you’re royally fucked. Elodie had to comb through my code, troubleshoot it like the math genius that she was, and fix it. It just sucked the life right out of us, though, and we’d come home spent.

  So, when I’d fallen into bed and repeatedly struggled to keep her in my whole sight view, as she gestured with those long fingers and bounced her beautiful head while she talked about feelings and pacing myself, as my eyes burned from all the straining of the day, I just wanted it to be bloody easy, like it used to be. In that moment, I resented her for showing me what I knew one day I wouldn’t have—what already, I was losing.

  If I’d just stumbled home alone that night, fallen into bed clothed and oblivious to the darkness, I wouldn’t have had to grapple with dying light, with the grief that lanced my heart every time I couldn’t see Elodie’s whole expressive face in my eyesight.

  Night was my nemesis. It was as if nature were taunting me, saying, here’s what’s coming for you, poor bloke. Rather than tell Elodie what I’d needed or be honest about how difficult the day had been, I’d bottled it up until I couldn’t take it anymore, snapping at her and exhausting myself on the treadmill until I nearly tripped and smashed my face. When I finally dropped into bed, I’d slept like the dead, not in peace, but out of sheer bone-weariness.

  When I woke up, she was gone. Somehow, I’d slept late, cumulative exhaustion of vision loss and the stress of it all probably catching up with me. When I woke in a panic, I saw a note left in her large, legible handwriting, telling me she’d cleared my morning and that a car was waiting outside the house to take me whenever I was ready to come in.

  I’d taken her up on the car, but the office could hang. I needed to deal with my shit. Which led to the therapy session I’d just left. Jo’s wife, who was a psychotherapist, had highly recommended the fellow, and he wasn’t half bad, for being a nebby little thing. My only complaint was that he was brutally persistent. Question after question about how I was handling my impending sight loss—badly; if I planned to go to some training place to learn how to be blind—I did not; and how it was affecting my relationships—poorly.

  He sighed often as he scribbled and rubbed his forehead about as much as I did when I was stuck brainstorming with Pierce and Harry, which I reckoned meant that I was a particularly troublesome client. I imagined my folder gilded with that little yellow tab Kai said is code for difficult patient.

  When I got to the office, Elodie was nowhere in sight.

  “Regina, where’s Elodie?” I set my hands on her desk and stared her down. Since Elodie had helped her find her way in the job and get much more confident overall, Regina held fealty to one person and one person only now. She’d lie for her, if Elodie had asked.

  “Ms. Bertrand?” she asked squeakily. “Erm, she’s…well, she’s out.”

  “Where, Regina.” I wasn’t above using my intimidating voice and a direct stare into her eyes.

  Regina shrank slightly but held strong. “Truthfully, sir, I don’t know. She said she wasn’t going to tell me because you’d try to badger it o
ut of me, and that I can’t lie to save my life.”

  I sighed, stomped off to my office, and missed her the rest of the day.

  When I got home it was quite dark in the place but for a small light in the kitchen over the range.

  “Elodie?”

  I let my hands slide along the wall to anchor me in the profound darkness. Thankfully she’d become much less of a mess-maker and kept the place tidy, so I wasn’t as likely to trip. When I flipped on the switch in the kitchen, I nearly shat my trousers because Father was sitting there, frowning at me.

  “Christ, Dad!” I gasped for a breath, my heart pounding. “I’d prefer to die of a bloody heart attack in my old age, cursing at the telly during a United match, not in my kitchen while still in my prime.”

  “Then, you’d better start making some changes around here,” he grumbled, standing up and pulling me into a firm hug. “This place is hardly hospitable to a man who can’t see his father sitting in dim light.”

  I groaned and dropped my stuff. “Yes, very funny, poke fun at the poor-sighted fellow.”

  “You’re not poor-sighted, Lucas. You’re going blind.”

  I coughed, the blunt force of his words hitting me like a blow to the sternum. “Yes, thanks, Dad. Lay it on me harder.” I shrugged out of my jacket and ripped off my tie, glaring at him. “And I wondered where Kai got his horrific bedside manner.”

  “Enough, Lucas.”

  His voice was sharp, so unlike him. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to me that way. “Where the fuck do you come off, Dad? You scare the piss out of me, waiting in stealth to surprise me in my own kitchen, you throw blindness in my face, now you’ve the audacity to snap at me like I’m some petulant boy—”

  “I wouldn’t talk to you this way if you were acting your bloody age, mate.”

  I slammed my hands on the table, bent over, trying to breathe steadily. It was like he was trying to provoke me.