Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1) Page 12

  “How are you going to explain to Kevin and your parents why I’m here?”

  “Who says I’m going to?” He stood and wandered into the kitchen. “Oh, thank God. You found the coffee,” he said, as he started setting the machine up for brewing.

  “What do you mean you aren’t going to tell them?” I asked, following him into the kitchen.

  “You are officially in New York working with Mason. Indefinitely.”

  “Daddy’s going to tell people that? No one would believe it. Everyone knows he didn’t want me going when I really did have the chance.”

  “I didn’t say that he let you go,” Nick said matter-of-factly, fixing us both a bowl of cereal. “You fought about it, and when he refused to let you go, you ran away. That’s the story.”

  I stood in the archway separating the two rooms, watching him pour milk into our bowls as the reality of my plight bombarded me.

  “This is really happening,” I whispered despondently, for until that moment I hadn’t considered that leaving home would be a permanent arrangement. All morning while I worked helping Nick organize his new house, thinking I would only be here for a few hours, I had been in denial. My father really tried to rape me last night. And unless I wanted the whole world to know it, this was my life now.

  Nick stopped pouring the milk in his bowl to stare back at me with pity. “Lace…”

  I turned, headed back down the hall to his bedroom, and quietly closed the door.

  Nick

  An hour passed and Lacy still hadn’t come out of my room before I decided to check on her. When she didn’t answer my knock, I entered without invitation.

  She lay curled up on her side hugging Boris, staring out the window at nothing more mesmerizing than the barren limbs on the tree in the backyard. I sat on the edge of the bed beside her and followed her gaze for a few moments.

  “I understand you don’t want to be here, Lace. I know you’re going to miss home. Jerry, mom, dad, and most of all Kevin, I’m sure. But I’m here, and I care just as much as they all do. I need you to trust me on that. I won’t let anything happen to you, and I’ll do my best to make sure you have everything you want or need to be happy here until the time comes and you decide to go. What I won’t do is let you lay in here feeling sorry for yourself, because the Lace I’ve known my whole life couldn’t stand people like that and would rather be dead than turn into one of them.”

  Without turning her eyes toward me, she replied, “The Lace you’ve known your whole life is already dead.”

  The frankness in her hollow tone stunned me.

  “Lace…”

  She closed her eyes. I tentatively reached out to caress her disheveled hair, wanting to lie down beside her and hold her, to comfort and protect her while she cried, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. Instead, I stood up.

  “I’m going out. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  I left Lacy to scope out the nearest school and do a little grocery shopping. Two hours later when I returned home, Chris was there.

  “Hey man, you made it just in time to fire up with,” he said, sitting on the couch watching television and packing his bong. “Where’d you run off to last night anyway?”

  “Had stuff to do,” I said, as I dropped the grocery bags on the counter. “Gotta tell you something, man.”

  “You got a lot done here. Thanks, man. I figured you’d be at your folks. Heard about the brawl. How much damage did she do?”

  I sat down beside him, reaching up to feel my head, remembering the injury for the first time. The fight was barely twelve hours ago but it seemed like months. “I gotta tell you something. Don’t fire that up until I’m done because it’s serious.”

  “You ain’t backing out of this so soon, are you?” He altered his voice to playfully mimic a female’s pitch when he teased, “Oh, honey, baby, I promise I’ll call next time I decide to stay out all night, sweetheart. Don’t leave me, puss-puss!”

  When Chris saw how serious I had grown, he cleared his throat and put the bong down. “Damn. Who shot your dog?”

  “We have another roommate,” I said simply. “Don’t worry about her share of the rent or anything. I’ll take care of it-”

  “Dude, for fuck sake! Tell me you and Claire didn’t hook up for some makeup sex last night after the fight and-”

  “Keep your voice down. She’s in my room. And no, it’s not Claire,” I assured him.

