And then I’m right back thinking of Lucy again.
“Landon!” Lucy shouts from the shore.
I spin around to see her pointing at me. “Yeah?”
“Can you come here for a second?”
“Why?”
“Just…Come here for a second. It’s nothing serious.”
I start swimming toward her, curious about what’s to follow.
“You’re a bossy one,” I say as my feet hit the sandy bottom of the shore and I walk out.
“Turn around.”
And that’s when I feel it — The gentle sucking of something attached to my shoulder. My stomach shudders. Lucy sparks a lighter behind me. Then there’s a tugging on my skin and finally the suction relents. A fucking leech?
I exhale, disgusted but I gotta man up. When I turn around, Lucy tosses something back into the water. I cringe. “Why would you throw it back?”
“Uh, because it’s his territory we encroached on. They’re harmless.”
“Guess I should thank you for saving me…Again.”
She drops her head and flicks her nail onto the Swiss Army knife blade she has in her hand. “Just be glad he didn’t decide to latch on to something a bit more sensitive.”
“Jesus, Lucy.”
“Just keep thinking about that when you’re pissed off, cold, and walking back in those wet jeans… So… You want a drink?”
I give her a nod and watch as she pulls a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbons out of her backpack.
“The fresh air helping your head?” she asks, watching me carefully as I open the can.
“Maybe… Things are a bit clearer. I can see faces… Places… And Mia…”
Lucy goes silent again. She looks like she’s holding her damn breath.
“I wasn’t with her,” I say, catching her off guard.
“How do you know?” Lucy asks.
“Every time I think of her, there are feelings… I’m angry. I’m disgusted. I can see her face and all I want to do is forget it again.”
“So maybe you had a fight with your girlfriend,” Lucy says, ribbing me with her elbow.
“It’s not like that… Just… Let’s not talk about Mia right now. How about you? Don’t tell me there’s nobody in your life,” I say, giving her a little cocky smile.
“I guess there’s Todd… He works with me up at the store. Billie has been trying to hook us up for months.”
“You not ready to settle down, continue your basic life as a married woman?”
“I’m only twenty-four. I’m too young for that yet.”
“Twenty-four, huh? You ever had another boyfriend other than, y’know, my namesake?”
Lucy stands up. There’s the satisfying ksshk! of the beer can opening and she takes a big swig before answering. “What’s with the interrogation today?” she says with a more serious tone.
“I’ve just got nothing much to offer in conversation on my end. Besides… You’re interesting.”
“Stop saying that.”
“What?”
“That I’m interesting. I’m not.”
“That’s up to me to decide that.”
She stares out at the water as the sun dips behind some clouds, sending our oasis into a semi-darkness.
“What’s your favorite motorcycle?”
“A vintage silver super glide,” I recall, able to picture its curves and colors. “Sexiest bike I’ve ever seen.”
“You sure?” Lucy replies. “Not…A V-rod fan?”
“More into the classics.”
Lucy, still facing away from me takes another big sip of her beer then starts spluttering.
“Wrong hole?” I ask.
But then her spluttering turns to a soft twitch of her back. She’s crying.
“Everything okay?”
“Always, Landon.”
I stand and approach her but before I can get close she puts down the beer and throws herself back into the water. I wade in after her, my legs screaming in protest at the sharp cool water.
“Thought it was too cold for you, pussy,” she says, trying to disguise her quivering chin. It’s when I look up to her eyes and she’s looking back at me that I can see the tears rolling down her face.
“Lucy?”
She doesn’t swim away. This girl is too fucking trusting, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t know if I should trust myself. I like the girl, sure. She’s endearing. Complex. Breathtaking… But who the hell am I to deserve her?
“Did I say somethin’ wrong?” I say.
“No.”
“Why are you crying?” My finger rests to her chin, legs kicking hard to keep me above water. She drops her gaze to watch her fingertips swirl through the surface of the water.
“Lucy.”
“Landon, I…”
“You what?”
I watch her mouth closely when she drags her teeth over her lower lip. This time, I physically move away back so I don’t do something with her that I’ll regret. There’s a deep part of me that wants to take care of her, but why? Who is this girl and what is she doing to me?
“I have to tell you something,” I husk.
“Tell me what?”
“All I want to do is fucking kiss you, sweetheart.”
“W—We can’t,” she says meekly through her tears. “It’s all messed up now.”
Carelessly, I approach her again, this time unable to stop myself from wrapping my arms around her freezing figure. She buries her face into my chest and returns the embrace by interlacing her hands behind my neck. I squeeze her tighter. I was meant to meet this girl. Fuck knows why. I’m not into mumbo-jumbo shit like that, but being around her… I don’t feel any urge to leave this place. As long as she’s around, I wanna stay and figure her out. To hell with the club I could barely remember. To hell with bikes and bitches. To hell with Mia and whatever the fuck she had done.
What Mia had done…
Feelings flooded back. Betrayal. Sadness.
Anger…
Like an out of body experience I can feel my bike beneath me, the engine roaring as I rode through the night. A few more miles would put me at the scene of the accident where Lucy found me, but at that moment, one feeling stood out among all the others.
Fear.
What the fuck was I running from?
Lucy’s sobs pulled me back out of my own head.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” I say.
Her head shakes.
“When you’re ready to talk… I’m here.”
She mumbles something into my chest and I pull back to look down at her. “What’d you say?”
“Not for long,” she says again so I hear.
“I’m remembering things Lucy. I need to understand what happened with my club…”
“Apparently.”
She lets me go and swims back to shore.
We stay there by the rush of the waterfall for another hour, but we don’t do much talking. The intimate moment in the water is all but forgotten. She’s keeping something from me, but as I watch her bathing in the afternoon sun I realize the truth… I have no right to know what that something is.
Because I’m keeping something from her.
I look down at my hands, my eyes sweeping across my scarred and callused knuckles. My memory might be fucked, but I know exactly what kind of life those broken and battered knuckles represented…
I’ve lived the kind of life a girl like Lucy could never accept.
I know what kind of man I am.
Chapter 10
Landon had been quiet on the hike back to my place, and when we finally made it, he crashed hard on the couch. Maybe I’d worked him a little harder than I meant to. I looked over at the bruises that had blossomed on his arms and chest from the accident. It was easy to forget just how much damage had been done. I promised myself that I wouldn’t push so hard tomorrow.
If he was still here tomorrow…
I had to get some sense of normalcy back into my life. I