by Larkin Rose
But no matter how much she reminded herself of that fact, her gut continued to knot every time she thought of Sellars fucking someone else. The image of her down on her knees, between someone else’s thighs, was more than Lacy could handle.
Mr. Reynolds strolled into the room like Lacy was an afterthought, just another meeting he was forced to endure from his calendar, dragging Lacy from her too-clear images.
“Lacy, so great to see you.” He gave her arm a squeeze. “I must say, I’m pleased that you’ve kept Sellars out of trouble and to the schedule. Very pleased, indeed.”
“Thank you, but I’ve actually come to tell you in person that you’ll have to find someone else to babysit.”
He tilted his head like he hadn’t understood. Probably because he wasn’t used to having someone turn him down. Maybe that trait ran in the family. “What about our agreement? For your cause.”
“Sellars doesn’t need a makeover, or a fundraising event, or photo ops cuddling cute little puppies.” Lacy squared her sights on him. “She needs you, Mr. Reynolds. Not the you that can pay away her troubles. Not the you that is large and in charge with his name all over this city. She needs you, the granddaddy.”
He furrowed his brow. “She’s always had me.”
“No, she’s had what you could buy her. She had all the ways your money could buy her out of mischief.” Lacy turned her gaze out the window.
“Isn’t that what family is supposed to do?”
Lacy turned back to him. His expression was genuine. He had no clue what he was doing wrong. “Give her a fucking hug, Mr. Reynolds. That’s what family does. They have each other’s back but won’t hesitate to kick ass if one misbehaves.” She lowered her voice. “I know you love her. Now show it without your checkbook.”
He gave her a tight nod. “I do. I love her very much. She makes it hard to show it sometimes.”
“Then just hug her.” Lacy took a step toward him. “That’s all she needs. And then you can scold her like any grandfather would do. Tell her you’re done with her shit and if she doesn’t shape up, you’ll ship her out and replace her with someone who deserves the spot. And mean it when you say it.”
A smile transformed on his face. “She’s special, that one. Always has been. Never one to follow the rules. Especially her parents. She broke my daughter’s heart when she left college. Broke it again when she announced she was going to be a race car driver.”
Lacy considered his words and found sadness in them. She had a sneaky suspicion that Sellars didn’t know she’d broken her family’s hearts. That she’d specifically hurt her mother. She also believed that Sellars’s mother had never have offered those words either. They were that kind of family. Where everyone kept their feelings to themselves.
And yes, Sellars was special. She had a special gift that would take her far on the track. Hopefully, she’d find out how special she could be in this life as well, and the worlds would combine and make her one hell of a race car challenger.
“It’s almost too late to reel her back in, Mr. Reynolds. Don’t waste time.”
“Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”
“No, sir. I can’t help her. But you can.”
“I’m disappointed, but I understand. Can I at least pay you for the time you’ve invested in Sellars?” He reached inside the front pocket of his jacket.
“Please. Keep your money. To be honest, I don’t want it tarnishing my life the way Sellars believes it’s tainted hers.”
He turned to look up at her with a startled expression. “She told you?”
The shocked look proved that Lacy was right. Sellars didn’t share that dirty little secret with others.
“Not everything, but it doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together. I don’t know the whole story. I don’t need to know all of it. But what I do know, she doesn’t need your money anymore. She needs you.”
He gave a timid smile and nodded. “Thank you, Lacy. For everything. But especially your thoughtful words.”
Lacy turned for the elevator.
“Wait. What about the photographer’s job? I truly meant that, Lacy. That offer stood apart from Sellars. It’s yours for the taking.”
Lacy didn’t need to think about the answer. She didn’t need to think about anything. Her mind had been made up since she walked away from that racetrack.
She pushed the down button and the doors slid open. With a quick breath, she stepped inside and turned to face him. “Give the job to Leonard Curshaw from the Wicked Truth. He’s a journalist and a photographer and could use a career change. He’s a stone cold heartless cunt who gets off on sick chaos. It has nothing to do with me being a woman and him being a man. It has to do with me having a heart and him being a raunchy prick. The job would be perfect for him.”
The doors slid shut and Lacy smiled. Freedom. Change. She could see it. And she was going to reach it. That dream photography job, back on the track where she used to feel the most freedom, wasn’t so dreamy after all. The dream job was nothing more than a nightmare.
She just wanted out of this building, out of this city, on a plane and headed home so she could start making those life-altering changes. To a home that was truly never home at all. It was simply a place she landed to bury her head in the sand.
No more. No more hiding. No more running.
She had people, helpless people, depending on her to get her shit together. To put the pieces together for their benefit.
That, she damn well would do.
It was time to orchestrate her next plan of action. One that she couldn’t back down from. One she would shove through all the red tape to accomplish.
She could do it if she’d stop being so prideful. If she asked for help, let someone assist, she could do this. Of that, she was certain.
With a little financial backing, she could do wonders.
Our World Through Their Eyes was going to breathe life one way or the other.
The time had come to make a difference in their lives. In her own.
In other words, she needed to practice what she preached.
She needed to shit or get off the pot.
