There's so much I want to say. So much I wish I could tell him. I almost do. Almost. But then he squeezes my hand, looks at me the way Kathy did when I told her about my mom, and I can’t do that to him. The truth would destroy him.
I wipe my eyes, try to settle my emotions, give him a small part of the reason why I’ve been sitting in his driveway the entire night. “When Luke goes to UNC in August, will you need help with the boys? Maybe I could move into the apartment and—”
“Are you asking for a job?”
“I don't have any plans after graduation. I just thought, if you need it…”
He leans back in his chair, rubs his beard. “Luke mentioned something about you getting scholarships.”
“Cooper was my link to all that so…” I trail off, shrug.
“Have you and Lucas spoken about what you both want to happen when he goes to college?”
I drop my gaze, feel the warmth of the mug seep through my palms, my fingertips. “I don’t expect Luke to—” The front door opens, cutting me off.
Luke rushes into the kitchen, his eyes wide when he sees me. “I saw your car in the driveway,” he says. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m fine.”
Tom stands, kisses the top of my head. “Talk to him, sweetheart.”
“Talk to me about what?”
Luke leans on the kitchen counter in his apartment while I sit on the stool on the other side. For the past ten minutes, he’s been patiently watching me stare at my coffee, waiting for me to form my thoughts into words, but nothing’s coming and I need time, Lucas. “You should go for your run.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because my girlfriend’s at my house and she didn’t even tell me she was here. Instead, she’s talking to my dad and telling him things she should be telling me, and it’s clear she’s been crying. So no, babe, I’m not going for a run. I’m not leaving your side.”
The truth forms on the tip of my tongue, but my fear pushes it away. “I was just asking him about a job.”
“A job?”
I nod.
“Lane, I don’t need that money. My mom left me some for when I turned eighteen and—”
“It’s not about the money.”
He’s silent a moment. Then: “Have you even slept?”
“No.”
He sighs. “Can you please look at me?”
I swallow, thick, and work up the courage to face him.
“Is it about us? Are you not happy with us?”
The desperation in his voice shatters me. “No. I’m happy.” I hate this. “So happy. But I think that’s part of the problem. That happiness can’t last forever.”
“You’re not even letting it begin.”
“In a couple months, you’ll be gone. And I don’t expect you to stay with me when you leave.”
His hand slams on the counter. “What the fuck, Lane!” he shouts, his voice echoing off the walls. “It’s like you’re trying to find reasons to end this! If you don’t want me, just say that!”
I jump in my seat, cover my ears. “Don’t yell at me!”
He’s quick to get to me, his arms around my head. “I’m sorry,” he says, stroking my hair. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that.”
I grasp onto his shirt, sob into his chest. “I don't know what I'm doing, Luke,” I cry, looking up at him. “You have so much going for you and you're so determined, and your goals and dreams are this close to becoming real, and I'm so lost.”
“Laney…” he whispers.
I push him away. “And you’re going to college and going to live this amazing life and I’ll be here, doing nothing.”
LUCAS
Those eyes give me everything. You could line up a thousand pairs of eyes, and I’d be able to tell you which were Laney’s. I could even tell you exactly what she’s feeling when I’m looking into them. If she’s turned on, angry, confused, elated, lying.
There’s more to what she’s telling me, I know that much. But after seeing her reaction when I yelled, I don’t want to push her. I want to heal her. And so I take her hand, lead her to the couch. “What did Dad tell you when you told him all this?”
She wipes her cheeks, looks down at her lap. “He told me to speak to you.”
“He’s a smart man,” I say.
She sniffs once.
“When my parents graduated from UNC, Dad didn't know what he wanted to do. He just knew he wanted to marry my mom. So they got married, and he got a job working construction and for the first couple years, they saved every penny they could. They bought their first property when they were twenty-four. It was this shitty, tiny apartment just outside Raleigh. But they took the knowledge he'd learned through work, fixed it up, and by the time they were twenty-five, they’d flipped their first property, turned a profit. My parents took that profit, did it again and again. Then mom got pregnant with Luce.”
