Breaking Lacy (Nick & Lacy Book 1) Read online

“Alex is not my boyfriend. He’s Susan’s older brother.”

  “And he’s just such a nice guy that he chauffeurs his little sister and her friends around all the time out of the goodness of his heart?”

  Taken aback by his unconcealed sarcasm, I dared entertain that the hint of jealousy in his tone wasn’t entirely my imagination. My heart leaped at the prospect.

  “You don’t need to worry. Alex and I are mutually uninterested in each other, so if you’re concerned about me getting into a situation like… like…” I fumbled with embarrassment for a way to voice what I felt was his real concern. “Like what happened with my daddy, then you don’t need to worry.”

  At the mention of the incident with my father, Nick’s eyes clouded over, as though what happened that night pained him as much as it did me. In that silent moment of mutual, tormented remembrance, my adoration for him swelled.

  No matter how confused I had allowed myself to become over Nick as of late, one thing had never changed: he was my savior, the brother-figure I had known my entire life who loved me like I was his own flesh and blood. Now that he had taken on the added role of my dearest and most cherished friend, my reverence for him had grown exponentially. It had nothing to do with my crush on him. Because of that night in the kitchen with my father, Nick and I shared a deeper bond that defied categorization. It was stronger than anything I had ever shared with Kevin. For this reason, to see hurt and worry etched on his face, touched and troubled me all at once.

  Steeling myself to be brave, I slid my arms around his neck and lay my head on his shoulder. “Oh, Nick,” I murmured. “Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  “It’s just that you don’t know how older guys think, Lace,” he said softly, tenderly cradling my cheek snug against him. “I promised Jerry I would take care of you. I don’t know this guy, so I can’t help but worry.”

  “Well, you don’t need to,” I said firmly. “Besides, you used to drive Kevin and me around all the time, and you didn’t have any ulterior motives. Why is it so hard to believe that Alex is just being nice?”

  His harrumph was short and loud. “Me thinks you be naïve, but…”

  After a few silent moments of relishing the smell and feel of his bare shoulder under my cheek, I reluctantly pulled away. He lay down and patted the mattress, beckoning me down by his side. I complied, and we lay facing each other.

  “Have you seen my dad lately?”

  Again, he looked disturbed at the mention of my father, but said, “Yes. I saw him when I went home earlier tonight.”

  “Is he doing okay? Does he miss me? Did he ask about me? Did you ask him to come see me like you said you would?”

  His expression turned dark and dour. “I’m sorry, but he’s still drinking. He was drunk when I saw him. He’s lost weight and looks like shit, but otherwise, I think he’s fine. He does miss you, though. He asked how you were doing. Wanted to make sure you were doing okay here with me.”

  When my throat constricted, and my eyes burned from rejection, I merely nodded. “What about Kevin? Is he okay?”

  Nick opened his mouth for a spontaneous answer, then narrowed his eyes and paused to chew his lip for a second. “Are you going to go back home and marry him after graduation, the way you two planned?”

  Deep in my heart, I had been asking myself the same thing since before I left home to stay with Nick. Part of me missed Kevin so much. He was part of my soul. Part of my heart had died that night when he went out to the tool shed with Claire, but he was still deeply embedded inside the living, beating part that remained. He would always be there because no matter how hurt he left me that night, I did still love him. The better part of my teenage years had been spent dreaming of our future together. One indiscretion couldn’t negate those years or the bond that we had shared since birth.

  But did I still want to marry Kevin?

  Did it even matter if I wanted to?

  I had left Kevin without a word of warning. He believed I ran away from home, and I knew he was worried and heartbroken that I hadn’t confided in him before leaving. I imagined he felt slighted and hurt that I didn’t trust and love him enough to at least say goodbye. After being away all this time, leaving him hanging in the wings of my indecision, surely, he must feel angry and rejected. Would he still want to marry me now even if I did go back home to him?

  Was that what I wanted?

