Once Again (6 page)

“Thanks,” he said, moving to the next shelf
of merchandise. “We ran well.”

“I heard you ran exceptionally well. First
place.”

He shrugged. “It was a team effort.”

Modesty. Another attribute to add to my
list.

“Well, congratulations to you
and
the
team.”

Lucas just nodded. He picked up a clear glass
paperweight, about the size of a baseball. Inside were white and
silver moons and stars, some of which looked like they were
shooting through the sky.

“This is an antique?” he asked.

I took it from him, turning it so I could
read the bottom.

“1969,” I said, handing it back to him. “Same
year as the first moon landing.”

“Ah, I get it.” He held it up to the light.
“My mom would like this. It’s very mystical.”

“Your mom sounds like an interesting
lady.”

“That’s one way of putting it. But she’s a
great mom. You’d like her.”

“Maybe I’ll meet her sometime,” I said.

I hoped that hadn’t sounded pushy, or like I
was trying to finagle more time with him. I’d meant only to
continue the polite conversation we were having.

He looked at me, then glanced around the room
as if making a decision, and finally looked back at the
paperweight.

“Why don’t come to my house with me? You can
meet her.” He held the paperweight up to my eye level. “You just
have to promise not to tell her about the present I bought
her.”

As I looked at him through the swirling clear
glass of the paperweight, his image shifted and turned. His face
became thinner, his skin stubbly from several days growth of beard.
His white shirt and brown suspenders dirtied and sweat-stained from
a day’s work outdoors.

Suspenders? White shirt?

This was not the Lucas I’d run into at the
antique store. This was the Lucas from my dream.

I closed my eyes, forced them back open.

And saw him looking at me with a clean-shaven
face.

The brown tee shirt had reappeared as
well.

“How about it? Want to come over?”

“Um, I don’t know.” I blinked several times,
trying to clear my thoughts. “I guess it would be okay. I’d have to
run it past my parents first.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll pay for this,
then follow you back to your house. You can introduce me to your
folks, so they know you’re not headed off with a total stranger,
then I’ll drive you to my house and back.”

Well, I guess he had it all figured out. This
sounded strangely like the offer of a tour of Sky Cove he’d made in
the school parking lot on Friday afternoon. Again, I didn’t know
exactly how to take it.

Was there more to it than a friendly visit?
Were his intentions platonic or...

Stop it! Stop it!

I could not afford to have delusions of
grandeur about Lucas. I reminded myself once again that girls like
me did not attract the attention of boys like him. At least not in
a romantic way.

Friends. We were friends. And there was
nothing wrong with two friends hanging out together on a Sunday
afternoon.

“Okay,” I said, following him to the cash
register. “I’d like to meet your mom.”

Lucas
charmed my parents as completely as he charmed me. He followed me
to my house and met my parents, and afterward he probably could’ve
gotten them to hand over their bank account number and credit card
information.

Mom looked at me with a smile and a gleam in
her eyes as Lucas and I walked out the front door. I knew she
thought there was more to Luke’s visit. I’d have to set her
straight when I got home.

In the passenger side of his Bronco I ran
through that conversation in my mind, planning what I’d say to Mom
to convince her that he and I were not a romantic item.

“You look like you’re in deep thought,” he
said, expertly shifting the gears on his manual transmission. I’d
never seen a boy drive a stick shift before. There was something
really hot about a guy with one hand on the steering wheel and one
hand on the gearshift, driving like it was the easiest thing in the
world.

“Just thinking about something I need to tell
my mom,” I answered.

Just past Sky Cove Harbor, he turned off the
main highway that bisected the town and onto White Bridge Road.
Trees lined the narrow road like canopies, creating shadows on the
pavement that looked liked an artist’s brushstrokes.

“Your parents are really nice,” he said.
“I’ll have to come by the guitar store sometime and look
around.”

“You mentioned your mom. Is your dad
around?”

