Without speaking, Lucas led me up the stairs, into his apartment and straight into the bathroom. He turned on the shower and lifted me onto the counter to pull off my boots and socks. Without pausing, he removed my shirt and bra and tossed them in the trash. His shirt, speckled with droplets of blood—both his and Buck’s—followed.
Standing between my knees, he turned my face towards the light and inspected my jaw. “You’re going to bruise. We’ll put some ice on it to get the swelling down, after you shower.” His jaw clenched tight. “Did he… hit you?”
I shook my head, which made it throb a bit. “Just grabbed it really hard. It’s sore, but actually the spot where I head-butted him hurts more.”
“Does it?” He brushed the hair back from my face and kissed my forehead so gently I couldn’t feel it. “I’m so proud of you. I want you to tell me about it, when you can… and when I can stand to hear it. I’m still too angry right now.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He ran his fingers over the back of my neck. “I knew I’d f**ked up. I was getting on my bike, coming after you—and then you were running up the driveway.” His jaw compressed and flexed. “When he tackled you… I wanted to kill him. I think if Charles hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed him.”
I didn’t move from the counter until he’d undressed. He pulled me down, slid my jeans and underwear off, and led me to the shower, where he washed and inspected every part of me. We were both bruised and abraded in unexpected places, and I could barely lift my arms.
“That's normal,” he said, wrapping a towel around his waist and folding another around me. "During a fight, you don’t realize all the places you catch a punch, land wrong, or slam into something. The adrenaline deadens it—temporarily.”
His dark hair grazed his shoulders, dripping lines of water down his back and chest. He sat me down to dry my hair, and I watched as thin rivulets snaked over his inked skin, flowing over the rose, cutting through the scripted words, and moving into the line of hair on his abdomen before finally soaking into the towel.
I closed my eyes. “The last time anyone dried my hair for me was in sixth grade, when I broke my arm.”
He lifted each strand gently, pressing the towel around it to absorb the water without tangling it. “How did you break it?”
I smiled. “I fell out of a tree.”
He laughed, and the sound reduced the pain of every sore place on my body to the dullest ache. “You fell out of a tree?”
I squinted up at him. “I think there was a boy and a dare involved.”
His eyes burned. “Ah.”
He squatted in front of me. “Stay here tonight, Jacqueline. I need to keep you here, at least tonight. Please.” He took one of my hands in his, and I brought the other to his face, wondering how his eyes could look like chipped ice and still warm me to my core. A bruise was forming near one eye, and the skin was scuffed and split high on his cheekbone, but his face was otherwise unhurt.
His next words were a whisper. “The last thing my father said to me, before he left, was, ‘You’re the man of the house while I’m gone. Take care of your mother.’” My eyes filled with tears and so did his. He swallowed heavily. “I didn’t protect her. I couldn’t save her.”
I pulled his head to my heart and folded my arms over him. On his knees, his arms slid around me while he cried. As I stroked his hair and held him tight, I knew this night had struck a chord at the heart of his pain. What tormented Lucas went further than the horror of that night eight years ago. What haunted him was guilt, however insanely misplaced.
When he grew quiet, I said, “I’ll stay tonight. Will you do something for me, too?”
He fought back his instinctive wariness—I’d seen him do this before, but never from such close range. He inhaled a shaky breath, shoring up his courage. “Yes. Whatever you need.” His voice was gritty and hoarse. When his tongue rolled over his lip ring, I wanted him so badly that it was difficult to waste time talking.
“Go with me to Harrison’s concert tomorrow night? He’s my favorite eighth-grader, and I promised him I’d go.”
He arched a brow and blinked. “Um. Okay. Is that all?”
I nodded again.
He shook his head and stood, leveling the ghost smile on me. “I’m going to grab a couple of ice packs from the freezer. Why don’t you go get in bed?”
I stood, laying my hand on his chest and staring up at him. “Is that a dare?”
He laid one hand over mine and pulled me closer with the other. Leaning down, he kissed me gently. “It absolutely is. No falling out of it allowed, though.”
Chapter 27
The middle-school auditorium was packed with camcorder-wielding parents, bored siblings, and a smattering of grandparents. Skirting around clusters of people standing in the aisle, Lucas and I took aisle seats halfway between the stage and the back exit doors. I glanced down at the photocopied holiday green program. Harrison was in the highest orchestra, which meant it would be a while before he was onstage. I gave lessons to two of the other boys in the lower orchestras, though, and I’d never had the chance to see any of them actually perform. I was nervous on all of their accounts.
I leaned close to Lucas so no parents would overhear. “I should probably warn you that many of these kids have only been playing a few months—especially in the first orchestra—so they might be a little… inexpert.”
The corner of his mouth turned up, and I wanted to lean up and kiss him, but I didn’t.