by Debra Doxer
“What nursing home?” Lucas asks.
“It’s a place called Spring Valley. But I think you should really talk to Kyle about it if you want to see her.”
I nod at her, picturing the words written on the piece of notebook paper Lucas handed me in school that day. Somehow, I knew she was going to say that place. Before the words left her mouth, I knew.
Chloe smiles hesitantly and turns to go back to the dining room.
“There’s your link,” Lucas states.
I shake my head trying to process this. “She lied about so many things,” I mutter close to tears. “Why would my mother pretend not to have any family? They’ve all been here the whole time.”
“I don’t know,” he says softly.
I feel his arm come around me reassuringly.
“So now we have a link, but what does it mean?” I ask. “I need to see her. I want to see her anyway.” I turn my face up to his. “She looks so much like my mother. If she’d had the chance to grow old, this is probably how she’d look.”
His blue eyes reflect my stunned image back at me. “You should talk to your brother. Tell him you want to meet her,” he says.
I nod, feeling confused and betrayed by her all over again.
Lucas nuzzles his nose into my hair. “Have we stayed long enough?” he asks.
He’s back to himself again, and I decide not to question it as I take a shaky breath, feeling my body automatically responding to his closeness. I’m startled by the liberties he takes with me now, the way he touches me and stands so close to me. I’m not used to it and somehow even as it’s making me uneasy, I’m reveling in it. “We haven’t even eaten yet,” I say.
He sighs dramatically, but leads me toward the dining room. I don’t have much of an appetite, but the food looks really good. Linda can cook, and she obviously went to a lot trouble for Alec. I learn that Alec turned fifty-six yesterday, which makes him almost a decade older than my mother. She was only twenty when she married him and twenty-one when she had Kyle. She was so young when she started her family here and then walked away from it.
We end up staying until after Penelope and Alec blow out his number five and number six candles. Penelope puffs out her cheeks and funnels air through her rounded lips, clapping and screeching when the bright flames dissolve into tendrils of smoke. As the applause dies down, Linda jokes that she couldn’t find a cake big enough to hold fifty-six individual candles. After pieces of cake are passed around, Lucas and I say our goodnights and head out into the chilled darkness.
“I had a plan for tonight, but I’m calling an audible,” he states once we’re on the road.
“Okay,” I answer, peering out the window, smiling at his football-speak, wondering if this is some kind of test. My mom dated enough football fans that I inevitably absorbed some useless knowledge, although, it’s coming in handy now. “What was the original plan and what’s the new one?” I ask.
When he doesn’t answer right away, I turn to see his stunning smile. “What?” I ask, innocently.
“You know what calling an audible means,” he says, clearly impressed.
I chuckle, figuring I was right about the silly test. “You’re such a guy.”
He points at me. “Don’t you forget it.”
“So, those plans?” I ask, rolling my eyes. “Are you going to tell me about them?”
“No. I’m going to save my first plan as a surprise for another time. Tonight, I want to take you somewhere I like to go.”
“Where?”
“You’ll see.” He glances at me and his eyes shine in the darkness. A few miles later, Lucas turns onto a dirt road and comes to a stop behind a chain link fence. When I look out the windshield, I see a field with a baseball diamond. I give Lucas a curious glance.
“This is it,” he says. Then he reaches in back and grabs a blanket before getting out of the truck. I’m just stepping down onto the dirt when he comes around and takes my hand.
“This isn’t where your team plays, is it?” I ask. I thought the high school had its own baseball field.
Lucas laughs. “No. This is a little league field. This is where I played as a kid.”
I glance at the low bleachers behind first and third base and I try to picture Lucas as a child swinging a bat and running the bases. “What position did you play?”
“First base, then and now.”
“I didn’t get the feeling you were that into baseball,” I comment as he leads me down a small grassy hill.
“I love it. We just don’t have much of a team here. Hockey is a big deal at our school. Baseball isn’t even a close second.”
He directs me to the bleachers and once we’re both seated on the cool metal bench, he reaches around and settles the blanket on my shoulders. I still beneath it, wondering how many other girls have made use of this conveniently located backseat blanket. But the warmth settling in helps me to push those unfair and unwanted thoughts aside. “Won’t you be cold?” I ask as I pull the blanket around me and hunker down.
He seems surprised by my concern, but then his lips turn up. “I don’t have your thin west coast blood.”
“Hey,” I feign offense before offering a sincere thank you. Then I glance up at the canopy of stars twinkling overhead, and I’m drawn in by the quiet beauty of this place. “This is amazing. In the city, you never see stars like this,” I say, my voice quiet with reverence.
Lucas inches closer to me so that our shoulders and legs are touching. A shiver runs through me, and I’m hyper aware of every place his body meets mine.
“I owe you an apology,” he says.
I turn toward him and look into his eyes. I see the same intensity that always seems to be there, but tonight it’s tempered by a gentleness that surprises me. His gaze is filled with a tenderness I know he doesn’t display often, and I can’t help but wonder why it’s there for me. I wonder how I’ve earned it.