Lucas shook his head. “No, he’s been gone a
long time. I don’t think he was much into being a family man.”

Immediately I wished I hadn’t asked. “I’m
sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that. It was rude.”

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “It’s not a sore
spot or anything, so don’t worry.”

We turned a corner, and crossed a bridge that
was indeed white, and a house came into view. It was a small,
yellow, two-story cottage, complete with gingerbread in the corners
of the front porch. In the front yard was a little garden. It
looked to be thriving, though I had no idea what was growing there.
A green thumb I was not.

Somehow, I did not feel surprise when Lucas
turned into the driveway of the yellow cottage. I could tell by
looking that whoever lived here knew what it meant to take care of
people and things, and it was obvious by his personality someone
had cared a great deal about him.

He pulled in and set the parking brake,
sliding the bag with the paperweight out of sight under his seat. I
opened my door and hopped out, just as he came around to my side of
the Bronco.

“I was going to get your door for you.” He
folded his arms across his chest and looked at me with a smile.

“Really?” Did guys still do that these days?
I’d only ever seen it on old movies.

“Really,” he said. “Like I told you before,
my mom’s real big on treating girls with respect.”

I silently wondered if Lucas had any faults.
I was starting to think he didn’t.

“Come on. Let’s go in.” He reached over and
took my hand.

Everything inside me went on alert when he
touched me. He didn’t hold my hand with force, but rather with a
gentle firmness that was comforting and secure.

My heart swelled, almost to the point of
pain. It was the sweetest feeling I’d ever experienced. And it
scared me to death. The perfection of my hand in his overwhelmed
me, and I had to stop myself from clutching his fingers in response
to the feelings churning inside me.

We took the steps up to the porch
side-by-side, hands still entwined. When we reached the door, he
let go of my hand and opened it, gesturing for me to go in
first.

It appeared chivalry was not dead.

“Hey Mom!” he called, as we stepped inside
the house, and the scent of chocolate wafted toward me.

I assumed this room was the living room,
because there was a cushy looking sofa, a recliner, and a flat
screen television mounted on the wall. But those were the only
things that defined this room as the living area. The rest of the
room looked like a cross between a library and a museum.

Two walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling
bookshelves, crammed full of books of every size and color. In
front of the books sat knick-knacks of all sorts – vases, blown
glass animals, wooden carvings that looked Native American, even
sets of pewter cups and pitchers. A third wall was covered with
postcards, almost to the point of being wallpapered with them. From
where I stood, I couldn’t tell where many of them were from, but I
did see the Eiffel Tower and a large waterfall of some sort on a
couple of them.

I could see no apparent theme or
organization, but it was oddly soothing, and I liked the sense of
randomness.

“My mom collects stuff,” Lucas whispered,
leaning his face close to my ear. He took my hand again, just as
his mother came in the room.

My heart lurched into my throat.

“Lucas! This must be Layla!” She breezed in
to the room, almost ethereally. And she was beautiful. Younger than
I’d imagined, with blond hair that fell in soft waves almost to her
waist. She wore brown cargo pants and a bright blue tee shirt, and
leather flip-flops. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought her a
college student.

“I’ve sort of told her about you,” he said,
his fingers squeezing mine.

He really had to stop touching me if he
wanted me to be coherent.

Yeah, right. Like I wanted that to
happen.

“Mom, this is Layla Bradford.”

“And I’m Gwen Ellis.” To my surprise, she
pulled me in to a quick, but fierce hug. “You can call me
Gwen.”

When she let me go, the smile on her face was
beaming. I noticed her eyes were the same deep brown of Luke’s.

His hand found mine again, softly enclosing
my fingers with his own. My head swam. I wondered if my eyes were
rolling back into my head.

“And your dad owns String City, I hear,” Gwen
was saying, motioning us to follow her out of the living room.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Oh don’t call me ma’am,” she said over her
shoulder. “It’ll make me feel old.”