Her smile is a slow build, a beautiful image.
“Eventually, they settled into a house—not this one, but it was bigger than the apartments they were flipping. My mom came from money, and my grandfather was the one who invested in Preston Construction after I was born. They moved here, got a fresh start.”
She nods, those eyes confused. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because for years, it’s been something I’ve wanted to do.”
“Okay?”
I shift her until she's sitting sideways on my lap, and I keep her close, stroke her leg. “Lane, Dad and I found this well-priced, two-bedroom apartment that's falling apart. It's in Chapel Hill, just outside UNC. My dad's in negotiations with the sellers, and if we get it, I want to spend the summer fixing it up, and I want us both to live there.”
Now those eyes are wide, surprised and elated. “Are you serious?”
“I know that you might be confused about what you’re going to do next year, but I’m not. When I say that I’ve been thinking about this for years, I mean all of it, babe. Ever since you said you wanted to go to UNC, I’ve been planning this. Even if we weren’t together, I still wanted us to be together.” I remove her glasses, wipe her tears with my thumb. “You've been such a huge part of my life, and I didn't want college to change that. I know that might sound selfish, and it is, but I didn't want to let you go. And now… I hate sleeping in a bed without you in it. I hate waking up and not having you next to me. I'm in this, Lane, and I’m crazy in love with you.”
Her mouth meets mine, her lips salty with her tears. “I love you so much, Luke.”
“So quit questioning it. Let’s just be in love.”
“Okay,” she whispers, a smile tugging on her lips. She stands up, takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom. She closes the door behind us, making the room as dark as it is outside. Her hand skims my arm, over my shoulder, until she’s pulling me down by my neck, her lips finding mine in the darkness. I savor her touch, her kiss, and then she’s moving again, until I’m lying on the bed and she’s on top of me, straddling my hips, and I know what she wants, I want it just as bad. She removes my t-shirt, kisses down my neck to my collarbone. “This is my favorite part of you,” she says. “Whenever you run, the sweat builds here, turns me on so bad.”
My hips jerk up, pushing into her. “I want a light on,” I tell her. “I want to see you.”
She shifts, and I sit up with her, help her take off her jacket, her top. Then she takes my hand, places it over the bare skin of her chest, just over her heart. “You don’t need to see, baby. You just need to feel.”
I nuzzle her neck, kiss the skin right below her ear and she whispers my name. I try to respond, but all that comes out is a groan. Her nose nudges my chin and I blindly cup her face, and a moment later, her soft, wet lips are on mine. I close my eyes and bring her hips closer. She moans, her lips parting, and I taste her tongue, touch her bare back. I lie back down, flip us over until she's on her back and my hand is on her stomach. A few inches lower and I
'll be where I want to be.
She runs her fingers through my hair while I lower my hands to the band of her jeans, sliding a finger side to side. She squirms beneath me, her fingers clenching, tugging my hair, pulling me away from her neck. She kisses me again, soft and slow, and then hard and fast, driving me insane with want, with need. Then she grasps my wrist, guides my hand so I’m moving lower while she unzips her fly. Now I’m under her jeans, above her panties. She’s so hot down here, and I tap my fingers against her. She whispers, “Don’t tease me, baby.”
I’m quick to move the fabric aside and slide a finger inside her. “The way you touch me,” she says. “I wish I could erase all other touch, feel nothing but you.”
There's something almost magical about getting naked and exploring a person's body with your hands and mouth and sense alone without being able to see the person. Fingers tap and tease and you feel every curve, every dip. Hear every gasp, egging you on to keep doing what you’re doing, tasting and swirling and flicking and sucking, and she squirms and she gasps and she moans and she cries out in pleasure, her thighs pressed against my ears, convulsing with her orgasm, and if that's magical, then her mouth around my cock is beyond a fucking miracle because I've never had an out-of-body experience until now. I close my eyes, let her take me to the edge and then pause. Tease. Edge. Pause. Tease. And I'd love to tell you how long this goes for, but I couldn't even count to ten if you paid me.
