by Mia Ford
“I erm, yeah, well I didn’t really travel for a good time, it was for business. I’m sure you know what happened.” At least he’s sticking to this safe topic of conversation, rather than talking about us. I don’t think that I would be able to handle that right now! “Dad wanted me to learn because I got kicked out of college.”
“Yeah.” I nod slowly. “I did hear about that, but not for a while. No one knew at first, it was a mystery.”
He smiles to himself, probably remembering the fast spreading gossip trail that college brought with it. “Yeah, I bet it lit everyone on fire for a while, didn’t it? None of them tried to ask me directly though.”
Oh… now it’s my turn to feel guilty because I’m one of them that didn’t think to ask. I got so wrapped up in my own issues – understandably so, considering what was going on with me – but it meant that I neglected him. I try to work out if he’s mad at me or not, but he doesn’t really seem to be so that’s good.
“Well, whatever you did during your time abroad, you must have done well because now you’re in charge of the company, right?” I give him a little nudge. “Am I right to assume that, or is that more gossip?”
“No, that’s right.” Thank goodness, now he looks proud. I much prefer that expression on his face than the guilty one. It brings out his incredible, handsome looks. “Not yet, I’m joint in charge with my dad at the moment, but he’s drawn up the contract to put me in control as soon as he retires. So, I will be soon.”
“That’s amazing, I’m so happy for you. I know that this is something you’ve always wanted.”
“And I can do it better now.” The more he talks about the business, the more animated he becomes. His passion shines through with his words. “I’ve seen how every aspect of it work so I know it inside and out. I have some amazing ideas too, I can’t wait to start implementing them. Of course, for now I’m just learning the ropes, but soon I’ll have much more power. For instance, when I was in London…”
“You were in London?” I interrupt him without thinking about it. “I didn’t know you went to Europe.”
I wonder if he remembers our conversation on that fateful night when I told him about my own desire to travel to London. Of course, that’s a pipe dream now, I have Logan to think about so I can’t galivant around the world at whim, I gave that right up when I made my decision, but it’s funny to think that at least one of us went to England, even if it wasn’t the right one of us! I don’t think I even mind, I’m kinda pleased.
“I did,” he replies bashfully. “And I went to see Buckingham Palace because I thought you would like it. I have some photographs to show you, if you would like? They’re in my bedroom but we can escape…”
Oh my God, an offer to go to his room alone. There’s still a part of me that wants to go, even though I know it will only end in trouble. I guess I still can’t quite let the fantasy go, however hard I try.
“Oh, maybe in a bit.” I try to blow him off gently. “I have to go and find my mom in a bit…”
This is the moment, I could bring up Logan right now and it would be pretty seamless too, but I don’t. Something stops me, it’s as if I have cork in my mouth, stopping anything from spilling out. I hate keeping such a huge part of my life from the guy who was once my very best friend, especially when it involves him directly, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t make myself tell the truth. I want to, I really do…
“Yeah okay, sure.” He shakes his head as a redness tinges his cheeks. I’ve accidently embarrassed him which upsets me a lot. I didn’t mean to do that! “Of course, later. This is a party after all.” The strangled laugh that he lets out only makes me feel even worse. “And it’s in my honor so I should be here. It was wrong of me to ask you, I wasn’t trying to…” His words trail off, he doesn’t know what to say. “So, what do you do?”
