Chapter 20
LUCKY
I should have known something was up James’s sleeve, especially when he started measuring mine.
“Why are we picking out dress clothes, exactly?” I asked.
James was too busy thumbing through suit jackets on the rack. “You’re going to look so fucking good,” he promised me, his eyes alight and a smile pasted over his face. “Like a king. Did you look at the bowties? What colors spoke to you?”
I stared at him hard. “I ain’t a bowtie kind of guy.”
“You’re going to look hot in a bowtie. Maybe a red one. Or white. Oh, here we go!” He pulled a jacket off the rack. “Hey, what was your shoulder size again? Never mind, I wrote it down.”
It was impossible to get through to James when his mind was set on something. And it was definitely set on something that day. I just didn’t know what it was quite yet.
Then, hours later when we were back at the house and my whole snazzy outfit was bought and paid for, he whipped tickets out of his pocket and fanned the pair of them in front of my face.
I took one and read it. “Concert tickets?”
“Yes. A night of piano classics, including the indomitable music of Chopin.” He grinned. “You, Lucas, are about to get totally schooled in the most beautiful music you’ve ever heard, as performed by one of the greatest pianists in the world. She’s coming to the concert hall at the local college. I scored us tickets.”
I didn’t know what to say. After staring at the tickets in a total stupor, I finally lifted my eyes to him. “Thank you, James.”
“Just wait until you hear that first piano stroke,” he said. “You will realize in that moment, you’ve never heard music before.”
He was right.
It was Thursday night when I found myself in the back of a balcony box. I felt like a million bucks, and James was so damned sharp and good-looking, I could have tackled him right in that balcony box if we weren’t surrounded by men and women twice my age who were all decked out in tuxes, glittering gowns, velvety dresses, and two tons of jewelry.
And when I heard that first stroke of the piano, I was hooked, my eyes glued to the pianist as her fingers danced.
James pressed against my side, shoulder to shoulder, as the piano music swelled around us. It was overwhelming at times, how powerfully the music affected me. I knew I would enjoy attending one of these concerts, at least on some level.
I never anticipated responding to the music at all levels.
Between two of the songs when the audience responded with polite applause (which surprised me, since my instinct was to roar and shout with my enthusiastic clapping), James leaned into me and asked if I was enjoying myself.
To that, I faced him and answered with a kiss. It was a kiss that seemed small at first, but then grew as we both sank into it, our lips locking tightly and throwing away the key.
He wasn’t expecting that. Neither was I.
One of the final songs near the end of the concert, I actually recognized: Chopin. As recognition dawned in me, I felt James’s eyes on the side of my face, which pulled my attention to him. He smiled at me with the tiniest twinkle of nervousness in his eyes. I wondered what he was thinking right then.
Maybe he wanted to say something to me, but felt it was way too soon to even think such a thing.
Maybe I was thinking something similarly, staring at his eyes with the rippling notes and unexpected chords of Frédéric Chopin storming all around us.
Maybe we were just sitting there staring into each other’s eyes wondering what the other one was thinking—an endless loop of wonder and curiosity.
When the final piece concluded and the pianist rose from the bench to take her bow, I was first on my feet, applauding. I could not stop myself from exploding with my appreciation for her hard work. Maybe a part of me was just proud as fuck to be among that audience to experience the life-changing music that night.
Maybe I was just proud to be at James’s side.
When we crossed the lobby on our way out, I shook my head. “Duncan actually fell asleep through a concert like that? Shit. He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s missing out on.” I caught a scandalized glance from an old couple near me, then leaned into James to add, “I should probably watch my language here.”
“Been telling you that since day one,” James teased back.
I forgot for a moment that we were at a college campus, taking note of the much younger (and less dressed-up) crowd who occupied the seats on the ground level of the auditorium. Many of them were leaving, strolling into the night to return to their dorms or head for the parking lot.
That was what gave me the idea. “You want to walk around the campus a bit before we head back?” I asked James. “I know it’s a work night for you, but—”
“Hell yeah,” James exclaimed. “Let’s do it.”
It was a good thing we did. The campus was actually very well lit, and there were many people around on a random Thursday night, sitting in lit areas with their computers out typing away or just walking about. I imagined them working on term papers that were due tomorrow or typing out essays for their professors on important scientific findings. It filled me with excitement, being on that campus and feeling like a part of the community without having a damned thing to do with it.
