by Debra Doxer
“Raielle,” a hesitant voice calls my name from behind me, breaking the spell Lucas’s eyes have cast on me.
I turn to find myself eye-level with a narrow male chest. When I look up, I see a vaguely familiar face peering down at me anxiously. He’s on the basketball team here, I think. I recall seeing him in uniform once. A dark cowlick falls over his forehead, and he absently flips it back with a quick neck jerk. I know he’s in one of my classes but I can’t place him. “Hi,” I say.
He’s watching me closely when he realizes that I don’t know who he is. “I’m Aaron. We have Latin together.”
“Oh, right. Hey.” Beside me, I hear Lucas snicker.
“Well, um,” he glances down at the floor and then raises his eyes to me again. “I was wondering, since you broke up with Chad, if you don’t have another date yet, maybe you’d like to go to the prom with me?”
I stare up at him, and I’m too shocked to form a response.
Beside me, Lucas stiffens and takes a step forward. “You see me standing here. Right, Aaron?”
Lucas’s reaction has me wishing the floor would open up and swallow me.
Aaron appears confused by the question. “Yeah,” he says.
“Now see this.” Before I realize what he’s up to, Lucas leans into me, takes my face in his hands and kisses me fully on the lips. Then he releases me and turns back to Aaron with a smug grin.
Aaron’s shocked eyes travel from Lucas to me and then back to Lucas again. “Sorry, dude. I heard you were back with Sophie.”
“You heard wrong, dude.”
He shrugs at us. “I guess I got my wires crossed.”
I finally find my voice. “Thanks for asking me, Aaron. That was really sweet of you.” He nods and seems embarrassed. I watch him lumber away, and I feel badly. I turn to Lucas. “You didn’t have to show him up like that. I wasn’t going to say yes.”
Lucas spreads his arms out beside him with an incredulous look on his face. “I was standing right here and he asked you to the prom.” His arms drop, and he shakes his head. “That won’t fly, Ray. God knows how many other guys are planning to ask you. People need to know we’re together.”
“Other guys aren’t planning to ask me,” I scoff.
“Like hell they aren’t. But after today, they’ll know you’re not available.” He reaches his hand out for mine. “Let’s get to class.”
I hesitate, and he watches me patiently. Finally, I relent and place my hand in his. I’m worried that pretending not to be together will cause more trouble than our simply being open about it. Lucas heads down the hallway, bringing me with him. After a few steps, I think about what Aaron said. “What did he mean Chad and I broke up? Where did that come from? When were Chad and I dating? How did I miss that?”
Lucas grins at me. “I guess your lesbian story didn’t catch on.”
“I guess not. Lesbian rumor fail.”
Before lunch, Lucas tells me he needs to stop by the office. When I ask him why, he’s evasive, only saying, “I gotta take care of some stuff.” So, I walk to the cafeteria with Gwen, as usual.
“Now you’re back on again but he’s still taking Sophie to the prom?” she asks, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“He wanted to back out on her, but I told him not to.” We find our usual seats. Lisa and Tyler are already there.
“Why?”
I shrug and open my lunch bag. “It’s the right thing to do.”
“It’s the lame thing to do. He shouldn’t listen to you. He should dump her ass and take you.” Gwen pops open her soda and takes a sip.
“What’s this about?” Tyler asks.
“Lucas and Raielle are an item now. But Sophie asked Lucas to the prom before that monumental event occurred. So he’s going with his ex instead of her. It’s a total disaster.”
“That sucks,” Lisa says, glancing in the direction of Lucas’s usual table. I look over, too, and see that he’s not there, but Sophie is glaring at me. I quickly return my attention to my lunch.
“Speak of the devil,” Gwen whispers.
Lucas is heading for us with his lunch tray and Myles by his side. “Hey,” he says, putting his food down and sitting beside me. Myles sits in the empty seat across from him.
Gwen raises her eyebrows at their appearance at our table. “Trouble in paradise, boys?”
Lisa and Tyler look less shocked to be sitting with Lucas than they were the first time it occurred, but they’re still overly interested in their lunch items.
“Did you get your stuff taken care of?” I ask Lucas.
He ignores my question. “I got you a prom date,” he states.
“What?” Gwen and I both ask at the same time.
“It’s me,” Myles announces.
I swivel my head in his direction. “You?”
He nods and grins at me.
“That’s perfect,” Gwen cheers.
Lucas can see I’m about to protest. “You can’t miss the prom, Ray,” he says. “It’s not right. This way, we’ll both be there, and I’ll get to dance with you.”
“I don’t dance,” I say weakly, but I can’t help the thrill I feel knowing that Lucas has arranged this for me. Of course, he benefits, too. Once this gets around, he doesn’t have to worry about other guys asking me to go with them.
He shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t dance either, but I’m sure we can figure it out.” He winks.
Then I point out another problem. “I don’t have a dress.” That is a real problem. I get my first paycheck this week, but I wanted to save it, not blow it on a dress I’ll never wear again.
“We’ll go shopping this weekend,” Gwen says with way too much excitement.