“When you asked me who those people were at the party, I shouldn’t have shut you down that way,” he continues.
“Apology accepted,” I say without hesitation. His sincerity is too obvious and the night is too beautiful to wreck it by holding a grudge.
He seems surprised. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” I tilt my head at him. “Am I so combative that you expect a fight on everything?”
He grins at me. “Basically, yeah.”
I lean further into him and laugh. “Shut up.”
His arm comes around my shoulder, and he pulls me against him. After sitting quietly this way for a moment, Lucas says, “Those people at the party know my parents.”
“From church, you said.”
“Yeah.” He lets out a deep breath.
I sit up again and angle toward him. “Just so you know, I doubt there’s anything you could say that would shock me or make me feel differently about you.”
He brushes his hand across my cheek. “I don’t talk about my family. People in town either know the story or they don’t, but no one ever hears it from me.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me, Lucas.” Despite his calm exterior, I see the struggle in his eyes. “I’m sorry if things are rough at home.”
He shrugs. “It’s fine, usually. But when people look at me the way they did tonight, I fucking hate it.”
His sudden disdain shocks me. “What way? I didn’t notice anything.”
He eyes me intently. “They see me standing beside you looking like I’ve got it all under control, but in their heads they’re calling bullshit because they know exactly where I come from.”
I lean back to study his face. “You don’t really think that, do you?”
He frowns at me.
“I’ve seen how fast gossip spreads here, but I haven’t heard a bad word about your family.”
“You wouldn’t,” he says. “You’re an outsider. Besides, your brother and his wife move in different circles. They wouldn’t know anything about my family either. But that’s p
robably about to change.”
I give him a serious look. “You know, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter to me, right?” I can’t help thinking that whatever the heck is going on with his family, it can’t be nearly as bad as mine. But still, I wish he’d trust me enough to tell me.
His answer is skeptical silence.
“Besides,” I say, wanting to lighten the mood, “it doesn’t seem to matter to any of the girls in school. Last time I checked, your stud status was still going strong.”
This elicits a sliver of a smile. “There’s only one girl in school I’m interested in.”
“Really? Who?”
His smile fades as he brings his face closer to mine. “You, Ray. Just you,” he whispers.
I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. “It seems like an obvious nickname,” I say, my voice quiet now, too. “But no one has ever called me Ray before. I kind of like it.”
His eyes travel over my face, stalling on my mouth, and my lips begins to tingle as though he’s actually kissing me. “You’re my ray of sunshine,” he says softly.
With that, I’m rendered speechless. I never would have guessed Lucas could do corny so well, but his words light me on fire. His expression changes as he registers my reaction, and I realize the way I’m feeling must be perfectly clear to him. His eyes turn liquid as he inches his lips closer to mine. I’m still wrapped within the blanket when I feel his arms tighten around me. My breath stutters in my chest as I anticipate the moment his lips will meet mine. When they finally do, their touch is feather soft, barely pressing against me. Our breath mingles as he kisses just the side of my mouth, very slowly before he brushes his lips across mine to land them on the other side where he places another soft kiss. I feel his hand move up over my shoulder and then to the back of my head. His fingers tangle in my hair as he uses his hand to bring my face closer to his. Then his lips slant over mine, applying more pressure now, and all the waiting and wondering is satisfied by the white hot realness of having his mouth firmly on mine.
I’m pressing myself against him now, slowly snaking my hands out of the blanket to reach out for him. When I wind my arms around his neck, his mouth opens, coaxing my lips to follow, and our tongues touch tentatively at first, before they begin a slow, intimate dance.
Lucas is all around me. His smell, his touch, his warmth consume me, and our surroundings blur and fade away. Everything seems to dissolve into darkness and all that exists is us, in this moment. I can say with absolute certainty that I’ve never kissed anyone this way before, with my whole heart, with everything that I am. Just as I realize this, I know my walls are down. If Lucas has any kind of an injury right now, I couldn’t prevent the energy from forming. In the back of my mind, I understand how dangerous that is, but mostly I’m just thankful that Lucas is one very healthy specimen of physical perfection.
His warm hand slides down around my shoulder, and he splays his long fingers across the top of my chest, just above my breasts. My heart continues to pump hard, and I wonder if he can feel it against his palm. He begins to slide his hand down, inside the blanket, and my fingers tighten around the curls at his neck. His tongue is still moving against mine as his hand sweeps across my breast. A shock ripples through me, and I surprise myself when I whimper into his mouth. This seems to trigger something within him, and he cups my breast fully as his thumb begins to circle my nipple through the fabric of my sweater. I arch into his hand craving more. There’s an aching need between my legs, and I squeeze my thighs together. My body knows what it wants even as my head is swirling in sensation with the nagging fear that I’m losing control of myself. My hand moves down Lucas’s chest until I find the bottom of his shirt. I inch it up and slide my fingers inside it. His stomach muscles jump as my fingers come in contact with his warm skin. I press my hand fully against the ridged muscles of his abdomen, enjoying the way he feels beneath my fingers, when he unexpectedly grabs my wrist to stop me.