  “Hittin’ some strange, are we?” he teased, as he picked up his bong, lit the head, and took a deep inhale. “That’s cool. Least one of us is gonna be gettin’ some, I guess.”

  “No, it ain’t like that. Yet,” I added with confidence.

  “Oh, shit no!” Chris’s eyes widened and he stared down the hallway toward my bedroom door. He was the only person who knew about my feelings for Lacy, and in that knowledge, he instantly figured it out. “No shit! For real?”

  “Keep your voice down, man.”

  I proceeded to tell him about the night before.

  “Fuck that.” Chris stared across the room at a tower of boxes with a pensive brow. “Dude, I hate to say this. I know how you feel about her and all, and her staying here is going to fit perfectly into your schemes, but she could be seriously fucked in the head from this, man. What if she needs her head shrunk or something? Think you’re gonna be able to seduce damaged goods?”

  “She’s not damaged. I got to her before Jerry did anything but scare the shit out of her. And I plan to move nice and slow. I’m not going to rush things and screw this up because if she leaves here and runs off to New York on her own, I won’t have another chance.” I pushed myself up and stared down at Chris as he hit the bong again. “This is it, bro’. My one shot. Oh, and you can’t let anyone know she’s here.”

  “She ain’t gonna be hogging the bathroom and putting up girly shit everywhere, is she?”

  “And if she does?” I asked with a wary scowl.

  “I guess I’m not saying anything?”

  “Thank you.”

  With that said, I went to my bedroom. I softly knocked. When there was no answer, I peeked in. She lay in the exact same position I left her in, still sleeping, or at least pretending to, with Boris hugged tight to her chest. I went to the side of the bed and eased down beside her.

  “Lace?”

  Her eyes fluttered a few times before opening, slowly focusing on me. She smiled a sleepy smile and stretched out into a languorous yawn. Then, apparently, the events of the past twenty-four hours rushed back, and her smile faded. She glanced around my room and sighed.

  “So, how’re we gonna work this?” she asked, as she sat up and crisscrossed her legs.

  “Well,” I began, glancing around just as she had done, “I think there will be plenty of room in the closet for both our things as long as you don’t have enough to fill a department store. I’ll take two drawers in the dresser, and you can have two. I can stop by your house the next time I’m home and grab anything you didn’t bring last night. You know, your books, music—stuff like that. You can have the bedroom, and I’ll take the sofa bed, just like last night. No big deal.”

  “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she said with uncertainty, reexamining the small bedroom with a skeptical frown.

  “Of course, it is. I mean, it’s not going to be perfect, and we’ll both have to compromise a little, but it’s only for a few months. Once we get into a groove and get used to having each other around all the time, it’ll be just like it was when we were both living back home. I’m still Nick, and you’re still Lace.

  “Now, I know you asked me not to say anything, but I had to tell Chris. I trust him with my life and you can too, so don’t worry, but I wanted you to know that he knows.” She grimaced in humiliation. “I had to explain why you’re here, Lace. If I hadn’t told him, he wouldn’t have known how important it was not to let it slip to someone back home.”

  She nodded and let out a miserable sigh. “Okay, but do I really have to s
tart school here? Can’t I just find a job and do my fair share? I’d feel better about staying that way.”

  “Nope. You’re going to finish school. However, you may not have to start right away. I’m gonna need Jerry to do what’s necessary to get you enrolled at the school I found, and that might take either emancipating you or granting me guardianship.”

  She sat in deep thought that I refrained from interrupting. “I can’t go back home, can I?”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, wishing there was some way to line this dark cloud silver for her, hating to see her suffering and in so much pain. “You can go stay with my mom and dad the way I said, but you know what that entails.”

  She gave a shallow nod and chewed her bottom lip. “You like me, don’t you, Nick? I mean, I know you care or you wouldn’t be doing this for daddy and me, but I don’t want you feeling obligated because of our history. Do you like me well enough for us to be friends? Do you think we’ll get along?”