  The night I left home to move in with Nick I would have said yes. I did still love Kevin enough to marry him as we had planned—then.

  But now…

  Nick had changed things. The longer I stayed with Nick, the more intense my crush on him grew. The more I daydreamed of him, the more I stopped trying to fight and deny those fantasies. The more I welcomed my body’s sudden awakening into awareness of Nick, the more I realized that his younger brother had never made me feel those same sensations. The more time I spent with Nick, the more I thought of him, the more I forgot to think about Kevin. He was becoming an after-thought, brought to mind out of guilt more than any lingering feelings of devotion.

  No. I would not go home and marry Kevin. It wouldn’t be fair to Kevin if I married him, knowing I had these doubts.

  “No,” I answered, with fondness and regret. “Kevin deserves better.”

  “How could he deserve better than you, Lace?” When I couldn’t answer, he forced my eyes to meet his. “After what he did to you, how can you say that?”

  “How can you question my forgiving Kevin for what he did, when you were willing to stay with Claire all those years?”

  “Because I never loved Claire,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue with a convincing ease that left me even more baffled.

  “But you stayed with her for so long. You let her treat you so poorly. I don’t understand?”

  He sighed and shrugged. “The way she treated me was only a reflection of the way I treated her.”

  “You never cheated on her.”

  “Maybe not technically,” he said, after a moment of introspection that left the faintest smile upon his lips. “But I didn’t treat her well in other ways. In her own way, she loved me. If she cheated, it was only to get my attention. Maybe she thought it would make me jealous enough to actually care. When we first got together, I made her think that I did care, but all along I was only using her, the way most guys use girls. We say whatever we have to say and do whatever we have to do to score. Me, Kevin, Mark Cary, Chris. Your new friend Alex,” he added pointedly. “Most guys only have one thing in mind when it comes to chicks.”

  I scoffed, but deep down it warmed me to know that Nick trusted me enough to be having this conversation. It didn’t matter to me how poorly he imagined his treatment of Claire. What mattered was that he was opening up a side of himself that I knew he was ashamed of and risking my judgment in doing so.

  “Well, maybe you were only using Claire, but I know you aren’t that person anymore,” I said with conviction.

  “What makes you say that?”

  His skepticism and self-deprecating frown made me smile. “Because…” I drawled, playfully feigning deep thought over trying to come up with an example. “You stopped smoking when I moved in because you knew I didn’t like the smell.”

  He grinned, probably hoping I wouldn’t notice his cheeks redden. “There was a clause in our lease.”

  “You haven’t smoked pot with Chris since I’ve been here.”

  He looked impressed that I had noticed. “You said you didn’t like it.”

  “Well, I think it’s sweet that you would care enough about me to think of that.”

  “I care enough about you to do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe and happy,” he said, so seriously and with such intensity that I blushed. “If that means giving up the booze and the dope and the smokes, I’m better off for it anyway.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I don’t know, I miss you keeping beer around. Believe it or not, I kind of liked the one you let me have… that night.�
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  My smile faded, but before my mood could take a sour turn, he said, “I have a great idea.”

  “What’s that?” I asked, thankful that his smile alone could take my spirits to a lighter place.

  “How about we go out and do something together this weekend? We’ll go bowling, or to a movie, or just out to a nice restaurant or something. Kind of like a date but it wouldn’t be a real date because, well, we’d just be two friends hanging out,” he clarified, looking a bit embarrassed over his rambling. “What do you say? Friday night?”

  Absolutely “yes” was on the tip of my tongue, but I closed my mouth, remembering that I had a commitment to perform with Gridlock at Static on Friday and Saturday nights from now on.

  “I can’t.” Disguising my glumness over the answer was impossible, and he gave me a questioning look.

  I wanted to tell him the truth. But after he voiced his concerns over my spending time with my new friends—notably, the older and not-to-be-trusted Alex—I didn’t think my hanging out at a dance club would bode well with Nick. Technically, he was my legal guardian. If he didn’t approve—and I doubted he would—he had the power to stop me. My eighteenth birthday was only two months away, in April. If I could keep my secret until then, he wouldn’t have a say in it.

