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My stomach was heaving. All that personal development I’d just been feeling so smug about—gone in an instant. He had that power over me, and now he was paying attention to me again I was wondering, had all of this just been me trying to make myself into the kind of girl he was able to respect? An order of his own choosing.
I’d just let him inspire me. That was all it was. Right?
“You’d better get back to it,” Lucas told me. “Fucking around at lights is what got you into trouble the first time, I seem to remember.”
“What got me into trouble was trying to say no to you,” I corrected him.
“I suppose so.” My heart had slowed down much more quickly than all the other times Lucas had done something to screw with me. I didn’t think even a driving instructor would have faulted my acceleration back into the flow of traffic.
“I see your arm is better,” I observed. I couldn’t have helped counting one hand on each of my shoulders, his shifting fingers still blatantly over the line of what was appropriate.
“Well it’s been several weeks, so it’s healed up nicely,” Lucas agreed. “I’ve just got the cast off a few days ago, so I’m still working on getting the muscles back in order.”
That arm had seemed strong enough when he was trying to stop me from making noise, but I knew better than to argue with him. “What do you want, Lucas?” I asked.
“It’s about the arm, actually,” he told me. “Feels great to have the use of it again, but it’s still far too weak to take care of some of the things it’s good at… if you know what I mean.”
“Really?” I knew what he meant, all right. “You’re going to break into my car for a handjob? Do you not have enough actually gagging girls on hand, if you’ll excuse the pun, to take care of it for you? Or is your entire stable of interested women a fakery?”
“I see you’re working alongside that woman who sold us your phone,” he said, because of course he could see exactly where I was going with those jabs.
“A coincidence,” I said, my voice so confident I almost believed myself. “I took advantage of the fact that she’d seen me before to get my nose in the door. I know now that she has a husband and there was never any chance of her coming after a little boy like you, but that was just a happy side-effect.”
“You’re lying about the coincidence part,” Lucas told me, “but I’m willing to ignore that because I’m actually impressed.”
“I have to say I’m not terribly interested in whether you’re impressed or disgusted or whatever. I’m hungry and I need to go pick up dinner.”
“You’re probably earning a lot more than you were back at your old place,” Lucas said, “but I’d like to come too, and pay for the both of us.”
Now his hands were right over the top of my breasts, squeezing gently. “Are you belted in back there?” I asked, and he let go of me quick. “Thank you,” I told him. I was actually surprised. “The last thing I need right now is to be stopped by the police and have my licence taken from me just because you can’t follow rules.”
“It’d suit me,” he offered. “Now. Where are we going for dinner?”
“I’m going to drive you to wherever you left your car,” I told him, “and then you’re going to hand over the spare key you’ve gotten yourself and I’m going to go eat dinner by myself.”
“Car’s at home,” said Lucas. “I walked to you.”
“You walked all that way? That’s—”
“Insane?” I couldn’t help peeking in my rear-view mirror and that cursed full-teeth grin nearly undid me. “You’ve got to do something a bit next-level when a girl won’t take your calls, Callie.”
“But you never called me.” This whole conversation was leaving me dizzy like I was the one who’d run the risk of concussing myself through sheer stupidity.
That was what Lucas did. He talked people into bewilderment and then had them going along with whatever he wanted. I should never have kept driving with him in my car, I should have gotten him out as quickly as possible… but Amanda’s words were in my head, and now I couldn’t help wondering: taking Lucas’s utter recklessness completely out of the equation for the moment, as insane as that sounded, was the long-lasting connection between us really something I could just completely ignore?
I’d never wanted a boyfriend at this stage of my life. It had always seemed like something I couldn’t afford. But this was beyond stupid ideas about boyfriends.
Amanda hadn’t been interested in pursuing Lucas after all… and now I wondered if he would have really gone after her if he had the opportunity. It was entirely possible he’d just been messing with me the whole time. What I was certain of was that Amanda was the kind of woman who genuinely did interest Lucas on some level. He’d been enthusiastic about engaging with her, but it hadn’t made him behave the way he had to me. I was certain she would have told me if she’d thought the guy who was my boyfriend at the time had tried to cheat on me.
Maybe he just hadn’t been interested, the same way he hadn’t been interested in me outside of getting to play with me sexually now and then. Or maybe… maybe he’d sensed something in her that made him want to give her more respect. Even without loving her.
As for me, I had an idea he really had caught feelings at some point, but I also knew it was no longer enough. I had to get to the bottom of this situation… and I had to give myself a deadline.
Then again, I realised there was another deadline coming up. We were graduating in just over three months. Once I no longer had to deal with school, I would probably find myself a job with longer hours, try to save myself from falling down the same welfare-supported hole my parents had. I might even be able to move away—and for that matter, I didn’t expect Lucas to stick around in this reasonably small and totally backwater town for the rest of his life. Even if he had a bit of a crush on me now and was bored of all the other girls who could be stealing him away from me, there was that big schoolies party all the new high school graduates attended—which Lucas seemed bound to go to, and I would definitely not be able to afford—where he would meet lots of girls to make him forget about me. Soon enough our separation would be inevitable.
Realising that made me feel better about the whole thing. Soon enoug
h the decision would be made for me whether I liked it or not.
