"You're right," one of the cheerleaders said. "You'll be murdered."
Sicily let out a sigh of relief. They actually believed her with no questions asked. God, they are gullible, she thought. She said goodbye to all of them and left the creamery to look for Lucas. She saw him just leaning against the hood of her car. He was looking down at the asphalt, so he didn't notice her walking towards him. When he looked up she was already standing in front of him.
"What do you want?" he asked grimly, his lips forming a thin line.
He looked mad and why wouldn't he be? His pride had been stepped on, and she’d been really mean, hurting him. She’d talked about his parents' divorce, and worse, right in front of her friends. And she’d acted ignorant. His parents splitting up had really shattered his whole world. When she had mentioned this to her friends, she sounded like she didn't care at all. She’d acted heartless, and he couldn't believe he was starting to like her to the point of making jokes with her already and not at her. She was doing something to him, and he hated her effect on him.
"Why are you leaning on my car?" she asked, and only realized after she spoke up that she was still acting like and idiot.
"How do you expect me to get home?" he returned, answering her with a question.
"I'm sorry," she said, and then rolled her eyes. That took a lot of shame on her part.
"You rolled your eyes," he said as he hooked a finger under her chin to be able to lift her head up.
They were staring at each other innocently as if they were a pair of eight-year olds meeting their first crushes. Completely innocence and vulnerable. For once, they saw the true beauty of one another. Sicily saw Lucas as a helpless eighteen-year old. His grey eyes were full of emotion for once. She saw longing in him, and a desire to drop all the sarcasm and attitude that he hid behind.
He wanted to be loved and to be cared for. He was just beginning to realize that his parents wouldn't give that to him anymore. Lucas looked into Sicily’s dark-blue eyes and saw a quieter side to the cheerleader. It was that part of her that made her a good, trustworthy friend. He saw the listener in her for once. Then he looked down and focused on her lips. They were full, pink, and glittery with the gloss she used. He wanted to kiss her.
He slowly lowered his head and before Sicily realized what Lucas wanted to do, he had touched his lips to hers and moved into the kiss. He brought her closer to him, wrapping her waist with his arms.
Sicily opened to him with a sight. She felt his tongue piercing. And she smiled, savoring both the moment, and the sensations of the kiss.
He let go of her lips and started nibbling on her ear. In return, she trailed kisses down from his cheek to his neck. She stopped when she felt his cheek against her lips. They were wet with tears.
"Don't," she said firmly, stepping back.
"Don’t what?"
"You're doing this, kissing me, just so that you can forget about your parents," she returned. And that hurt, as if something had been thrust through her heart.
"No, that's not it," he said, backing up.
The truth was he wanted to kiss her because her lips were calling him and not because he didn't want to think of his parents. Her lips were irresistible, just like every part of her, just like the whole of her. He wanted to kiss her. She made him forget…and with that thought he knew that she’d been at least partially right. He felt disgusted with himself. He’d just used her without even realizing what he was doing.
"Do you like me?" she asked.
A simple yes or no would tell her everything she needed to know. All she wanted him to explain to her was the reason why he’d kissed her. She wanted to know whether or not he had feelings for her. She asked the question again.
"Do you like me?" she repeated. "I just need a yes or a no.”
Before he could even think of his answer, his pride came in the way. His mouth instinctively opened and a "hell no” was out of it.
Sicily stomped her foot and couldn't believe what she just heard. He said hell no even when a simple no would have sufficed.
"I get it. I get it," she said, feeling even more hurt. This was payback for what she’d done to him. Just a few minutes ago she’d dissed him to her friends, and then left them to give him an apology.
He’d kissed her, maybe to humiliate her in return. He was doing it again, making her like him one second and hate him the next.
"I di-" Before he could say anything else, she slapped his arm hard.
"Then don't kiss me next time!" she said and then got inside her car and drove off.
She’d left him stranded in the parking lot.
Her friends were still inside the creamery, but he wouldn't dare ask any of them for a ride home. He sighed. What should he have said to her? Yes? The problem was he didn’t know for sure. He knew he was attracted to her, but why would he want to get into a relationship where all they did was get on each others nerves? No way in hell did he want her to be his girlfriend. Did he?
"Lucas!" someone called out to him.
He turned around and watched Zane make his way towards him. The other man wore a look of uncertainty under his smirk. It took only a few long strides before they stood in front of each other.
"What do you want?" Lucas asked, masking the innocent and vulnerable part of him only Sicily could see.
"Where's Sicily?" Zane had actually seen the whole thing. He watched Lucas kiss Sicily, then saw her slap the man’s arm and drive off in a huff. It was a good thing his companions were so busy talking to each other, they hadn't noticed that their school's Queen was engaged in a lip-lock session with their rival school's King. That would have caused all kinds of exaggerated gossip which in turn would become the kind of drama Zane knew Sicily hated.
"She left," was Lucas' apathetic reply.
"After you kissed her?"
Lucas looked shock and for a moment there he felt scared. He started to worry. If Zane saw then there was a good chance that everyone else saw them. He groaned. "Did they…?" he asked, referring to Vanessa and company. "Did they see too?"