Without warning, Lucas disentangles himself from me, gently setting me away from him. We’re both breathing hard, and he’s blinking at me as though he can’t bring me into focus. He mutters something I can’t understand before running a hand through his hair. “I needed to stop. That was getting…” he pauses and flashes a sexy grin at me even as he’s shaking his head.
The tension in me is slow to ease, and I close my eyes trying to will it away.
“Are you okay?” he asks tentatively. “I’m sorry if that was too…”
“It wasn’t,” I interrupt him, opening my eyes and taking in his concerned gaze and his disheveled hair. I should be embarrassed at my behavior, but I’m not. My only worry is that he stopped, that he has more self-control than I do.
He scrubs his hands over his face a few times. “It’s getting late,” he says.
I nod.
“I should get you back.”
Neither of us move. I let the blanket fall away. Suddenly, I’m far too warm inside it. Lucas takes my hand and leans his face down to mine. He kisses me again. This time it’s soft and tender, but he’s holding back now. Then he stands, pulling me up with him, and he wraps his arms around me. I lay my head on his shoulder as I embrace him, feeling the hard muscles of his back beneath my hands. I’ve never let myself feel this way about anyone before. It’s frightening and exhilarating at the same time. I tell myself that it’s because I’ve never met anyone like Lucas. On some level, I’m proud of myself. My inability to form connections has been pointed out to me by several social workers and teachers. If only they could see me now. Well, maybe not right now, I smile to myself.
Lucas releases me, and then he bends down to grab the blanket. My entire body still feels flushed as we walk hand in hand back to his truck. In the silence, my mind is already replaying the night over again, and I think back to how it started. I wish he would have told me about his family. I don’t understand what the big secret could be. But I haven’t told him everything about myself either. We’ve both kept our secrets tonight.
“Are you going to talk to Kyle about your grandmother?” he asks, once we’re back in the truck.
When he turns to look at me, my temperature shoots up even higher as I remember how his lips felt on mine. Then I realize he’s waiting for me to answer his question.
“What is it?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I answer, smiling to myself. I recall his question and another one that’s been nagging at me tonight. “If my grandmother is so senile, I’m wondering if somehow this janitor is taking advantage of her or something. There’s no question now that he’s the person I saw in San Diego. Or maybe Kyle met Rob Jarvis at the nursing home and sent him to San Diego to watch us. Kyle knew about us for a couple of years by then, and he had been trying to get custody of me. Maybe he hired him to gather evidence for his custody petition.”
“Maybe you can focus on the fact that you have a grandmother that you’re going meet for the first time and not worry about the rest right now.”
I take a deep breath and smile at him. “I know. It feels bittersweet because of what Chloe said about her probably not knowing who I am, but I am glad that I’ll get to see her. Are your grandparents still around?” I ask.
“Yeah. They’re all retired in Florida. We used to go visit them when I was kid. We went to Disney World together one year.
“Gee,” I laugh. “That sounds sickeningly normal, Lucas.”
His smiles wistfully as he watches the road. “It does, doesn’t it?”
When we arrive at Kyle’s house, I see that the outside lights have been left on for me, and there’s a soft glow in the living room window. “I’ll walk you to the door,” he says. “I want your brother to know I’m a gentleman.” He winks at me before getting out and coming around to my side. He opens the door and leads me up the walkway with a light touch to my lower back.
“I had a really nice time,” he says.
“Despite having to attend a family birthday party?” I ask.
“Any time I get to spend
with you is good, Ray.”
I can feel my cheeks flush. When he flashes his mischievous smile, I know he notices.
“Goodnight.” He pecks my pink cheek, and I understand it’s because we might have an audience.
“Night.” I step inside and wait until Lucas is back in his truck before closing the door. The house is quiet. I see no sign of anyone being awake. I turn off the lights and head downstairs to my room. My head is filled with thoughts of Lucas as I change for bed. I never thought I could feel so connected to someone in such a short time. It’s as though those empty places inside me that I just accepted as a part of who I am disappear when we’re together. I used to look down my nose at girls who gushed about their boyfriends and couldn’t stand to be apart from them. That would never be me, but maybe I can understand them a little better now.
I fall asleep with no goodnight text from Lucas for the first time this week. But he just left me, and a goodnight in person is so much better anyway.
“Did you have fun at the birthday party, Raielle?” Penelope asks.
“Sure. Did you?” I ask as I sit down on the living room couch behind her. She’s lying on the carpet, scribbling in a coloring book with her crayon.
She sits up to look at me. “I helped Papa blow out the candles. Did you see me?”
“I did. You did a great job.”
“I can help you blow out your candles at your birthday party, too,” she says.
“I would really appreciate the help. Thanks.”
“Raielle’s birthday isn’t until the summer, right?” Kyle says, entering the room.
“June,” I confirm. I’m glad to see him since he’s the person I was looking for when I came in here.
“My birthday is in October,” Penelope informs me.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask Kyle.
He nods. “Let’s go for a walk.”