Urgh, that’s even worse. That’s a dreaded question that I really cannot answer. I purse my lips together thoughtfully as I attempt to work out the best way to word this. I’m going to have to say something…
“No, wait, let me guess.” I nod, only because it gives me more time to think. “You are a teacher?” I shake my head no. “A writer? A journalist? A blogger?” No, no, no. I wanted to be some of those things, I might still want to be some of those things but I can’t right now. “Okay, so you own a store? You publish books? You run poetry slams for angsty teens who need somewhere to vent? Oh, come on,” he laughs. “You’ve got to give me something here. It’s something that uses your college education, right? I know you, Lucie Smith, and you are the one person who will put her bad ass education to good use, no matter what…”
“No.” I need to put a stop to this before my real answer angers him. I still have no idea how he’s going to react, he’s being all nice now but that could flip over in a heart beat. “I don’t do anything with my qualification, actually, my life took a bit of a different path.” I suck in a deep, calming breath to prepare myself…
“Mommy!” All of a sudden, Logan rushes over and he jumps up into my arms, answering my question for me. I hold my darling son close to my chest, inhaling his scent for comfort as I peer over him to see Kade and his stunned reaction. He’s gone a funny shade of pale… “Mommy, I just had some chocolate.”
“Oh, you did, did you?” I see Kade open and close his mouth a couple of times, he’s shocked, so I need to focus on Logan while I give him a couple of moments to process all of this. It’s okay, it took me some time to process this all too. “And who gave you that? Was it Nanny because if so, she’s in trouble…?”
Logan laughs and shows me his chocolate stained teeth. “No, it was Mrs. Roberts.”
I dare another peek at Kade, I want to know if he’s put two and two together yet. To me, it’s acutely obvious, it’s like looking at two of the same face, but I can’t work out if he’s clocked or not. He’s blank, there isn’t anything there behind his gaze, it’s almost as if he’s switched off completely. I’m going to need some kind of reaction from him soon or I’ll start to seriously worry about him. This doesn’t seem normal.
“I… I have to go,” Kade eventually rasps, barely finding his voice. “I need to get another drink.” He gulps noisily. “And to help Mom with some stuff. You… you enjoy the party and I might catch up with you later.”
With that, he vanishes, abandoning me again. Logan scared him, and I don’t know if that’s because he figured out the truth or not, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. He’s gone, he didn’t even ask me any questions or want to know why. He knows I have a child, he’s aware that we had sex, and he’s vanished. I was right not to tell him, all the guilt and worry that I’ve felt over the years is gone. I made the right choice.
“Is everything alright?” Mom asks me, while resting her hand on my shoulder. “What happened?”
“I didn’t even get to tell him,” I whisper to her so Logan doesn’t pick anything up. “He just ran without even waiting to find out.” Angry tears prick my eyes. “I don’t think he has grown up after all.”
Mom embraces me and Logan, hugging us in all the love that we need. We’ve come this far without him, we can keep on moving forward. I don’t need him, nor does Logan. We have each other and we have my family. Now that I’ve seen what Kade’s reaction will be, I don’t see any point in rocking the boat.
“I don’t want to say too much longer,” I tell Mom. “We’ll just keep it a bit longer to be polite, but then I want to go.”
In a way, Kade’s reaction has freed me. I’ve waited for him for far too long, even without knowing it. But no more. Now I’m going to live my life for me and my son.
21
Kade
She’s married, I think sadly to myself as I race away before I embarrass myself. I’ve waited for her for all this time and she’s married with a kid. An older kid as well, one that must have come along not too long after me. I’m too emotional to work out exact dates right now, but she mustn’t have been out of college for long.
Tears prick my eyes as I move through the crowds, I feel heart broken, hurt, and angry too. I’m annoyed at myself for letting one little one night stand affect me in such a way. That was so foolish of me, I can’t believe it. I’m not that sort of person, I never have been. I let Lucie under my skin and I’ll never do it again.
I need to go back to my old ways, that’s the only way that this won’t kill me. If I go back to being the me who screws around without letting feelings get involved, then I’ll be fine. I never got hurt back then which just proves that it was the right way to live. I need to fuck Lucie right out of my system, starting with tonight. Screw being good for my parents’ sake, I’m going to get drunk and find someone to take back to my room. And certainly not to look at photographs of my travels abroad, but to actually have a good time.
I narrow my eyes and look them round the room, trying to find whoever it is that I’m looking for, but before anyone can capture my eye, a hard hand clamps down on my shoulder, making me jump.