  “Of course, I like you, Lace.” For the first time, I realized how difficult it was going to be living in the same house with her under false pretenses. I would have to be careful. I couldn’t move too fast considering what she’d been through over the past few months, last night particularly, but I couldn’t afford to dawdle either. Chances were good that she would want to leave as soon as she graduated, and that was only five months away. Every day counted. “And as for being friends, I was under the impression that we already were.”

  Her smile came and went in the span of a split second. “Good. I promise I won’t be in the way. And I’ll leave you and Chris alone when people come over to party. And if you have a date and need the bedroom or anything like that-”

  “Lace!” I shook my head, disconcerted by her train of thought. “You live here too now. I don’t want you to feel like you’re intruding because you’re not. Chris and I are boring guys. We sit around watching television. We drink beer and get high. We throw homework in to spice things up every now and then. At worst, Chris might embarrass you by popping in a porn flick once in a while. If you can handle that then trust me, this is going to work out just fine. Don’t worry, okay?”

  She bowed her head, and when she looked up a few seconds later, her eyes brimmed with fresh tears. Suddenly she flung her arms around my neck. “Thank you, Nick. Thank you for being my friend and helping me. If you hadn’t been there last night…”

  Clearly overwhelmed by everything that had happened last night, her tears fell quiet against my shoulder. I held her close while she cried, reveling in the nearness of her body pressed to mine so snug and right, feeling almost ashamed of myself when I felt the tingling of arousal. The good Lord should strike me down for getting off on her demonstration of gratitude, and fear of just that made me reluctantly ease her away.

  “Alright there, floss. You gonna help me unpack so we can make room for all your frilly, pink, girly stuff?”

  She wiped her eyes. Her grin was genuine no matter how small. “Who would’ve ever guessed that you and I would be shacking up together? What a hoot, right?”

  I chuckled at her choice of words, and boldly leaned over to kiss her forehead and tickle her behind the ear. “A hoot it is, Lace.”

  Lacy

  Nick and my father found an attorney in Asheville to handle the legalities of making Nick my legal guardian for the short duration of time I would still be a minor. It was devastating that my father could simply sign me away as though I were no more important than a piece of goods changing hands. Thankfully, Nick talked me into staying home on the day he met with my father at the lawyer's office to finalize the arrangement. I wouldn’t have been able to face my father without breaking down.

  Settling in at school presented challenges as well. I wasn’t used to or prepared for the attention I would receive as the new girl in school. And it wasn’t at all welcoming.

  The conversation took place on the very first day, during a break between physics and economics. A pretty blond, whom I recognized from homeroom that morning, cornered me in the bathroom when I came out of a stall.

  “Hey look, it’s the new girl.”

  Noting the trace antagonism in her tone, I flashed a noncommittal smile as I quickly washed my hands, hoping to make a speedy retreat.

  “So, how far along are ya?”

  I froze in the process of turning off the water, my gaze affixed to the reflection of hers in the mirror. “Excuse me?”

  “The only reason a girl would switch schools in the middle of her senior year is if she’s knocked up and had to,” she said, as she fished a tube of lipstick out of her purse to make a touch-up. “And since I already know you’re living with a man who ain’t your daddy, he must be the daddy.”

  It took me a few seconds to realize she was serious. While I recovered from my shock over this unexpected confrontation, she went on.

  “Your momma’s dead. Your daddy’s still alive, but he signed off on you. So now you’re living with this other guy. You were a straight ‘A’ student at your old school. A member of the Honor Society, Vice President of the Astronomy club. You scored in the top 10 percent of your class on your SAT’s. You applied to Berkley and Rice and were accepted to both, though, according to the most recent notes from your old guidance counselor, you only applied to make your folks happy because you don’t plan to do college at all.”

  My hand had long since dropped from the sink, my mouth agape.

