Sweet Surrendering (37 page)

We didn’t talk any more about his brother that night, but I wanted to make it a regular thing for us to talk more about growing up and our pasts. I still felt like there was so much I didn’t know.

“I’m not good at opening up,” he admitted, at last, the next morning as we showered together. If we didn’t hurry, we were both going to be late.

“Why Lucah, whatever do you mean?” I said, rinsing the shampoo from his hair so it didn’t get in his eyes. My shower was enormous, which was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with this apartment. There was nothing worse than trying to be sexy with a guy in a shower that was too small.

“Yes, I deserve that.” I squirted some conditioner and ran it through the ends of his hair and he did the same with mine. I’d taught him well by now.

“It’s self preservation, most of the time. And fear. Fear that if I open up to people they won’t like what they see.”

“You’re silly,” I said, making his hair into a mohawk. “Why wouldn’t someone like you?” I was sure there were people, but they weren’t anybody I would want to be friends with anyway.

“There are a lot of people that are not fond of me, Sunshine. It’s a longer list than you could imagine.”

“Okay, now I’m intrigued,” I said as he tipped his head back to rinse the conditioner out and then we switched places so I could do the same.

He laughed but didn’t elaborate.

“Hey, don’t leave me hanging like that,” I said, but he just shook his head and started massaging my back as the hot water pounded down on me. That felt amazing, and even though I knew he was using it as a way not to continue our conversation, I was going to let him. I could ambush him later when he least expected it.

We ended up both getting to work on time, but as soon as Lucah sat down on his desk, he pulled his phone out and looked at it, frowning. He quickly typed something and then waited for a response. I figured it was something about his brother so I tried not to eavesdrop by staring at him and turned my computer on while I started to figure out what I had to get done immediately.

My phone rang and I answered it without looking to see who it was. Before I could say hello, I hear Lucah’s voice.

“Listen, there are some things I need to take care of today, so I need to leave. I’m so, so sorry, but this has to get done.” I looked across the room and he really did look sorry. It absolutely totally and completely sucked and I wasn’t thrilled, but I also wasn’t a total bitch.

“Are you sure you can’t tell me what this is regarding?”

“I wish I could, but I can’t.” I was getting really tired of hearing him say that over and over, but it wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

“Okay. Okay. Just . . . just be careful and I’ll see you later. Bye.” I didn’t wait for him to say anything. I needed to get off the phone before I said something that I couldn’t take back. I wrote a smiley face on a sticky note and put it on top of some files and went to drop them off on his desk without saying a word. I hoped he wasn’t mad at me, but I could only take so much.

“I want to take you out somewhere,” he said that night as we lay in bed. We’d pushed aside the unpleasantness of earlier. I’d spent the day completely stressed out that he wasn’t there, and wondering where the hell he was and what he could possibly be doing and if maybe I should fire him, and then that would solve everything. But then I knew it wouldn’t, so I resigned myself to doing nothing again.

“Where?” We’d never actually gone out just the two of us, other than the Museum day. I think both of us were worried about being seen together. I didn’t seem to be the only paranoid one on that front.

“I don’t know. Don’t care, really. Just want to go somewhere with you on my arm so everyone will see my girl.” Aw, well that was just adorable. I wanted people to see me with him, too.

“How about dinner? I know that sounds so typical, but it would be fun with you. And the movies? We could sit in the back and mock whatever it was.” This was one of our favorite things to do together now when we found a crappy movie on television. Mock the crap out of it.

“Perfect. How did you know that was exactly what I would pick?”

“I’m psychotic,” I said with a serious face.

“I think you mean psychic, Sunshine.”

“Yeah, that too.” He just shook his head at me. Hey, he was the one who wanted to be seen in public with me. You could dress me up but you couldn’t take me out.

“So when is this going to occur?” I asked as he rested his head on my stomach. He didn’t seem to mind that it wasn’t exactly flat. Probably was more comfortable on his head that way.

“How about tomorrow night?”

“You’re not going to be disappearing again, are you?” I didn’t mean to say it, but it came out anyway.

“No,” he said, kissing my belly button. “I think the disappearing is going to be slowing down. Hopefully. I have my fingers crossed.”

This was news to me, but good news.

“Will you tell me what it was? Someday?” I asked.

He let out a breath.

“Maybe someday.” That wasn’t enough of an answer, but I’d have to take it.

“How about here?” Lucah and I stopped outside of another restaurant. We’d decided that we wouldn’t pick a place beforehand, because it was more fun to walk around and then decide together. More spontaneous, too. I had a few favorite places, but I wanted to try something new.

The restaurant was lit with a soft glow, and all the walls were brick. It looked semi-Italian and cozy.

“Perfect,” I said as he opened the door and I walked through. We were seated in a corner booth, and it was kind of quiet, which was great. Soft music played through hidden speakers, and I was reminded of the spaghetti scene in
Lady and the Tramp
. I bet if I asked him, Lucah would reenact it with me, but I wasn’t going to ask him to. That would be silly.