Lucas is scrutinizing me, trying to figure out what I’m thinking. I suddenly get the feeling he wants to offer to pay for my dress. I turn away before he can say anything. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask Myles.
“I wouldn’t do it otherwise. I was actually kind of bummed about not going. Then Lucas came up with this idea, and I told him I was in. It’s a good solution.”
“Any girl you asked would have gone with you,” I say. I’ve noticed that he’s got plenty of female admirers even though he’s oblivious to it.
He shrugs. “But I wasn’t going to ask anyone.”
I can feel myself caving. Now that it’s a real option, I want to go. I’m actually a little bit excited. Bye-bye first paycheck, hello prom night. “Okay,” I say and Gwen squeals as she pulls me into a hug. Lucas grins at me, and I melt at the adorable way his eyes crinkle at the corners when his smile is genuine rather than sarcastic. “When is it again?” I ask.
Gwen rolls her eyes. “It’s next weekend, dork.”
My own eyes bulge at that. “What? So soon? But they just put the flyers up.”
“The date has been planned all year and I’m pretty sure the flyers have been up for a while,” she replies. Then she and Lisa start discussing getting a larger limo so that Myles and I can ride with them, but Myles prefers to drive, and I agree with him. I don’t want any further expenses for the evening.
The rest of the day proceeds uneventfully for me, but not so much for Lucas. In chemistry, I hear from Gwen that Sophie approached him in the hall and said something that made him go ballistic on her. She doesn’t know what that something was.
At the end of school, Lucas appears at my locker and drops his keys into my hand. “A driving lesson and a ride to work. It’s a two-fer,” he states, looking proud of his idea. Since I really like driving his truck, and it includes being with him, it’s an offer I can’t refuse.
I adore the interior of Lucas’s truck. It’s just so him with its soft bucket seats that seem to hug you when you sit in them. The clean spicy scent of him lingers inside making me think of the other night when he had me pinned to this very truck, and all I could feel and smell was Lucas. “Is Kyle picking you up after your shift?” he asks, making me blink back to the present and sharpen my concentration so I can back my favo
rite vehicle out of its parking space.
I nod.
He waits until I’m out of the lot and on the road before bringing up the next topic. “I think we should keep a call open again tonight.”
I shake my head in response. I’ve been turning the events of last night over in my head throughout the day, and I disagree. “I really don’t think I’m in any danger. Everything at home seems pretty normal. I’ve been wondering if we’re overreacting about Jarvis. For all we know he has a combative personality. I think we were jumping to conclusions last night. It’s possible he was there to find my mother and me and that’s all he did. My mom was no angel. It’s more likely what the police thought in the first place. She had a sordid past and it caught up with her.”
Lucas doesn’t respond. He keeps his eyes on the windshield.
“Besides,” I continue, taking the turn that will bring me downtown, “I’m only here for another couple of months. I just need to graduate, and then I’m moving back to California. Nothing is going to happen between now and then.”
“You heard from UCLA?” he asks.
“No. But every school I applied to is there. Either way, I’m going back. I turn eighteen in June and then I’ll be on my own.” I knew I only had a short time with Lucas before we would both be leaving, but saying it aloud causes a lump to form in my throat. I’ve spent my whole life leaving, but this time will be different. I know I should be protecting myself. I should be holding something back and not allowing Lucas to get to me the way he does, but the effort would be in vain. I can’t fight the unexplainable connection that exists between us. Even if I tried, Lucas wouldn’t stand for it. He’d be at my door calling bullshit in two seconds flat.
“June what?” he asks.
It’s takes a moment for the question to register. “June twentieth. When’s your birthday?” I ask as I pull up to the Scoops entrance.
“January twenty-second, which means I’m older and wiser than you.” Then he releases his seatbelt and steps out. A few seconds later, he’s at my door, pulling it open. When I get out, rather than walking toward Scoops, I turn to Lucas, wrap my arms around him, and hug him close to me. He stands motionless at first, surprised at my gesture. But he quickly adapts as his arms encircle me, and he holds me tightly to him. I’m thinking about how he arranged for me to attend my first prom, and how he took a punch from Jarvis for me. Then he stayed up with me on the phone all night because he was worried about me. He did all this despite what my grandmother did to his mother and all the issues he has going on at home with her. I don’t know what I did to deserve having him in my life. I do know that I don’t want to leave him. But that’s probably what will happen. We’ll leave each other because that’s how life is. I feel my eyes begin to water, and I take a deep breath, trying to control the tears before they fall.
“Hey, what’s this for?” he asks softly near my ear.
“Nothing,” I say. “Everything,” I whisper a moment later. Then I release him and take a step back hoping my bright eyes don’t give me away.
His blue gaze searches mine, trying to figure out what I’m thinking.
“I heard you blew up at Sophie today,” I toss out at him, hoping the comment will divert him from the flood of emotion still washing over me.
It works. The warmth in his eyes cools considerably.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s not worth repeating.” His hands go into his pockets now.
“She said something about me,” I state. When he schools his face into the neutral mask that I find so frustrating, I know I’m right, but I decide not to push it. If it was that bad, I don’t think I want to know. I might rethink my uncompromising policy for honoring commitments.