  “I have an ‘in’ in the administration office,” she explained, with a shrug of cool superiority. “So, you might as well give me the scoop. Whether you’re knocked up or not, word has already spread and everyone thinks you are.”

  She finished applying her lipstick and turned to face me as she slipped the tube back into her small handbag. “And even if ya ain’t preggers, you’re living with a guy you ain’t kin to so everyone automatically thinks you’re a slut.”

  I finally snapped out of my shock. My unshed tears were too close to falling to stay and allow this girl the satisfaction of seeing them. “I don’t care what any of you think. I’m not pregnant, and I’m not a slut.”

  I couldn’t reach the door fast enough to escape her syrupy farewell. “See ya around, new girl.”

  “Whatever,” I mumbled on my way out to the corridor.

  Deep down, the thought of my reputation already being ruined on the first day at my new school made me cringe. It would take months to prove that I wasn’t pregnant. My living with Nick would cause rumors whether they thought I was pregnant or not, but I could manage. Graduation was in June. I could deal with being a social outcast for that long.

  Hoping to salvage some hope for my future at this school, during my lunch break I went to the band room to speak with the instructor.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Dalton, but we don’t have any spots open,” the instructor said, shuffling through a score of sheet music at his podium. “We already have a keyboardist, and we don’t have a string section so we have no need for a guitarist.”

  “But, Mr. Franklin, I just-”

  “There’s nothing open, Miss Dalton,” he repeated tersely.

  “Does the school have a piano I could use?”

  Mr. Franklin didn’t bother disguising his annoyance. “I don’t suppose you play an instrument other than the keyboard or guitar?”

  I hung my head, trying to control my frustration. “I just want to keep up with my practice. I don’t have a piano at my new house.”

  Swallowing my tears and my pride, I looked back up to face the teacher, begging with my eyes. His expression softened and he sighed. “There’s an old upright in the auditorium that the drama class uses. You can use it in the afternoons after school on days when they aren’t rehearsing.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Franklin,” I gushed with grateful relief.

  My one triumphant joy had me so preoccupied that I scarcely noticed the whispers and snickers that followed me around for the rest of the day, and then afterward, on my way out to meet Nick when he p
icked me up after school.

  Lacy

  As had become our habit over the past two weeks since living with Nick, he and I crowded into the small kitchen to prepare dinner together that evening. Standing side by side at the counter, with him working on the main course while I chopped vegetables for a salad, we labored in our relaxed, easy rhythm as I told him about my exchange with Mr. Franklin.

  “That’s perfect. You stay after school and practice, and I’ll pick you up on my way home after my last class.” He elbow-nudged me and smiled. “It’ll be like back in the old days before Kevin got his car and mom used to make me haul you two around.”

  Those old days really weren’t that old. Kevin had only had his driver’s license for a little over a year. Before that, Nick indeed used to drive us wherever we wanted to go with nary a fuss.

  “You sure you don’t mind? I could ask him to let me practice during lunch or something,” I offered.

  “It’s okay, Lace,” he said sincerely. “I’m glad you’ll have a way to keep up your music. I don’t want you to have to give up anything more than you already have, and your music is important. That’s the most important part of who you are.”

  A lump suddenly lodged in my throat. Why couldn’t Kevin have supported me so unconditionally? Why couldn’t Kevin have wanted me to succeed the way Nick did? Why couldn’t Kevin have wanted me to be happy the way his brother did?

  Overcome with emotion, I gave him my most grateful smile. “Thank you, Nick.”

  Lacy

  My second day of school proved even more demoralizing than my first. The unfounded rumors of my unsavory predicament had spread more quickly than I could have predicted.

  As soon as Nick dropped me off and drove away, the snickers and finger-pointing began. With my head hung in humiliation, I endured crude baby jokes and mocking jabs about “the baby’s father” on the way to my locker, where I found an assortment of baby items ranging from pacifiers to booties taped to the door. I removed the pieces with calm indifference and threw them away on the way to my first class.