Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1) Read online

  Breaking Lacy

  By Tabitha Drake

  Copyright © 2018 by Tabitha Drake

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review.

  Print ISBN-13: 978-0-692-09176-0

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-0-692-09166-1

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by: Marianne Nowicki

  Publisher Logo Copyright © 2018 by Moon Shower Press

  Printed in USA

  First Edition April 2018

  Published by Moon Shower Press

  PO Box 6712

  Fredericksburg, VA 22403

  To Pete

  For giving me the kind of life where dreams could be real.

  Part One

  Lacy

  I gathered up my homework from the floor at the foot of Kevin’s bed. Not that there was much to gather. We’d spent more time kissing than studying.

  “Just stay for ten more minutes,” he begged, trying to tug away my backpack to stall me.

  “I can’t, Kevin. If I don’t leave now your mom is going to come up in a few minutes and send me home.”

  When I started to stand, he pulled me back to the carpet and pinned me down with a kiss. “Sneak back out later.”

  “You take down bleach-blonde over there and I’ll think about it,” I bargained, nodding toward the poster of the naked model taped to the ceiling over his bed.

  “That’s not fair. You’ve got dude posters hanging all over your room.”

  “With their clothes on.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ll take down Sheila when I don’t need her anymore.”

  I grinned and tried to shove him off me. “You’ve seen me naked, remember?”

  “That doesn’t count. We were nine and you didn’t have boobs yet,” he teased, copping a feel over my blouse.

  I maneuvered his hand away by lacing my fingers with his and kissing his knuckles. “Your hormones can wait six more months. After graduation and the wedding.”

  “Test drive?”

  “No,” I said, laughing over his tireless persistence.

  “Lacy. Kevin.” Kevin’s mother tapped a warning knock on the door. Kevin rolled away from me before she cracked it open to look in on us. “It’s getting late.”

  “Five more minutes, Mom,” promised Kevin.

  “Only five. It’s a school night.”

  As soon as Rhonda Martin closed the door, Kevin turned to me, his face close to mine so he could murmur, “You know I was just teasing about the test drive thing, right?”

  “I know.”

  A smile started on his lips and spread to his dark eyes. “I can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about getting married and mom is nagging about it being a school night.”

  “That’s because Rhonda doesn’t want us to get carried away while we’re up here alone,” I said, standing and hoisting my backpack over one shoulder. I turned to see if Kevin was ready to walk me home but met his glare instead. “What?”

  He shook his head and let out a derisive snort. “God forbid my fiancé might actually want to get carried away with me.”

  I sighed. “That’s not it and you know it. I just don’t want us to make a mistake so I end up like momma.”

  “And I don’t understand what you think is so bad about the way things turned out for your mom. She married the man she loved and settled down to start a family, just like we’re going to do.”

  “I want a family too. But later, not right away. It would ruin everything right now. I refuse to be just another nobody who never made it out of this town because she couldn’t keep her legs closed.”

  “Oh, so now here we go with the New York thing again.”

  I closed my eyes and blew out a frustrated sigh. “Apparently so.”

  He grunted in his own frustration. “I don’t want to leave here, Lacy. I love these mountains, this town. Our families are here. Everyone we know is here in North Carolina. Claryville is home.” He raked his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “God, why do you always do this?”

  “Me! Why can’t you want this for me?” I fired back, standing my ground.

  “Because it’s going to change you. If we go to New York, it’ll tear us apart. If you want your music career, fine. But why can’t you do it from here?”

  Because Claryville was a wasteland of broken hopes and dreams, and I refused to be one of its victims.

  Claryville was a blue-collar town. As was typical of small and impoverished mountain communities, there tended to be problems with teenage drug and alcohol use, school dropouts, and underage sexual activity. Teen pregnancies were the norm rather than the exception. It was ingrained in the culture for high school sweethearts to marry and start families young. In our backwoods town, it was practically a tradition. There were girls in my senior class who hadn’t even been able to wait that long and had gotten permission from their parents to marry over the summer before school started. A few of those girls were pregnant already and would accept their diplomas with a baby in their arms—if they graduated at all.

  I wanted more. I had agreed to the wedding immediately after graduation. Why couldn’t he compromise a bit too?

  “We both know I have a real shot at making it, but it won’t happen if we stay here. My mother was on her way to bigger and better things than this town, and then daddy came along. She got suckered into this life, Kevin. I’m not going to ruin my chances by getting knocked up and stuck here the way she did. You’re my best friend. We’re getting married! You’re supposed to want this for me.”

  “Do you even hear how you sound?”

  “I’m just tired of having this same fight with you every time we start making plans. My music is my life. You knew that when we decided to get serious.”

  Kevin drew in a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose before sighing in resignation. “We’ll work it out,” he said softly, pulling me into an embrace as an attempt at calling a truce. “I’m sorry. I’m just afraid of how it’s going to change us both. I like us the way we are. I love you the way you are.”