“Lane,” I warn. “I need to come, baby.”
She slides up my body, lithe and fucking perfect, her nipples grazing my chest. She kisses me like she was born to do nothing else, and when we finally break apart, gasping for air, she says, “Be gentle with me.” I don’t ask why, just reach into the drawer on my nightstand and pull out a condom while she sits up. We apply it together, in the dark, and it’s the most erotic thing in the world, having both our hands on my dick preparing for what’s to come. I kiss between her breasts, my arms around her waist while she shifts into position, her hand going between us to guide me in and holy fucking shit, we’re SEXING!
I have to see her. Need to. I reach for the lamp, but she's quick to take my hands and link our fingers, pressing them into the pillow beside my head. She's moving me in and out of her, and I was wrong. She wasn't made to kiss me. She was made for this. To be on top of me, straddling me, and she collapses slightly, her weight on her elbows and those sounds, those sounds, and I try to think of something else that'll stop me from coming, and the only thing that comes to mind is World of Warcraft. Her hair brushes against my face while I lean forward, find her nipple with my mouth and she moans out a “Fuck” while I do everything I can not to break my hands free from her grasp and grip her waist and pound into her… “Be gentle with me.” So I let her do her thing but she's not gentle herself, and I'm so close.
“I’m so close,” she pants. “So close.” And she’s moving, faster and faster, deeper and deeper and WorldOfWarcraftWorldOfWarcraftWorldOfWarcraft.
“Shit shit shit,” she breathes.
WORLDOFFUCKINGWARCRAFT!
“Oh my god!”
I sense the exact moment her orgasm hits her, and I finally allow myself the same pleasure. Then she collapses on top of me, her entire body soaked with sweat. A few seconds later, she breaks out in a giggle and rolls off of me. “Why did you shout World of Warcraft?”
My entire body bursts into flames. “Shut up! I did not!”
“You totally did,” she manages to say through her laughing fit.
My feet are heavy, legs wobbly when I sit on the edge of the bed and “clean up.” I warn her that I'm going to switch the lamp on so her eyes can adjust and when the light's on, I turn to her. The blanket's pulled up to her nose and her hair is a mess, strands caught on the sweat on her brow, and she's flushed, not from embarrassment but exertion. I kiss the top of her head. “You're kind of amazing, you know?”
She smiles, sweet and innocent and a complete contrast to how she was a few minutes ago.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m good.”
“Good is the enemy of great,” I throw back at her.
Her smile widens. “I’m beyond great, Lucas. I’m in love.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
LUCAS
We ride to senior prom in a limo paid for by Dad and chosen by me. It was the best one the company had: fancy leather seats, sunroof, DVD player, etc. I'd picked it out because I'd planned on taking Laney on a little cruise beforehand (aka sex in a limo), but Leo and Logan are with us because—get this—they're dating twins! Not only twins but seniors. They go from fighting over one girl to dating two who are fucking identical. Needless to say, the sex in the limo became unachievable. That, and the fact that Laney was late to get ready because she's head of the prom decorating committee and had to be there until the last possible second to make sure everything was perfect. I tried telling her that no one pays attention to the decorations, that people go, some loser/winner spikes the punch, you dance to maybe two songs, then you bail to the after-party.