"Nah, they were too busy talking about themselves," was Zane's reply.
Lucas breathed a sigh of relief.
Their surroundings suddenly got very quiet. The only sound was the wind whistling through the palm trees. The two guys examined one another in silence.
"Do you need a ride home?" Zane asked Marina's alpha male.
Lucas looked at Zane with indifference. That of course, was his signature expression. Lucas never considered being nice just to make new friends. He had lots of friends and he didn’t think that Zane would add much to that equation.
Unlike his conversations with Sicily, nothing pulled at Lucas. He wasn’t driven to sacrifice his pride and look at her side of any issued. Lucas soon realized that Sicily was something special if she could do that – make him nicer just by being close to him. He sighed, which meant that he did like her.
"Are you off to la-la land now?" Zane asked when Lucas didn't reply, his voice sounding quite serious even though he was only teasing.
"No, I was just ignoring you," Lucas replied his tone still indifferent.
"But seriously, I can take you home."
Lucas didn't know if he should just go with Zane or try to call one of his friends. It was Friday night, so that was a really stupid idea, everyone would be out. He knew Zane and Sicily were close. And that they were just friends. But he didn’t understand why Zane would help him when Sicily had obviously been mad at Lucas when she’d left.
"Do I look helpless to you?" he returned, taking a step nearer to the other guy. Was he threatening my manliness? Lucas thought.
"You can't use one of your arms," Zane said in response. "Yes, you are helpless."
Lucas balled up his right fist and raised it up until it was leveled with Zane's jaw. Zane may be Sicily's best friend, but he wasn't one of her girl friends. He could punch him. He was a guy.
"You aren't really going to punch me are you?"
&nb
sp; "My fist is an inch away from that smirk on your face," Lucas said. "What does it look like I'm about to do?"
Zane grinned before he asked, "Punch me?"
Before Zane could raise his arms up in defense, Lucas let his fall to his side. He looked down and breathed a sigh. He seemed confused and instead of talking, Zane remained quiet. It was Lucas who broke the silence.
"Take me home, please," he said, resting his good hand over his injured arm.
"It took you long enough to make the right decision," Zane replied, smiling genuinely for the first time.
* * * * *
"This isn't the way to my house," Lucas said quietly.
"Who said I have to take you home first? We’re making a side trip," was Zane's reply. They were in Zane's truck, on the way to Sicily's place, although Lucas hadn’t figured that out yet. Zane was supposed to be at some party, but he didn’t really want to go without Sicily and he’d seen the heated exchange of words and the physicality of the kiss shared between Sicily and Lucas. What these two had going on was way more fun than any party. Hands down.
"Why? Can't you just drop me off first?"
"It's Sicily's responsibility to do that," Zane answered, looking at the road ahead of them.
"What the fuck? Then why did you offer me a ride home?"
Zane didn't reply and left Lucas hanging for an answer. In embarrassment, Marina's King simply closed his mouth before he looked out of his window and waited for the ride to be over. If the guy wanted to hurt Lucas or take him to some kind of an ambush there really wasn’t much he could do about it. Yes he could, he could use his cast as a weapon. That would be better than getting the shit beat out of him.
In a few minutes, Zane's car stopped and he parked in front of a very nice, huge and modern house. Whether he was already considered a member of the family or not and was just simply rude, Zane rang the doorbell only once before he opened the grand entrance door and headed right up to the second floor.
"What room are you looking for?" Lucas replied, following Zane.
"Sicily's," Zane replied, and simultaneously, opened a door which led them to the cheerleader's room.
Sicily's room was a boxed structure with the walls painted in a pink-and-orange striped pattern. There was a glass desk in one corner which held some textbooks and her Apple notebook, while the queen-sized bed took up the center of the room. There was a chest of drawers, and Lucas soon saw that Sicily had her own walk-in closet, one that looked like a department store. The bathroom, staying true to the luxurious characteristic of the mansion, had marble tiles, a glass sink, a Jacuzzi tub, and a separate shower.
Sicily Carmichael was really living the life, but she didn't look like it when the two guys saw her. She looked like she’d been crying. Lucas realized that her tears were his fault.
"I brought Lucas with me," Zane greeted, entering the room without an invitation.
Sicily didn't smile, not even at her best friend as she remained sitting Indian-style on her bed. "Why is he here?" she asked, her face red and her eyes slightly swollen.
"If it makes you feel better," Lucas said, displeased with the cold reception Zane and he were getting. "I didn’t have a choice either."
Sicily blinked her eyes rapidly before she wiped her face with her hands and put on a Cheshire Cat-like smile dripping with sarcasm and mockery. "You don't know how much that made my day," she said, her voice extremely plastic as well.
"Hate to lower your confidence, babe, but technically, it's not day anymore if it's eleven o'clock in the evening,” was the other's smart-ass reply.
Sicily grinned before she exhaled deeply. She didn't know what she was going to do, what she was supposed to do. She wasn't going to be all nice and friendly to Lucas anymore, especially after he used and kissed her, and then said such nasty things. She sighed. She had to admit to herself that he was a really good kisser, probably one of the best. She was sure he’d had lots of experience. "Oh, really?" she asked, feigning confusion. "I guess I mistook your ego for the sun."