  I snuggled closer in his arms and choked down the lump in my throat.

  Our destinies had intertwined when we were born on the same night and slept side by side in the hospital nursery. Our mothers were best friends and had grown up in the same houses next door to each other that we still lived in now. Kevin and I had shared playpens together and fought over teething rings. He had kissed me for the first time under the oak tree in my backyard when we were six. When Kevin was thirteen, he had started weightlifting in the basement with his older brother, Nick, and bet me five dollars it wouldn’t hurt if I hit him in the stomach as hard as I could. He had thrown up, as a result, thus eliciting the first genuine affection from me when I tried to give him an apologetic hug. Two years later, during our fifteenth birthday party, we waited until my parents left the room and then played spin the bottle. My spin landed on Kevin, and we shared our first teenage kiss, only Sherry Milton said we had to do it again because we hadn’t used our tongues. A week later, we were doing our homework together in his bedroom when we tried again and decided we liked kissing each other.

  And now here we were, trying to figure out if seventee
n years of history was enough to withstand my dreams. It had to be. Losing each other was unfathomable.

  “I’m sorry if I was mean,” I said, and meant it.

  “That’s what’s so good about us. After all these years, we know we can get away with saying and doing stupid stuff around each other.”

  “I never thought I was Tarzan and broke my arm falling out of a tree before,” I teased, desperately wanting the night to end on a peaceful, light-hearted note.

  “I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t dared me. And at least I never got poison oak from squatting down to pee in the woods.”

  “You called me a sissy!”

  “You coulda drip-dried.”

  We both gazed at each other with tender smiles for a moment before I asked, “Does this feel funny to you sometimes? Do you think we know too much? Like there’s nothing left to discover?”

  He gave me a quick peck on the lips and grinned. “I kinda like that. When we get married, there won’t be any surprises.”

  Nick

  From the darkness of my upstairs bedroom, I watched Kevin walk Lacy to her house next door. I wanted to be my kid brother when she rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him goodnight under the glow of her back-porch light.

  I wanted his girl, plain and simple.

  And as much as they’d been fighting lately, with some patient, careful scheming on my part—and a little help from fate—the odds of a break-up were looking better every day.

  The phone rang, and I tore my sights from the window to answer it. “Nick. Talk.”

  “What the hell, man?” said my best friend, Chris Perkins.

  “I got an extra day tacked onto my weekend. I wanted to come home instead of hanging out in the dorm,” I explained.

  “You’re obsessed.”

  “Can’t take control of the situation if I’m not here.”

  I cracked my window and lay back against my headboard when Kevin left Lacy alone, and she went inside. From my new position, I had a straight-shot view of her bedroom window.

  Since Lacy was an adolescent, she had a habit of climbing out onto her roof to stargaze from atop her dormered bedroom window. The weather never deterred her. Even now, in the chill of late November, she would simply carry a blanket out with her. Especially on nights when she and Kevin argued, like tonight.

  I heard them all the way in my bedroom two doors down the hall.

  “You coming home this weekend?” I asked Chris, who let out a suspicious cough that sounded weed-induced.

  Chris hacked for a couple of seconds and then barely managed to rasp out, “Yeah.” He coughed a moment longer before finally clearing his throat. “Damn. Good shit. Want me to save you some?”

  “Yeah.” Just then, Lacy pulled the shade covering her window. “Hey, gotta go.”

  “They make support groups for guys like you, ya know.”

  “See ya tomorrow,” I said, chuckling.

  “Get some help, man.”

  Lacy opened her window and started climbing out just as I hung up the phone. I grabbed a warm beer from under my bed, opened it, and then sat up against the headboard to watch her for a few minutes. Lacy hadn’t been on the roof for more than five minutes when her mother entered her room and came to the window. With my own window cracked, I could just hear Grace Dalton when she called out, “You up there, baby?”

  “Yeah. Come on up, Momma.”

  Lacy inherited her beauty from Grace. Both women had long, chocolate-colored hair to contrast their pale blues eyes. Lacy got her dainty, petite build from Grace as well, who despite having a daughter Lacy’s age, could have passed as her sister. Most importantly, both Dalton women had singing voices that would have made a bird jealous.

  Since she was four years old, Lacy had taken singing lessons from her mother. Grace was once a professional musician herself. She paid her dues in Nashville for a spell, but she opted out of the spotlight almost as soon as she’d made her way into it once she met Lacy’s father, Jerry Dalton, and got pregnant with Lacy.

  The agile Grace climbed out the window and up to the roof above to join her daughter. Lacy rearranged the blanket around her shoulders, allowing enough slack to cover her mother as well.

  “Rhonda called,” Grace said, after a few minutes of silence. “She heard you and Kevin arguing and wanted to see if you were okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Lacy sighed. “I don’t know what to do,” she said in a small voice, her head resting on Grace’s shoulder. “Is Kevin right? Am I being selfish?”