* * *
Sellars tossed the shot of tequila back and rose from the stool to go introduce herself to the beauty still eye-fucking her from the end of the counter. She was actually more surprised that it had taken her much longer than it normally did to say hello and then head for a bedroom. Maybe it was the lingering hangover slowing her down.
She took several steps across the floor when she noticed a man feeding pigeons from a bench on the sidewalk.
She recognized him. Ralph? Yes. The homeless man Lacy seemed to adore. The man Lacy had fed at McDonald’s. The man Sellars had barely spoken to while he tucked a cheeseburger into his pocket like a squirrel hiding nuts, while Lacy conversed with him like she was catching up on life.
The need to get to the beauty near her, the one only feet away from her, was strong, but not nearly as strong as the need to go talk to the man outside was.
She tossed a twenty on the counter and stepped outside, hoping the possibility would still be available later. She truly needed sex.
Ralph looked up from his bent position, scanning her. Not out of curiosity. But out of fear.
He expected her to run him off. The thought made her sad. He was doing nothing wrong, yet she had no doubt he’d been run off of benches or corners or alleys many times for doing nothing more than feeding the hungry birds.
“Aren’t you Lacy’s friend? Ralph?” Sellars circled around to the front of the bench, hoping she didn’t startle him further.
His face lit up at the mention of Lacy’s name.
Sellars understood why. She lit up with the thoughts of her, too. Well, not in the last twenty-four hours. Shit. Even that was a lie. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Even when she was mad as hell at her harsh words, she’d wanted her.
Was Lacy the reason she hadn’t been able to push herself
off that stool sooner? Why she hadn’t already left with the woman on her arm? Of course not. Being so angry was the reason. This hangover looming over her head was the answer.
But Lacy was special. No one was beneath her. Not even a homeless man.
“Yes.” He smiled, but Sellars could still feel his worry.
So she sat down beside him so she wasn’t hovering above him and noticed the wedding band on his finger. “Are you married?”
He looked away and tossed more pieces of bread onto the sidewalk. “I was. I lost her. To cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
He tossed another chunk of bread and didn’t offer a response.
Sellars didn’t want the conversation to end when it really hadn’t had a chance to begin. Lacy had learned something through these people. Possibly this man. She wanted to know what that was. And how. “So how did you meet Lacy?”
A smile curved his lips again. “She was serving food at the soup kitchen.” He tossed out another piece of bread. “Lacy wasn’t like the others. Oh sure, they were polite while they fed us, but there was pity in their eyes.”
Sellars smiled. Lacy didn’t pity people. Not because she didn’t care. But because she wasn’t above them. Pity came from being better than someone. From having more than them. From knowing it.
No doubt, Lacy would treat a janitor with the exact same respect she would treat a CEO.
God, she loved that about her.
“Lacy not only served us food, she grabbed herself a plate and sat right down with us, like she was part of the family, like she was one of us. She even took off her shoes.” He chuckled, turned the bag up, and emptied the crumbs for the birds. “And she hugged every one of us like she loved us.”
Without knowing why, Sellars knew that hug was important. Not just to Ralph, but to all of them.
“That sounds like Lacy,” Sellars said. “What little I’ve learned about her.”
There was so much more she’d wanted to learn. So many more times she’d wanted to shut that mouth, to silence that tongue. Damn, how she wanted to silence that tongue. Again. And again.
He nodded and looked out over the city. “You can ask, if you want. It’s okay.”
“Ask you about what?” Sellars leaned up, suddenly aware that her entire attention was on this man while a free piece of ass was waiting for her inside the bar. A piece of ass she truly hadn’t been interested in.
When had that happened? Why had it happened, was the better question.
And she was perfectly okay with whatever the answer was. Being with Ralph here, with the answer to the deepest question of all, was all that mattered. All she cared about.
“How I got here. On these streets.” He turned clear eyes on her. “Everyone wants to know.”
Sellars hadn’t known she wanted to know until now. “So how did you get here, Ralph?”
He settled back against the seat and gave her a curious stare. “You remind me of myself, you know? In the bars. Pretty women in your line of sights. Never alone unless you want to be. I was like that. A long time ago. I liked the women. I liked being the center of someone’s attention. I think it made me feel wanted, important, alive. Does that sound like you?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, it sounded exactly like her. But not because she needed to feel those emotions, but because she couldn’t feel them. Hadn’t felt them in so damn long.
Until Lacy, that is. Those cries of passion, that sharp tongue slicing her down to size, correcting her and scolding her, made her realize how much she needed that attention.
“Yes.”
“I come to sit outside this bar to remind myself why I deserve to live on the streets.”
Sellars said nothing while he nodded toward the intersection.
“Right there, in that walkway, is where my life ended.”
“What happened?”
He was silent for many long seconds, so long that Sellars was worried he was going to leave her hanging without the ending.
“My wife was dying. Cancer was going to take the love of my life away from me. The person who got me. The person who made me stop seeing how pretty the women were.”