"Hun, I know it's big."
"Yeah and sadly, it left nothing for your brain," Sicily replied.
Lucas grinned. Damn she was quick!
Zane had stayed quiet throughout the verbal war, listening intently to the two. He couldn't help but smirk at their exchange. If he were clueless about their history, he would have believed that this was a normal bickering couple that enjoyed the verbal sparring. Though they looked serious, Zane could tell that they really enjoyed their verbal sparring.
"You're one to talk smart," Lucas said, rolling his eyes now. "Who would mistake pride for the sun? One's abstract and the other isn't." he continued, looking at Sicily as if she were the dumbest being on the planet. "Duh."
Sicily just gave him the talk-to-hand gesture, and in return, the Alpha Male smirked at her. He knew he’d won this round. But before he could rejoice and do a victory dance, Sicily continued.
"Your ego's so big it solidified into matter."
"And how long did it take you to think of that one?"
"Just the same amount of time it takes for your brain to process a grade-one Math equation," Sicily returned, not giving up the fight.
Zane remained quiet throughout the duration of Sicily's and Lucas' conversation and was only given the chance to speak when they’d run out of insults.
"Are you guys done?" he asked, when the two worked hard to ignore each other.
Sicily and Lucas were, deep down in the bottommost part of their stomachs, enjoying the exchange they were having. It was entertaining, but neither one was going to admit they felt that way. Ignorance was the perfect solution to their never-ending banter.
"Yeah, and all that talk is making me hungry," Sicily said, rubbing her stomach for emphasis.
"How about we go down and raid the fridge? What do you guys think?" Zane asked as if he lived here.
Lucas simply shrugged his shoulders, while Sicily, on the other hand, grabbed her best friend by the wrist and led the way downstairs to the kitchen. When they got there, Zane and Sicily quickly opened the fridge, while Lucas leaned his back against the kitchen counter and waited patiently for the two to finish what they were doing.
"Let's just heat this," Sicily offered, removing a box of Pepperoni Pizza from the freezer.
"Perfect," Zane returned as he placed the food in the microwave for a few minutes.
"Zane," Lucas focused on Sicily’s friend.
"Yeah?"
"Do you plan to take me home?"
Sun Coast’s basketball captain only smiled sheepishly before he said, "No."
Lucas gritted his teeth and tried to think instead of just sticking up his middle finger at the guy. "Then what am I supposed to do?" he asked in disbelief. "Walk home?"
"No, just sleep over," Zane offered teasingly though both Sicily and Lucas knew he was being serious.
The three were just waiting for the pizza to finish heating up. It was difficult to make small talk when Lucas was so tired.
"No," Lucas said firmly. "I am not sharing a house with her." He pointed a finger at Sicily.
"Why? Getting home-sick, you big baby?" Sicily teased, putting on a pouting face.
"No. I'm afraid you're going to break another part of my body," he said as he grunted then looked away.
"Finally admitting that a girl can school you, huh?" she returned, smirking.
"You did prove it."
"Babe, that's one humbling experience on your part," she returned, congratulating him by patting his head.
"And fuck you for doing it," Lucas replied, his bottom lip sticking out.
He couldn't believe that instead of reasoning with Sicily, he actually agreed with her and just let it go. It didn’t but him like it used to. But it was more than that. He was becoming humble, and Lucas Mercer was never humble. Hell, no, fuck. She was doing that again, attracting him, making him think and feel.
"Since you've been good, I shall take you home, you big baby," Sicily said as she grabbe
d Lucas' hand and left Zane to finish the pizza.
Chapter 9: Places Where The Cool People Hang Out
Her phone rang and vibrated at eight o’clock the next morning, to Sicily’s annoyance, waking her out of a dead sleep. The repeated sound made her cringe and shout a profanity before she forced herself to stretch her arm out to reach her mobile and answer the call.
"What?" she asked, sounding pissed off as she held the phone up to her ear.
"It's me," a familiar voice answered.
Sicily, still buried beneath her cotton sheets and linen covers, was too sleepy to realize who it was for a minute. "Lucas, is this you?"
"Yes, it's me. I need you to come get me right now," he said. "Come to my house."
Sicily rolled her eyes which Lucas obviously couldn't see before she kicked the blanket off of her and stood up.
"No way," she returned. "It's fucking early."
"I'm not asking you to come here," he said in reply. "I'm telling you to."
Sicily let out a grunt and she swore she heard Lucas chuckle. She then stood up from her bed and went over to her walk-in closet to pick today's outfit.
"What if I don't want to?" she asked, browsing through the colorful selection.
"You have to," he answered and that in turn, made her grumble again. "Just bring a blanket and your swimsuit," he said and hung up.
She couldn’t ask why she needed to bring those things, as he wouldn’t answer her call when she tried. So she gathered them up and headed to his house. It was so early in the morning. Why did he need her there? How dependent could he get? She wondered before she went to her bathroom to take a quick shower and then slip on her floral-printed bikini, a green tank top and white shorts before she put on a pair of Roxy slippers.
Breaking the Arm, Healing the Heart Page 11