  “No. Your music has always been your life, Lacy. If you stay here, this town will suffocate the dreams right out of you. You’re too talented to let that happen.”

  “Then why doesn’t Kevin understand that? Every time we start talking about leaving Claryville we end up arguing. I get so mad I want to tell him to just forget the whole thing sometimes. Especially because he’s been acting like a jerk and all he thinks about lately is-”

  Lacy stopped abruptly and lowered her head, obviously embarrassed. Grace chuckled. “I’m proud of you for being so adult and responsible when it comes to Kevin, sweetheart. But still, you have to understand that he’s a seventeen-year-old boy with an incredibly beautiful girlfriend. His… urges, they’re only natural.”

  “I don’t know about the ‘incredibly beautiful’ part,” said Lacy, modest as usual.

  Grace put her arm around Lacy. “I’m proud of you for having such determination and ambition. That’s why I encourage you to pursue your music. But, Lacy, you can’t be afraid of yourself and the things that are supposed to be natural when you love someone. You can’t deny yourself the opportunity to experience being young and in love just because you think it conflicts with your goals. This is not an ideal world, honey. You never know when a tornado may blow through and mess up your plans without you having to lift a finger.”

  When a few minutes passed without either of them speaking, I leaned over to shield the flame of my lighter and lit a cigarette.

  This was how I knew Lacy. This was how I had grown to fall in love with her. I’d eavesdropped on too many of these private conversations in the past. I knew more about Lacy Dalton that she probably knew about herself. Certainly, more than Kevin did or he wouldn’t be putting her through this. My brother was selfish snot and didn’t deserve her.

  I didn’t deserve her either, but at least I was honest enough to admit it.

  “Did you talk to daddy?” Lacy asked, sparking my attention again.

  “Honey, we both know he’s not going to change his mind.”

  “Just explain to him-”

  “Lacy, New York is too big for a girl your age to be roaming around alone.”

  “But, Momma, Mr. Mason said I would only be there for one day. And I wouldn’t be just roaming around. I’d be in the studio the entire time except when his assistant personally escorts me to and from the airport.”

  “Why can’t you wait until you finish school? It’s only six months. You’ll be eighteen by then, and you won’t need your father’s permission. If Noah Mason wants to sign you that badly, why can’t he wait?”

  “What if I don’t get another chance like this? You, of all people, know how lucky I am that Mr. Porter just happens to be friends with someone as important as Noah Mason. Mr. Porter stuck his neck out when he invited Noah down here to hear me during recital last month. If he thinks I’m wasting his time he might not want to work with me later. I’m ready now.”

  “Lacy, I promised I would talk to your father and I will. But don’t push me because I’m leaning toward agreeing with him. I want you to wait a little longer. I know what it’s like out there. I’ve been there, honey, and that life is not as glamorous as you think. As much as I support you, there’s a reason I gave all that up to marry your father and raise you. I don’t want you to rush yourself and find those reasons out the hard way like I did.”

  Grace shivered and mumbled something about the cold and going in soon. Lacy murmured something back to
her, and they both fell silent for a moment.

  “Did you tell Kevin about Mr. Mason?” Grace finally asked.

  “No. I wanted to wait until you could try and talk daddy into letting me go first. No need to start World War III over nothing. He’d probably call the wedding off altogether then.”

  “Honey, you’re going to have to tell him sooner or later. Even if your father doesn’t let you go right now, you’re going to go eventually. Kevin needs to know how serious this is. It’s not just a dream anymore—it’s happening.”

  “I will. The time just hasn’t been right yet.”

  “Well, don’t wait too long. This is big and important, Lacy, and you two need to get this sorted out. There’s no point in going forward with planning a wedding if he’s not behind you and you’re not willing to bend.”

  Lacy sighed again. “I’ll tell him after school tomorrow. If daddy lets me go Kevin will be furious if I don’t tell him before Sunday when I’m about to leave.”

  I sat back, stunned. My cigarette burned down to my finger, or I might have sat there shell-shocked much longer than I did.

  Here was my chance.

  I had been waiting for Kevin to screw things up with Lacy. They were too close, too eternally bonded with each other for that to happen. This new twist of fate could provide the opportunity I had been waiting for. And if I helped fate along, no one would be any more or less devastated than if I quietly sat back and let the fallout take its natural course.

  Lacy and her mother finally succumbed to the cold and climbed back inside.

  “Time to call in the reinforcements,” I muttered, as I grabbed the phone to call my girlfriend, Claire Marshall.

  “Hey, lover,” she said when she realized it was me.

  Claire and I had been dating since we were seventeen. We weren’t in love, but after four years together, we were essentially a habit to each other. We had both drifted in heart and body over the years. Me in heart. Claire in body. My heart belonged to Lacy Dalton, whereas Claire’s body belonged to half the town. Claire called our relationship “modern,” and “open,” and I ignored her promiscuity because she was sexually convenient.