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“You have this image of me,” she said, “as needing a nice car and three acres and a membership at the country club.” Her voice wavered a little. “And all I want is for us to be together.”
“Attention passengers,” came the voice over the PA. “We’ll now begin boarding for American Flight 227 for Chicago.”
“Crap,” Colleen whispered. “We should have these talks earlier in the weekend next time.”
He kissed her, tasting the salt of her tears. “I’ll miss you,” he said. “I’ll call you when I land.”
“I love you.”
The words almost made it out this time. It didn’t matter. She knew anyway, and despite her wet eyes, she smiled.
“Say it again,” he said.
“I love you. Even if you don’t deserve me.”
“I don’t.”
“You kind of do.” She stood up and hugged him and kissed him again, sending him off with a smile and a pat on the ass, despite her wet eyes.
Next time, he promised himself. Next time he would definitely say the words. And next time, he’d tell her about her father and Gail.
* * *
EXCEPTHEDIDN’T.
How do you break someone’s heart? How do you ensure that someone never sees her father the same way again? He just couldn’t do it.
So he told himself it wasn’t his business. Maybe the affair had blown over by now, anyway. It was the right thing to do, he told himself. Even if agreeing with Pete O’Rourke made him feel unclean. It wasn’t his job.
If his conscience knew that was bullshit, Lucas nonetheless stayed mute on the subject. His arguments for doing nothing sounded good enough. For two months, he tried not to think about it.
One April night, he sat at the front desk at the trading firm where he was one of the night security guards, attempting to read a textbook on commercial torts in anticipation of law school, and instead listening to Bernard detail his conquest the weekend before.
“So she’s all this and that, right? But I just keep looking at her, she’s so hot, let me tell you, a body that would make Jesus weep, okay? And so all these guys, they’re trying to get her number or dance with her, but I just stare, and she’s all, ‘Hey, what you looking at, asshole?’ and I’m like, ‘I’m looking at nothing,’ and she’s all pissy now, right, and—”
Mercifully, because these stories tended never to end, a banging came on the front door of the lobby, despite the fact that it was after ten.
“Isn’t that your girlfriend?” Bernard asked. “Man, you been cheating on her or something? Yikes. That, or she’s pregnant, dude.” It was Colleen, clad in a sweatshirt, jeans, flip-flops and a Yankees hat. She was crying.
Lucas ran over, punched in the code for the door, and she hurled herself into his arms, her face unrecognizable with grief.
“Mía,what happened?” he asked, holding her hard.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t talk on the phone...so I just came here, I drove all day...he...my...”
“Is it Connor? Is he okay?” Oh, God, if something happened to her twin, it would kill her. Literally, maybe.
“No,” she managed, her voice strangled. “It’s my father. He—he’s...”
“Is he hurt?” he asked, picturing Smug Pete lying in a hospital bed.
“He’s—he’s...” He heard her take a shaking breath, then another. She pulled back and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Lucas, he’s divorcing my mom! He has some whore on the side, and she’spregnant!”
“Gail?” he asked.
Huge. Fucking. Mistake.
She blinked up at him, her face changing. “How...how do you know her name?”