He drew in a breath. “She was always by my side. She loved me so much I didn’t think I could ever deserve that love. And there she was, dying. Leaving me. So I would come here to drink away my pathetic sorrow. To wallow in my tears. As if she wasn’t the one lying there in unbearable pain. As if she wasn’t terrified of dying.” He shifted on the seat but kept his gaze trained on the walkway light. “So I came here. Drank until I couldn’t walk, let alone drive. Met a pretty little thing that night. Flirty. Damn, she was flirty. And sexy couldn’t begin to describe her. So I fell for it. She was alive. My wife was dying.”
He glanced down at the pigeons who had come to the conclusion that he was out of food and wandered closer to the building.
When he finally looked up, his sights went directly to the intersection. “So we stumbled out here, on this sidewalk, and finally managed to get in the car parked by the crosswalk. I had a cool car. A tar black Firebird with a gold eagle across the hood. A guy car. Chick magnet, if you know what I mean.”
Sellars knew what he meant. She drove a car with the same personality. Hearing him say those words made her feel a little guilty, selfish, self-centered, to own it.
“She was my cruising through the city car. Pick up girls car. Then I met Abby. She loved it. She always made me take the top down so she could inhale the air. Couldn’t bring myself to part with it even after we got married.”
Sellars detected the catch in his voice but didn’t want to pat his back or say a word, afraid he would change his mind about the heart to heart.
“Right here, in front of this bar, that night, we made out in the back seat. I had sex with a woman and I didn’t even know her name. All because I was lonely. Because I was a coward. Because God was taking away the only thing I loved in this life. And when it was over, when we awkwardly put our clothes back on, I hated myself. I hated her. The guilt was like a soul eater. Sucking the life out of me. And I hated myself so bad I couldn’t get away from her fast enough.”
Sellars resisted the urge to reach out for his arm. Lacy would have. She would have curled up in this man’s lap and encouraged him to get it all out. But Sellars couldn’t. She didn’t know how to.
“As soon as she got out of the car, I floored it.” He pointed to the light that had a blue hand blinking and the timer displaying thirteen seconds left to cross. “And then, he was there. Running across the road. He came out of nowhere.”
Sellars could see the images clearly. She could see them because she’d lived them once before. Out of nowhere. The very thing to change your life forever had come out of nowhere. And then the life you loved so much, simply died.
“He died right there in the middle of that intersection. I went to jail. All night. Drunk. Puking. Hating myself. When the judge finally released me, after witnesses came to give their police reports, I broke every speed limit to get back to her. To beg her forgiveness. To never leave her side again until God decided it was time.” His words dropped off and a sob left his lips. “When I walked into my own house the next morning, my wife was dead.”
Another sob escaped, and Sellars finally reached out and squeezed his shoulder.
“She died all alone because of me. No one to kiss her cheek. No one to hold her hand. No one. No one. Because I was—because I am—a worthless coward who deserves to live on these streets until I take my last breath. I deserve to die out here all alone. Just like she did.”
Sellars gave another quick squeeze, feeling a little out of her element while feeling directly in it. “I’m so sorry.”
“I appreciate that. But I don’t deserve anyone’s pity. I did this to myself.”
Suddenly, Sellars was looking inside herself. She, too, was carrying a load very similar. Guilt. Regret. Feeling that she deserved all the bad things around her because those bad things had happened to someone else in
stead.
Hearing him say those words out loud, how much she disagreed with them, she understood exactly what Lacy was trying to tell her.
Bullshit. Everything she’d been doing was bullshit. She’d been lying to herself all along.
Lacy was right. Sellars was in her own way. Sabotaging her own success. Why? Because she didn’t think she deserved it? Because she didn’t want to lose the memories of Sarah?
How could she? Sarah would always be in her thoughts. She would always be a part of Sellars. Every race, every win, every award, she would share some of the glory with Sarah. Sarah and only Sarah had pushed Sellars to be exactly what she wanted to be.
And she’d done that. She’d left her family behind to go live her dream. She’d taken a chance that they would never speak to her again to go after her own life.
Yet she’d put up her own roadblocks to keep from reaching the goal.
Damn. Lacy might not have delivered her message in the most delicate way, but she’d delivered it nonetheless. Sellars got it now. She heard her.
“Yes, you did. You did a stupid, irresponsible thing.” Sellars said the words before she could change her mind. “But do you deserve a life sentence because of it?”
Ralph turned to look at her, and a smile creased the corner of his mouth. “You sound like Lacy.”
His words were a bigger compliment than he would ever know. “Tell me, if your wife didn’t have cancer, and you’d cheated on her, would she have forgiven you? Honestly.”
He looked away and shrugged. “I think so. Yes.”
“Then she forgave you a long time ago, and this punishment you cast on yourself, is only hurting her. If she’s as wonderful as you described her, she wouldn’t want to see you live with so much guilt.”
The urge to rush back to her apartment, grab her car, drive like a maniac, breaking every speed limit, slow drivers be damned, to get to Lacy, overwhelmed Sellars.
Lacy was right. She’d been right all along.
Sellars was her own worst enemy. She’d done this to herself, not caring who she hurt, to keep Sarah alive.