  “I want to, but I already made plans with-”

  “With Alex?”

  I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. “Yes, but it’s not what you think.”

  He grinned, smug. “Whatever you say, Lace, but just so you know, I am precisely the type to say I told you so later.”

  “If you are right and his motives turn out to be less than honorable, then you have my blessing to gloat away.” When his warm smile waned a few moments later, inspiration struck. “Hey, your birthday is coming up!”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yeah. So?”

  “Well, since I can’t do anything with you this weekend, can I make it up to you by planning something for your birthday? Or were you going to go home to Andy and Rhonda’s?”

  His lips curled as he leaned closer, just enough to give the space between us a more intimate and familiar air. “Mom and dad probably expect me to come home, but I can ditch them without starting Armageddon.”

  I knew Rhonda and seriously doubted that. “Good. Then we have a date? I mean, not a real date, but a fake, friend-date like you said?”

  “On one condition,” he bargained. “If I agree to let you do something for my birthday this month, then you have to let me do something for yours next month.”

  We both held out our hands to shake at the same time. “You got it.”

  Nick and I small-talked each other until his yawns returned and I bid him goodnight. Alone in my room, in Nick’s warm bed, I completed the first draft of his song as the sun rose.

  Lacy

  I hated lying to Nick.

  Even though Alex did indeed flirt with me in the beginning when we first started rehearsing together, once he realized I wasn’t interested, his pursuits quickly died. Like Nick, Alex had enough college girls hanging on him without needing to score with a scrawny teenager like me. On that count, Nick couldn’t have been more wrong. Alex’s interest in me—and mine for him—was purely platonic, professional, and artistic.

  Even if he didn’t have genuine cause for concern over Alex, Nick would never approve of my performance attire. For most of my life, my clothing choices had reflected my mother’s modest, classic, elegant style. Susan had insisted my outfits were too conservative for the lead singer of a rock group. It pained me to agree; therefore, I allowed her to pick most of my performance garb.

  I hated some of her choices, but I knew enough about fashion to know that the clothes Susan loaned me were the trendiest in style for girls our age. When we performed, I traded in my long, billowing skirts for Susan’s shorter, chic ones, or for her jeans that were much tighter than what I usually wore. I swapped out my unadventurous sweaters and blouses for Susan’s more form-fitting tops. When left to my own devices, I rarely wore make-up more than a dab of lip-gloss. However, Susan insisted that I needed make-up—and heavily applied, at that—because the glaring stage lights made me look too washed out. I usually wore my hair pulled away from my face in a sleek ponytail, but Susan encouraged me to wear it down and unkempt, in keeping with our great and unwashed rock band persona.

  One good thing about dressing to satisfy Susan, Dorian, and Alex was that I wouldn’t have to worry about being recognized. If anyone from home ventured over to Asheville for a night on the town and happened into Static, the newest and most popular club in the city, no one would ever believe that the straight-laced and boring Lacy Dalton, and that cool-looking chick on stage, were one and the same.

  At least I hoped no one would recognize me.

  In the middle of our first set, a week later on the following Saturday night, I scanned the crowd on the dance floor in front of the stage and saw a familiar face.

  There was no way to be sure how long Mark Cary had been in the club. Besides Kevin, Mark was my closest and dearest friend. He would need only one clear glimpse of my face to instantly recognize the lead singer of Gridlock.

  Thankfully, Susan had talked me into wearing my hair down tonight. As long as I kept my head tilted so my hair would curtain around my face as much as possible, Mark wouldn’t recognize me. If he did, Mark would go straight home and tell Kevin, who would want to drive over to Asheville next weekend to verify it himself. Or even worse, he might call Nick to ask him to stop by Static to check for him.