“Oh, Dad,” I gasp, clutching my hand to my chest in sheer shock. “You scared me then.”
“You looked like you were doing some intense thinking there, Son. What’s going on?”
I consider making up some excuse, but I really don’t want to. I want to know more about what’s going on here, to figure out how much I’ve missed out on and the best way to do that is to just ask. Me and my dad are much closer these days anyway, so I’m sure that he’ll be very honest with me if I do.
“I just saw Lucie,” I reply quietly, trying to cover up my shame as I do. “And she has a kid with her. I didn’t know that she had a kid.” Dad doesn’t say anything, so I feel compelled to continue. “Is she married? Who’s the child’s father? Is it someone that I know?” I pray to God that it isn’t, I really don’t think that I’ll be able to hack it. Particularly if it’s someone from college, because that means I got it all wrong.
“No one know,” he tells me with a one shouldered shrug. “She just turned up with a baby and the father is a mystery. As far as I’m aware even her own parents don’t know who the dad is. I guess it’s just one of those things.” His words leave me numb, I really don’t know how to feel about any of this. “Maybe it’s some asshole who doesn’t want to know. We’ve all just grown accustomed to her as a single mom.”
A single mom. As I think about that concept my insides don’t feel quite so messy. I guess it wasn’t so much the child that scared the living day lights out of me as it was the idea that she had someone, I can’t help myself, there’s no way to stop myself from still wanting her, and now I realize that I’m free to do that. Well, sort of.
If I take Lucie on I will also have to take on her child. Is that something that I can do? I know that I’m more responsible, but am I that responsible? He doesn’t seem like a terrible child, for the two seconds that I saw him, and I already know that I might be willing to try for the woman I’m pretty sure that I’m in love with. Still. Maybe if we took things slowly, one step at a time, it wouldn’t be so bad. No one is asking me to be an instant father, that’s my own paranoia speaking out, nothing that’s real. For Lucie, would it be so bad?
Maybe that’s why she was so hesitant to spend some time alone with me, because she thought that I would freak out at the sight of a kid. Unfortunately for me, that’s exactly what I did. I immediately panicked and I ran. It probably reminded her of how I vanished just after we slept together. I’m an idiot.
If she’s a single mom, so not dating anyone, and I’m back and responsible now, then I think we can try. I don’t see any point in keeping away from her because I’m scared. She will always be this regret if I don’t go for it, she will always be a ‘what if’. I am only going to love once, so if I try and it doesn’t work out, then so be it. I won’t die, she’ll survive, and we can go our separate ways safe in the knowledge that we have to be apart. I don’t like thinking about what we could have been when we haven’t given it a shot.
“So, there hasn’t ever been a man around?” I confirm with my dad. “No father at all.”
“Lucie has stayed living with her parents, probably for help so she doesn’t have to raise that child completely by herself, and I honestly have not ever seen a man in her life. She’s giving it her all, focusing everything that she has on that boy.” He nods thoughtfully as he speaks. “She’s a good girl, that one. Whichever scum bag rat left her alone should be God damn ashamed of himself, don’t you think?”
I do think, I can’t believe anyone would do that to someone as wonderful as Lucie, but I’m glad too because it gives me a chance to be with her. I won’t say that aloud, for fear of sounding like an asshole to my dad, but I definitely think it. This mystery guy isn’t good enough for her anyway, he doesn’t deserve her, but maybe I can… I would like to think that I’m finally in a position where I can anyway.
“I might try and find her again,” I say in as innocent a tone as I can manage. “Talk to her about it.”
“You do that, Son,” Dad says smilingly. “I think that’s a very good idea.”
Then, he gives me a look which suggests that he can see right down into my soul and he notices my real intentions. If he can see that I love Lucie and that I want to be with her even if she does have a child, then he seems to like my train of thought. I know that he likes Lucie and I’m sure he doesn’t want to see her alone forever. He’s even prepared to have my possible raise a kid that belongs to some scum bag… maybe, I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, this is supposed to be a one step at a time kind of thing.