“I would pull your chair out for you, but seeing as how it’s a booth, I can’t really do that. But I would. If I could.”

“You’re forgiven,” I said, reaching across the table and patting his arm.

The waiter came and we ordered garlic knots for an appetizer and a pizza with the works, and a bottle of cheap red wine.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?” He looked like he was reaching for something under the table.

“You’re too far away for me to grope. I was hoping to feel you up during dinner, but I can’t reach.” Something touched my knee, but couldn’t go much further.

“Stop that. You don’t have to grope me in public,” I hissed at him.

“But I want to grope you in public,” he said and he was almost pouting. Impossible. He was impossible. The waiter came back with the garlic knots and I tried to smack Lucah because he was groping my knee now and it tickled.

“Stop that,” I hissed when the waiter left us again. He just smiled and grabbed one of the garlic knots and dipped it in sauce, but he did stop touching my knee. I took one of the garlic knots and dipped it in sauce as well.

“No double dipping,” he said as I took a bite and went to put it back in the sauce.

“Are you serious? I have had your dick in my mouth. I don’t think double dipping is that big a deal.” He was opening his mouth to argue when a female voice invaded our little bubble.

“Tyler?” If she hadn’t been standing right beside our table, I would have just ignored her, but she was and she was staring at Lucah like he was a ghost. She was tall and leggy and dressed like she was going clubbing in a silver skintight dress. A definite glamazon.

I gave her a WTF face, but the color drained from Lucah’s face and his expression froze.

“Oh my God, Tyler!” The woman’s face broke out into a smile and she leaned down to try to give him a hug. He just sat there as she kissed him on the cheek.

What. The. FUCK.

“Stef, wow. Long time no see,” he finally said and it was like he had to choke out the words. He stood up and let her really hug him. Okay, so clearly he knew this girl, but she had called him Tyler. I knew that wasn’t his middle name, or a nickname, or any other name that I’d ever heard him ever use. So now I had to wonder why this woman knew him as Tyler and what that meant.

“Oh my God, what are you doing here?” The glamazon named “Stef” hadn’t even looked at me. I knew I was short, but I wasn’t fucking invisible. I wanted to say something, but I had no idea what that should be until I could figure out what the story was.

“Oh, I’m just traveling.” He sat back down and he didn’t look at me either. HAD I TURNED FUCKING INVISIBLE AND I WASN’T AWARE?

“I can’t believe this!” Stef was gushing and I wanted to punch her in the face, even though I didn’t know her. “What has it been? Almost a year? Where are you working now?” Lucah cleared his throat and she FINALLY looked away from him and saw me. Her smile dropped for a second as she glanced down at me, but it was back on a second later, although it was tight and not as friendly. Fake.

“Oh, I’m such an idiot,” she said with a fake laugh that made my ears burn. “I’m Stefanie. I used to work with Tyler out in LA.” Okay, first of all, his name isn’t Tyler. Second, nothing in his résumé had mentioned LA. NOTHING.

The three of us were suspended in the moment, none of us knowing what to say. I was waiting for someone to explain what the FUCK was going on, Stefanie seemed to be waiting for me to leave so she could have a joyous reunion with “Tyler” and Lucah (or Tyler) seemed to be waiting for the world to end.

“Okay, since I’m clearly in the dark, I’m going to go ahead and say it. What the fuck, Lucah?” I turned my anger and confusion on him and his face turned red.

“Tyler? I can come back. Or you could call me.”
Shut up, bitch. I don’t care about you.

“I think that would be best, Stefanie.” She smiled and waited for him to give her his number, but he was staring at me.

“Okay, well. Here’s my number.” She fiddled in her purse and pulled out a card and set it on the table, then waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t so she slinked away.

Thank God and good riddance.

“Explain,” I said, crossing my hands on the table.

He put his head in his hands.

“I don’t even know where to start. Fuck, I knew this was going to happen.” The waiter came back with our pizza, but I ignored him as he set it in front of us and then, sensing the tension, hurried away.

“Let’s start with why the hell she called you Tyler? How about that?” The pizza smelled good, but there was no way I could eat now. A sinking feeling had entered my heart and a little voice said,
I told you so.
The secrets that he’d hidden from me? They were starting to come out.

“Because that was my name when she met me.”

“Why?” He took the world’s biggest deep breath. “Are you sure you want to do this here?” He looked around as if someone was going to jump out and come and bail him out, but he was shit out of luck.

“Oh no, we are doing this here, Mr. Blaine. Why does she know you as Tyler?” Maybe I was overreacting about the name, but I knew it was all part of what he was hiding from me and I wanted to know the truth.

“Stefanie knew me as Tyler because that was the alias I was using in LA.”