  Lacy

  The band had rehearsed almost every night during the weeks before we started our gig at Static. I had to learn their songs, and then Susan, Dorian, and Alex had to adjust to my singing. Once we started our weekly performances, we cut our rehearsals down to twice a week.

  I was glad. I had missed the opportunities to spend time at home, doing things with Nick. He also seemed pleased that we were, once again, able to fall back into our evening routines. We always enjoyed preparing dinner together. Some evenings were spent sitting side by side on the sofa watching our favorite television shows while we ate. Other evenings passed with me sitting on the living room floor strumming my guitar, while he lay sprawled on the sofa sketching ideas for the final art project he had to submit in order to graduate. Then there were nights when the three of us would do our grocery shopping together. Chris would chatter incessantly about whatever girl he was interested in dating at the time. Or they would both recount humorous anecdotes of their shifts at the university art museum. The three of us were becoming a family of sorts, in a strange and unconventional way. We were all unanimously content, except for the occasional squabble over the lone bathroom.

  Glad that I had grown to feel just as comfortable with Chris as I did with Nick, I had no trouble hanging out alone with him one night when Alex dropped me off after rehearsal. He was heating a can of soup for his dinner when I arrived.

  “Hey, kid. How’s it hangin’?” he asked.

  “Good,” I said, as I shrugged off my jacket and hung it up. “Where’s Nick?”

  Chris turned off the stove and transferred his soup to a bowl. “Volunteered for a double shift. The guy on schedule was sick.” My disappointment must have been more obvious than I would have liked, for he added, “Don’t look so glum. He’ll be back soon.”

  Chris carried his bowl to the kitchen table, where a notepad and textbook were already opened. I grabbed an apple from a bowl of fruit on the counter and sat across from him. “You sticking around this weekend?”

  “Is that a hint?” he asked, shooting me a conspiratorial wink.

  “It’s Nick’s birthday.”

  He glanced up from his food, grinning. “Oh yeah, he mentioned the big birthday date. Whatcha got planned?”

  “It’s not going to be a big deal. Just dinner, a cake, and I rented his favorite movie,” I explained, regretting that dinner would likely be the extent of our evening. There wouldn’t be enough time to go out to ce
lebrate the way I wanted to if I intended to make it to the club on time. “I know it’s lowkey, but I still want it to be special.”

  “You mean private.” His waggled his eyebrows in a lewd arch. “You saucy thing. Who would’ve guessed.”

  “Chris!”

  He belted out a hearty laugh. “Alright, alright. Say no more, the house is yours.”

  “Thank you. And can I ask you to do another favor for me?”

  “How could any guy refuse you, Lacy?”

  “Will you haul me around Saturday morning to run a few errands before Nick gets back from Claryville? I was going to ask Alex, but I know Nick doesn’t like him that much, so…”

  Chris let out a loud, contemptuous harrumph. “Yeah, no shit.” When he saw my confusion over the vehemence of his claim, he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’ll do it.”

  Lacy

  The band didn’t usually rehearse on Thursday; therefore, Alex suggested it was the perfect time for a recording session in his studio. As a band, we recorded a few of our Gridlock songs, and then, once Susan and Dorian left us alone, Alex and I stayed behind to record my “Nick” song for me.

  It was during this recording session that I decided I was ready to call Mr. Porter.

  Mr. Porter was my only link to Noah Mason. He had said that Mason was still interested in working with me when I was ready. It was already nearing the end of March. My high school graduation ceremony was set for the first week of June. Two months would be gone before I knew it. It was time to start putting New York plans into motion if I intended to follow through with them.

  I broached the subject with Alex as he drove me home.

  “How serious are you about the band?” I asked, while we waited through a traffic light a few blocks from my house.

  He glanced over at me and must have discerned from my expression that this wasn’t just a topic of small talk. “I don’t know. How serious are you about the band?”

  The light changed, and once we were moving again, I went on to explain. “Before my mom died and I moved here, I had an offer to work with a producer up in New York after graduation. As far as I know, the offer is still on the table.”