I leave Dad and I search through the house for Lucie but I can’t seem to find her. I begin to fear that my horrible reaction has scared her off and that she’s left already because of me. I freaked out, I didn’t expect to see her life progress in such a way, but I don’t want her to hate me for my shock. That would suck.
Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe this is that dreaded fate trying to tell me once more that I shouldn’t be pursuing Lucie. It keeps trying to push this message on me and I continually ignore it, but maybe that’s the wrong thing to do. Maybe it’s time to accept that it isn’t meant to be. Urgh, but I don’t want to hear that, I don’t want to believe it, I want to know that I can be with Lucie because she’s everything…
Then I see her. Just as the true panic is about to set in, I spot her talking to her son and she looks like a beaming light is shining upon her. She’s got this glow, a beautiful glittery thing surrounding her that draws me in every single time. Screw fate, this is where I want to be, this is who I want to be with. It’s a good job that she is still here because I was about to book it over to her house to find her, to make her mine.
As a mother, Lucie is even more gorgeous. It’s a strange thing really, a situation I never thought she would be in, especially not at this age, but it suits her. She’s a natural mother, she has a real maternal side to her. I stuff my hands in her pockets and I watch her for a little while longer before I go to speak to her.
For a moment, I imagine me and Lucie married with our own child. I see us living in a house together and being a real happy family. It’s a nice picture, one that I would love to make true if I can. It’s not as scary as I would think. At twenty five years old, I want what Brad has, I want to finally be whole.
I finally take a step closer to her with a giant smile on my face. Lucie seems to sense me and she flicks her gaze up to look at me and I can immediately see the fear in her eyes. She really does think that I’m an idiot for reacting so badly. I curse myself inside for not handling the shock any better.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her immediately. “I’m sorry for freaking out. It was just a bit of a shock.”
“Oh right.” She pushes herself into a standing position to face me. “Don’t worry, it was a shock when I found out as well.” She smiles and ruffles Logan’s hair. “But I’m used to it now.”
“You’ve done it alone, haven’t you?” She nods yes as a reply. “That’s very brave of you, I’m su
re it must be hard.” I don’t really know what I’m talking about, I haven’t been around kids. “You must be proud.”
For a brief second, she knots her eyebrows together, looking confused, but then her expression flattens out once more. “Oh well, I’ve had help from Mom and Dad, so it’s okay. It hasn’t been too hard.”
As if on cue, her mom then joins us. She gives me a bit of a strange look but I suppose that’s because she hasn’t seen me for a very long time. I probably look a lot different to what she remembers.
“Hey, Kade,” she says warmly. “I’ve just come to take little Logan here to bed. You must be tired, right?”
Logan’s face screws up and he looks like he’s about to scream with sheer horror. “No, I’m not!”
“Oh, but I think you are, champ. The party is about to end anyway.”
“Mommy, are you coming home?” Logan tugs at her dress. “To put me to bed?”
I suck in a breath and wait for her to panic as I wait for her to answer. She slowly shakes her head as she gives me a little look. It seems that we aren’t quite done here yet, which is good. I still have lots to say.
“No, Nanny will get you into bed, but I will be back soon. I promise you.”
I watch her say a sweet goodbye to her child, realizing all over again how much of a wonderful person that she is. I really do want that sweetness in my life, I love her more with each passing second. She has to be mine.
22
Lucie
What am I doing? I think to myself as a craziness overcomes me. Is this a good idea?
I guess if I want to have a second chance myself, if and when the truth comes out, then I owe him one too. Maybe that reaction was shock and now he wants to discuss Logan properly. Right now, I feel like if he doesn’t ask me if he’s Logan’s father then I won’t disclose the information at first. I’ll wait to see how he’s going to take it. I might feel like I know him, but five years is a long ass time, I’ve changed so he could have too. It could be for the better, but it could be for the worst. He might be horrible these days.
