Yes, there would be an act two today.
I set my phone down on my dresser and put my backpack on the floor next to it. “How did you know what side was mine?” I asked as I went to the desk chair and sat down.
Our desks were side by side along the wall that separated our beds. Oftentimes while studying at the desk, I would turn the swivel desk chair and put my feet up on my bed, they were that close. I didn’t do that now, just kept my legs down, feet on the carpeted floor.
Yes, we had paid the extra for the carpeted floor. And we had a Keurig, and a small fridge, and a large TV, though not nearly as big as the one at Lucas’s apartment. Gorgeous leather office chairs replaced the stiff wooden ones that we’d been issued. We’d had the guy who builds lofts create cool overhead storage units that helped with the small closet space.
My father didn’t want to get caught pulling strings to get Jane and me into an Ivy League school (“The press would have a field day with that”), but he had no problem with me living in the style he felt becoming to a Spaulding. And so, our room was decked out way more than most college freshman’s rooms. Though, honestly, it wasn’t that much different than the other rooms here at Bribury.
“I don’t know Jane that well,” Lucas said, “But I know you, Lily. And I knew what side of the room was yours the moment I walked in.”
I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or that I was predictably boring, with none of Jane’s flair and edge. But I let it go; there were more important things to deal with today. Like… “So, why are you here, Lucas?”
I expected him to start throwing out typical guy excuses about being really busy and meaning to call, and he could throw in some good “Andy needing him” stuff to make it even more legit.
“I really don’t know,” he said. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands together. It was the same pose he’d been sitting in when I first saw him at the pool, way up in the stands, watching Andy. Watching me.
My heart clenched tight, but I told it to settle down. We needed answers, my heart and I, and I couldn’t let it run the show. “What does that mean?” I said, trying to sound indifferent, when I was anything but.
He bowed his head, looking at his hands. His hair swung forward and I literally sat on my hands so I wouldn’t reach out and push it back and away from his face.
“It means I really don’t know why I’m here, Lily. I know I messed up by not calling or texting, and of course I did that on purpose. And then yesterday, seeing you at the pool…” He looked up, and the pain in his brown eyes matched the pain I so desperately felt but so desperately wanted to hide.
“And then you left with Andy,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. Dick move, I know that. It was all a dick move, everything from Sunday on. And who knows—maybe coming here today is the biggest dick move of them all. Maybe I should just leave you in peace.”
This. This was the moment I needed to decide whether I wanted Lucas Kade in my life or not. A simple “I think that would be best,” and he’d leave, I knew it.
I did not want to be the girl who was perpetually played by a guy who treated her poorly, then let him back into her life with a few prettily done mea culpas. Isodid not want to be that girl.
And yet, when he looked at me, waiting for me to speak, all I could say was, “I want you to stay.”
His shoulders eased and I realized how tense they’d been. My body eased as well, but we weren’t quite there yet.
“So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on. Why all the shitty treatment, then showing up now?”
He relaxed a bit, settled in as if for a long story. He leaned back, putting his hands on the bed behind him. The plushness of my comforter seemed to swallow them up, and from my chair it looked like his arms just disappeared into the sea. He stretched out his legs, crossing his feet. If I turned just a tiny bit, my feet would brush his, they were so close. But I stayed where I was, waiting.
“Sunday morning, when Andy woke up, he asked what we were going to do that day,” he began. I nodded. It sounded like what any six-year-old boy would say.
“No, I mean, he asked whatwewere going to do. Him, me, and you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah, exactly. And you know what? My first thought was,Let’s call Lily and see what wearegoing to do today.”
“But you didn’t call,” I said, though of course he knew that.
He stared at me for a moment, his eyes searching mine. Then he broke contact, looking at his worn work boots. “No, I didn’t call. And I caught myself and didn’t say any of that to Andy. But God, I wanted to call, Lily. I wanted nothing more than to spend another day with you…and Andy.”
I waited, so still, not moving an inch. I thought about lying around with a hung-over Jane all day Sunday when instead I could have been with Lucas.
“But then, what?” he asked. “So we spend Sunday together. What? Like some family or something? You’re a college freshman. You just got out of your family unit. You’re supposed to be out partying and meeting new people. Not discussing the developmental growth of some townie’s kid brother.”
“I care about Andy.”
He looked back up at me. “I know you do. And I don’t want to take advantage of that. If it were just me? Well, it would still be selfish to ask you to hang with me instead of your new friends, but I’d do it.”
