Glancing left, up the street, and then right, I don’t see the ’72 Dodge, but I swear, that’s the sound it makes. Chills crawl up my neck, the sound of its engine coming from somewhere.
Jogging up the five stairs, I hear the wood creak as I step up to the door, snatching the lockbox in my hand from where it hangs on the doorknob. There are numbers like a phone to dial in a code to retrieve the key inside. Real estate agents put them on for potential buyers.
Shit.
I drop it and take the knob, giving it an exasperated, half-assed twist, and it opens. I let my mouth fall open. “Nice…”
That was lucky. It’s unlike Lucas to be irresponsible like that.
Putting a foot inside, I peer my head in, seeing empty hardwood floors shining in the moonlight. All the furniture is gone and the faint scent of fresh paint and Lysol linger in the air.
I enter the house, closing the door behind me. I haven’t been in here since the last time Lucas was home. I would come with Madoc when he picked him up, or get dropped off here on the occasion Lucas took me somewhere on his own, like to a movie only I wanted to see, or shopping for Christmas presents for the family.
Drifting through the house, I take one last look at the kitchen where his mom raced around the table when we were playing tag, and the living room where he let me try on his dad’sjacket and hat.
I wander upstairs, find his room, and inhale the scent of that cologne he wore tonight. He stayed so close. Was he that worried I’d fall in love with the wrong guy in a bounce house?
I laugh to myself as I browse the room. His bed is the only piece of furniture that remains, the mattress a stark white. I circle the bed to look out the window into the backyard, but I spot his white hoodie from the gym the other night on the floor. Bending down, I pick it up. He must not have seen it here when he was packing up. I lift it to my nose, inhaling, and suddenly flooded with him. Tears spring to my eyes and a truck sits on my chest at the smell of his skin. And his cologne and the summer air, and it reaches down into the pit of my stomach, taking me back, because he always smelled like this.
And I feel a sudden urge. Hidden in this empty room, in this empty house, in the dark of night, I stop thinking for a moment.
I strip off my shirt and my bikini top and pull the hoodie over my head. It falls halfway down my thighs just before I drop everything else I’m wearing to the floor.
Stepping out of my shorts and bikini bottoms, I pull my hair out of the sweatshirt and sit on the edge of the bed, just like Winslet.
Not naked like her, but goosebumps spread across my arms, down my legs, and into my scalp all the same. I wanted to feel something he wore on my skin.
Tears suddenly fill my eyes as my toes graze the floor. “I’ve been in love with you since I was a kid, Lucas,” I tell his memory, out loud.
The cloth of his hoodie brushes my nipples, the skin of my thighs tingles under the hem. I part my legs just a little, letting the cool air in.
“Everyone in our family has someone,” I say as a tear falls. “Madoc has Fallon, Dylan has Hunter, James has A.J., Kade has anyone he wants…” I breathe out a laugh as I swipe a tear off my face. “When I was little, you were the one I looked forward to.”
The sweatshirt is so loose on me, I feel his imaginary hands climb inside.
“You were smart and funny and kind.” I rub my lips together. “You trusted me to hear difficult things when everyone else tried to shield me. You talked to me. The only one who really talked to me.”
Everyone else lied to me. All in my best interest, of course, but Lucas couldn’t. For some reason, it didn’t sit right with him.
“When I grew up, I thought about you,” I tell imaginary Lucas. “I wondered if you’d like what you saw when we met again. And if you’d want to keep looking.”
An image of him is in front of me, leaning over and reaching up inside the hoodie, pulling me down the bed by my naked hips.
“I rushed to grow up, so you could find me before you found someone else…” I finally admit. “Finished college early, started a business… In case you came home, I’d be ready.”
My mother never knew why I was racing to a finish line nearly all my life. I missed him when I was a kid and knew, even at thirteen, I didn’t want him to meet anyone. And when I turned eighteen, I was happy, because even if I was still too young for him, I was old enough. It was one barrier finally out of the way.
I’d never even wanted another guy.
I’m glad he came back. I needed to see him with adult eyes because now I know. He runs, and he’ll always run. There arebetter men out there.
“I’m ready.” I rub the insides of my thighs, heat pooling between my legs. “Just not for you.”
The ghost of his hand wraps around my throat and pushes me back onto the bed. I lift the hoodie over my head and open my legs.
“Never for you,” I gasp.
Lucas