“But it’s my first and last dance, and I want to make sure it's perfect,” she said, and she said it in such a way that I felt like an asshole for not caring about the decorations and that I'd been to every single dance, each with a different date, but honestly? I would've taken Laney to all of them had I thought I was good enough. Still, guilt is a dangerous emotion. It causes you to do stupid things like stay up until 2:30 am with your girlfriend swiping at an iPad looking through eleventy-three million different versions of the same fucking centerpieces. But I love her. Really, I do. I love her so much I even spent hours at the mall with her making sure my tie matched the exact shade of her dress. Periwinkle, by the way, is the color of her dress. I’d never even heard the word periwinkle before but she swears it’s a thing, and on her, periwinkle is more than a shade, more than a dress. It’s a statement. One that says, “Hey, boys, look at what I’ve been hiding all these years!” and I already want to punch every single guy who realizes what they’ve been missing.
“Do you know who’s going to be prom queen and king?” one of the twins asks Lane. Her name’s Kristen or Kirsten and no, I didn’t get the names confused, I got them confused because yes, their names are Kristen and Kirsten, and as much as I’d like to make my opinion known on how silly I think it is when parents give their kids matching names, I can’t. Because:
Lucy
Lucas
Leo
Logan
Lincoln
Liam
Lachlan
The dance is held at a ballroom attached to a hotel, the same ballroom all dances are held because small-town living is rad. By the time we get there, Garray’s already been kicked out for being drunk.
He whistles when Laney steps out of the limo, fucks her with his eyes. “Lucas, bruh, who’s this hot piece of ass?” As if he doesn’t know. As if he wasn’t the first one to lock lips with her.
Laney rolls her eyes, physically drags me away and up the seven steps toward the dance. We hand our tickets over to Miss Lepsitch at the door and then enter a winter wonderland. I knew what the theme was, of course, and I’d seen the room before, but now, with the lights and the music and the people and the dancing and, “Wow, Babe. You nailed it.”
She smiles wide, her cheeks lifting her glasses from her nose. “You think?”
“Trust me. I’ve been to plenty of these, remember? This is the best one yet.”
“Good,” she says, “I wanted to go off with a bang.”
When my mom was alive, music was a constant in the house. Anything from jazz to hip hop, rock to reggae. She’d listen to old records and whatever was on the radio, and when a song came on that she loved, she'd pick up the nearest child and dance with them. I was ten years old the last time she made me dance. The song was Charlene by Anthony Hamilton, one of her favorites. She smiled down at me, her eyes tired, and placed one of my hands on her waist, the other in hers. She swayed us from side to side, the mus
ic taking her on a journey I knew nothing about. Halfway through the song, I was sick of holding her hand, sick of two-stepping around the room. I told her dancing was lame. She shook her head. “One day, Lucas, you're going to fall in love with a girl, like your father fell in love with me, and you'll understand.”
“Understand what?” I asked.
“That it’s not about the dance. It’s about moving, as one, with a person whose heart beats to the same rhythm as yours. It’s about love, about life.”
I never really understood what she meant. Not until I had Laney in my arms, her head on my chest, her heart in my hands. One song ends and another starts, and it’s perfect. Wonderwall by Oasis fills the room, and she smiles, and her smile makes me do the same. “Do you know what this song is?” I ask.
“It’s the one your dad and I danced to on my sixteenth birthday.”
“It's also my parents’ wedding song.”
Her eyes go wide, her gasp soft.
We don’t speak for the rest of the song, just move together. As one.
“You ever feel like this is as good as it gets?” she says, looking up at me with those eyes.
I give her a memory, a secret. “You know, I still remember the exact moment I fell in love with you. I mean, I always thought that I loved you, but I wasn't sure what that love meant.” I kiss her once and go on, “We were fifteen, it was a Saturday, and I'd just come second in a race. I was in the worst mood even though you spent the majority of that morning trying to cheer me up. I sat on the couch in your room, and you were on your bed, your legs crossed, knitting gloves for Lachlan. They were special gloves—”
“The ones with the removable tip on the pointer finger so he could still play games on your iPad,” she remembers out loud.
I bite my lip, nod once. “You looked up at something on the television and laughed, and I remember staring at you, thinking that you had the power to change my mood with a single sound. Your laugh.”