We walked through the living room, across a
hallway, and into the kitchen. It was small, but cozy, with yellow
walls, and blue and white checked tile on the countertops.

“I finished the brownies,” she said to Luke.
“You two have a seat.”

We sat, as instructed, while Gwen uncovered a
plate full of the source of the chocolate smell that had greeted us
at the front door.

“So, String City is your family’s business.”
She pulled bright blue bowls from a cabinet, and I watched with
wide-eyes as she placed a huge brownie in each one.

“That’s right,” I answered.

“Her parents are Jack and Michelle Bradford,
Mom,” Lucas put in.

Gwen walked to the refrigerator. She opened
the freezer and took out a gallon of ice cream. The she reached
into the fridge and came out with chocolate syrup and maraschino
cherries.

Holy cow. Luke’s mom was making brownie
sundaes.

The three of us sat at the table in the
eat-in kitchen, each with a huge dessert. The warm brownie, cold
creamy ice cream, and syrupy chocolate were enough to overdose my
taste buds, in a good way.

Gwen was easy to talk to. She listened
intently and laughed easily, her lyrical voice drawing me in like a
beautiful song. I liked her a great deal.

It was more than obvious how Lucas had turned
out the way he had. With a mother like that, there was no way he
could’ve been a jerk.

She even excused herself after the brownies
were eaten, giving Luke and me a few moments alone. We sat in the
living room, and he explained that he and his mom hadn’t traveled
much, but she knew people who did and she had them send her
postcards from wherever they went.

Gwen had made the necessary sacrifices to
raise a son on her own, which meant no expensive vacations. He said
one day he wanted to take her to Alaska to see the Northern Lights.
It was where she most wanted to go.

Nope, Lucas had no faults.

Before we left, we slipped down the hall and
found his mom in her office, typing away on the medical
transcription that she did from home. She stood up when she saw us
at the door.

“Oh Layla, I’m so glad you came to visit.”
She hugged me again, and, not so startled by it this time, I hugged
her back. Eagerly. She lowered her voice to a whisper at my ear.
“My Lucas hasn’t smiled this much in a long time.”

Apparently she had the wrong idea about us,
too.

But as Lucas took my hand and walked me back
through the house, I had to admit that I could see why she did. It
was becoming difficult for me to keep things in perspective
myself.

When we got to the Bronco, he opened the door
for me, and I was bowled over again by what a gentleman he was.

Gwen stood at the door, smiling in approval
as Lucas came around the front to slide in the driver’s seat. He
looked back at his mother and nodded back.

Something strange passed between them,
something other than the close mother-son bond they clearly shared.
It almost seemed like some silent form of communication, some kind
of private exchange that only they understood. Gwen smiled once
more and disappeared into the house.

And, odd as it was, I discovered Luke’s
wordless discussion with his mother only endeared him to me
more.

I was
so
in trouble.

The next
two weeks passed in a sort of blur, cooler temperatures, blustery
winds, socializing, and homework. The routine I’d grown accustomed
to continued, with one exception.

Lucas now walked with me after literature,
and delivered me to the door of my third period class. He didn’t
hold my hand at school, but that didn’t matter. The thrill still
barreled through me every day as we meandered through the crowded
hallways together.

People looked at us, curious. It seemed I was
doomed to be the center of attention at Sky Cove Senior High,
though I didn’t seem to be so annoyed by it anymore. I was becoming
a bit more comfortable in the spotlight. Not that I would ever love
it, but if I was there because Lucas was by my side, I couldn’t
complain.

I still struggled to maintain a distance, at
least emotionally, from Lucas, which was proving more and more
difficult all the time. I knew at some point it would become
futile, but my sense of self-preservation demanded that I not allow
my heart to become entangled all the way.

Each time I reminded myself that Lucas and I
were just friends, a little voice inside me responded with, “Yeah,
right.”

He’d still made no move that would indicate
he wanted things to go further between us. But it appeared the
attention he paid to me caused other boys to take notice.