“Look, how about we have a sleepover next week, or something? It’ll be like old times.” She smiled and I got up and gave her a hug.
“Sure, that sounds great.”
When I shut the door on Sloane and walked back to be with Lucah, I felt as if I was being torn in half. Like there wasn’t enough of me to give to both of them, so I had to pick and choose who got me. Shared custody.
“Everything okay?” Lucah said when I shut the door. He was already in his boxers, and I was momentarily distracted from my feelings of being pulled apart by the sight of his bare chest, nipple ring and the constellations of freckles scattered all over his skin.
“I miss her. And I feel like when I’m with you, I’m abandoning her. Maybe this whole Ryder thing wouldn’t have happened if I had still been living with her. I could have stopped it somehow.” He came toward me and put his hands on my shoulders.
“You can’t blame yourself for all the bad things that happen. It took me a long time to realize that, and lots of therapy all across the United States.” I knew he was right, but I couldn’t help it. I felt like a shitty friend.
“Maybe we should find a new apartment, rent the one next to it, and then just have an adjoining door.”
He shrugged.
“If that’s what you want, I think we could arrange that.” He was serious. “I understand how important she is to you. When I met Sloane I knew that she was part of the Rory package. The only place I would draw the line is at sharing a bedroom. And no bunk beds.”
I shook my head. That would be way too weird.
“I’ll think about it.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose.
“It’ll be okay. I promise,” he said. I wanted to believe him, so I let him take off my shirt and take me to bed.
I was distracted about the Sloane thing at work the next day. So much so that Lilia pointed it out.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” She’d been going on about something we could do to improve the company website that she’d come up with in the middle of the night.
She’d been standing across from my desk, but she shut the door, grabbed the chair and sat down.
“This may not be my place, but something is going on with you. Do you want to talk about it?” Lilia had gone from a girl who could barely make eye contact with me to one that was demanding that I talk to her about my problems. I knew she had it in her.
Did I want to talk about it? No. Did I need to talk about it? Yes.
So I started at the beginning, telling her about Lucah and me and our relationship, and Sloane, and kept going, even when my phone rang and I could see more emails popping up on my computer. She listened silently, but nodded to show that she was paying attention.
“And this is the first time I’ve had a really serious relationship and I don’t think I’m coping with it very well.” She nodded again and we sat in silence for a few minutes.
“First off, thanks for trusting me enough to tell me about your relationship. I knew already, but it was still nice to know for sure. I think you need to stop stressing out so much. But you knew that. I’m sure everyone has given you plenty of advice, and I’m sure you know, because you’re smart, that what you’re doing is silly and you need to let go of it.” Well. Yes, people had told me that and my brain knew that, but this was my MO. I’d been getting better, but I’d just fallen back into my old habits.
“Thank you, Lilia. You’re right and I’m sorry that you had to listen to me whine. I owe you an extra lunch for that.”
She grinned.
“Happy to help. Now can we go back to talking about what we were talking about before?”
“Absolutely.”
Having my college-aged assistant give it to you straight could have been embarrassing, but it was exactly what I needed. Someone who wasn’t part of my outside the office life to tell me to shut up and get over it. That was probably what people paid shrinks for. But Lilia was a hell of a lot cheaper.
We had another meeting that afternoon, and this time I was shocked to see Lucah walking toward the Board room.
“What brings you to this floor, Mr. Blythe?” I said, trying to keep the flirtation out of my voice. It wasn’t easy.
“Didn’t you read the agenda, Miss Clarke? I’m making a presentation about one of the new apps we’re designing.” No, I hadn’t read the agenda, but I figured that if he was making a presentation, he might have, I don’t know, mentioned it when we were at home. Together.
“Oh, well, I can’t wait to hear about it.” We were interrupted by Violet walking by. She must have been thinking about something else because she was about to walk right past us.
“Oh!” she said, seeing Lucah. Then her eyes went to me and she blushed. Those redheads wore their emotions on their sleeves.
“Hi, Violet,” I said, to show her that this didn’t have to be awkward, even though it probably would be.
“Hi, Rory. Um, Lucah?” She said his name like a question.
“Violet,” he said, nodding his head. She nodded back and then scurried into the room and took her seat.
“That’s going to get less weird the more we do it, right?” I whispered to him.
“God, I hope so.” As I walked by him to take my seat, his fingers brushed mine and reminded me of the last time we’d been in a meeting together. Which I probably shouldn’t think about, especially while he was making his presentation.
I took my seat and the first item on the agenda was to introduce Violet and welcome her. She got to make a little speech, which was everything the Board could possibly want to hear. There was a round of applause and I snuck a look at Lucah, but his face was blank. I shouldn’t have been so weird about Violet. Now he was probably afraid that I would take anything he did, even smiling at her, the wrong way and freak out about it.
Well that was ridiculous. I wasn’t some needy clingy girl that would do that. Except I had, when Violet had first showed up.
I turned my attention away from Violet and back on the meeting, but the next thing on the agenda was Lucah’s presentation. He stood up and moved to the laptop connecting his presentation to the projector. He was most definitely trying not to look at me. His eyes would sweep the room and skip right over me. But I was watching him.
The actual content of the presentation wasn’t what captivated me. It was how he talked about it. The way his eyes lit up and he smiled and gestured, and the way he walked as he made the presentation. I wished I could have taken my eyes off him to see what everyone else thought, but I couldn’t.