“Call me tonight. Before you go to sleep.” He plants a light kiss on my lips.
“I’ll call you, but no all night call. I need my sleep.” I can’t have him virtually in my room all night again.
“Why wouldn’t you sleep?” he asks with a mischievous smile.
I cross my arms and angle a look at him.
“I’ll think about it,” he shrugs before getting back into the truck, dismissing me before I can argue with him about it.
Once inside, I find my paycheck in the back room inside an envelope with my name written on it. I fold it neatly and slip it into my pocket wondering how much the average prom dress costs.
The first couple of hours are fairly quiet. I’m working with a girl named Sarah who goes to a high school in the next town over. She keeps warning me that Friday nights are crazy, but I don’t truly understand what she means until seven o’ clock rolls around. Then, out of nowhere, the place is suddenly mobbed and a half hour after that, a line begins to form out the door. No wonder Jacinda was so anxious to volunteer her shift to me.
The next couple of hours go by in a haze of activity. I’m still exhausted from a lack of sleep, and now my hands are numb with cold from scooping gallons of ice cream from the freezer displays all night, not to mention the sore muscles in my arm. Thank goodness Friday night is not my usual shift. By the time Kyle arrives, I’m ready to drop.
“You look wiped,” he comments.
My response is a weary grunt, and he laughs at me.
Once I’m in bed, I call Lucas. I’m too tired to do more than grunt at him, too. He says something about picking me up after work tomorrow and taking me out to dinner. I mumble something back about looking forward to it, and then I tell him I’m ending the call and that’s that. I’m relieved when he doesn’t argue with me, and I’m asleep seconds later.
When my phone rings, I pry my eyes open to find a beam of light, filled with dust particles streaming down from the window high up on the wall. I glance at the clock on the nightstand and realize it’s nearly ten in the morning. How did that happen so fast? My phone chimes again, and I grab for it.
“When are we going shopping?” Gwen asks.
I rub my eyes. “Good morning.”
She ignores my greeting. “There isn’t a lot of time to find a dress. Can you go this afternoon?”
“No, I’m working.”
“What about tomorrow?” she asks.
“I have a family barbecue to go to.”
I hear her breathe out in frustration. “What time are you out of work today?”
“Five, but, Lucas and I are going out.”
“Well, then I’ll pick you up in half an hour. Looks like we’ll have to get it done this morning.”
She hangs up before I can protest. I see a text that came in a few hours earlier from Lucas. Good morning.
I text back Good morning, and then I jump in the shower.
Once I’m dressed, I find Kyle in the kitchen. He has the refrigerator doors pulled open and he’s struggling with the grill at the bottom. “What are you doing?” I ask.
He startles and bangs his head on the open door.
“Oops. Sorry.” I cringe.
He sits back and looks up at me. “I’m trying to replace the filter on this thing, but it looks like I got the wrong one.”
“Where are Chloe and Penelope?” I can still smell the breakfast she cooked earlier.
“At another birthday party for one of Penelope’s school friends. What are you up to today?”
“I’m going with Gwen to buy a prom dress.”
He smiles at me. “Did Lucas ask you?”
“No. I’m going with Myles.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“As friends,” I add. “He and April are on the outs. So, we’re going as friends.”
He seems confused as he processes this. Then he stands and begins to pull his wallet out. “Do you need some money?”
I hold my hand up. “Nope. I got paid last night. I’m good.”
“You sure?” he asks.
“Thanks, but I’m sure.”
He nods at me then picks up the box the filter came in, t
urning it around in his hand, squinting at the writing on it.
“I have work today, and then I’m going out after. So, I’ll be home later,” I inform him.
“Where are you going and who are you going with?” he asks, still examining the filter.
I shrug. “I’m not sure where we’re going, but I’ll be with Lucas.” Then I watch his forehead wrinkle.
“Can I ask why you’re not going to the prom with Lucas?”
I hesitate. I wasn’t counting on having to explain this to Kyle. “Lucas is going with someone else.”
“You and he are still just friends?” he asks.
I shift from one foot to the other. “Well,” I hedge. “Maybe more now.”
He tilts his head at me. “But he’s going with someone else?” he asks confused.
“His ex-girlfriend asked him before he and I became more.” I fidget with the bottom of my sweater.
He surprises me when he shakes his head and laughs. “I’m so glad I’m not in high school anymore. Well, it’s nice that you’re going. And Myles is a good kid. You two will have fun.”
“I hope so,” I smile, relieved. Then I don’t plan to say it. Somehow it just slips out. “Lucas was telling me something about his mother.”
Kyle had been playing with a cap on the filter, but his fingers still.
“He said that his father brought her see our grandmother. He said she was rumored to have healing abilities. Did you know that?”
He puts down the filter and gives me his full attention. “I knew about it. She wasn’t able to help his mother though, was she?”
I shake my head wondering if he knows the half of it.
“You know,” he says, “this rumor goes back even before grandmother. It’s said that a member of every generation in our family has had the power to heal the sick. People said our mother had it.”
He’s watching me so intently now, I feel like squirming.