I guess you could say I was riding a high the concert gave me.
Nothing could pull me down.
“You ever think about college?” asked James as we passed by a building lined with tall trees, a woman leaning outside its doors smoking a cigarette and staring off into the night.
It was days ago at Ringers that Duncan asked me that same question, albeit in a less kind tone. “Sure, yeah, I do.”
“Before you left home, did you have a plan set in mind?”
That was his more polite way to say “before you ran away”. I always respected James’s sensitivity toward my circumstances. For some reason, on that particular night, I appreciated it more than I ever had before.
“Y’know, if I did have a plan,” I replied, “I’m sure it would’ve involved graduating high school first.”
He nodded. “You know, I could probably talk with Duncan and figure out what’s involved in getting your GED. I mean, assuming you’re sticking around here. I’m just …” He let out a short, nervous laugh. “I guess I’m just looking into the future.”
We came to a stop by a giant fountain that sat in the middle of a courtyard between three buildings. The sound of rushing water surrounded us on all sides as we took a seat on the fountain’s edge.
“I haven’t given it much thought,” I finally responded.
“You could do anything,” he assured me. “Anything at all you wanted. Just use my house as a place to live, you could even enroll here, and you—”
“Is that why you brought me here?” I turned to him. “Is this your elaborate sales pitch?”
“No way. Tonight was all about the music.” His eyes trailed down my body. “Well, and also it was a nice excuse to doll you up. Damn, you look so sexy.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said back.
He eyed me hard, that same elusive, curious look on his face that I spotted during the concert.
“Thanks, James,” I told him. “For tonight. For bringing me here. For believing I can be anything I want. For looking at me and not just seeing straight through me. For seeing me.”
James smiled. “Of course, Lucky.” He flinched. “Sorry. It’s the name you gave when we first met, so it’s stuck on my mind.”
I had no idea what took control of my hand in that moment, but I found myself caressing the side of James’s face. It happened so fast, I didn’t even notice until my fingers were softly trailing across his cheek.
“I like you,” I murmured so quietly, the noise of the fountain nearly took away my words.
James closed his eyes, melting into the touch of my fingers on his cheek. “I … I like you, too,” he said back, just as quietly.
There we were. A pair of bumbling kids at a school dance awkwardly confessing our shameful crush on one another—and while wearing clothes that could easily place us at such a dance.
My fingers stopped at his chin, which I grabbed. “I’m serious.”
His eyes flapped open. “M-Me too.”
“Maybe you look at me and think I’m just some naïve kid who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. That I’m too young to know when I’ve met someone who’s the real thing. That I don’t know what it means to love someone, or to care for someone—”
“No, no,” he assured me. “Really, I—”
I talked over him. “But I have met a lot of motherfuckers out there. Guys my age. Girls. I had a few friends in school. I’ve had feelings before. I know what makes a person good and what makes a person greedy. I’ve seen people change. I know there’s a dark part of everyone, buried deep down in their hearts—a part of you that would slit the throat of your best friend for a slice of bread on the streets out there. People can be selfish. Or jealous. Or worse. And yeah, I’ve seen the worst. I’ve seen darkness, James.”
There was a pinch of hurt on his face. It was like my words were painful to hear. Maybe I was helping him see the shit I’d experienced—shit no guy or girl my age should have.
I went on. “I feel sometimes like the world’s just sucking all the light out of me. Sucking it all out. Until there’s nothing left but a stupid kid who was foolish enough to dream his mom would get better. Or his dad wouldn’t stay out until two in the morning, ‘held up at the office’. Or …” I sighed, then said the rest with my eyes shut. “Or that I would’ve maybe had a normal fucking teenhood, finished school, and got to go to the fucking prom. Take a guy I loved. And fucking dance with him.” I clenched my teeth. “Instead of … selling my soul on the streets. If I even have one.”
A moment passed where I heard nothing but the calm flow of water and felt nothing but the cool night air on my skin.
Then I felt James’s hand on my thigh. “Lucas. Get up.”
I opened my eyes. “Huh?”
“Stand up. Get up.” He was off the edge of the fountain, to his feet. “Right here in front of me.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to say something, and I want you to look at my face when I do it.”
After a moment of staring at him, I rolled my eyes, crossed my arms, then said, “Let me guess. You’re gonna tell me that I’m all wrong. That I have a soul. That the light in me isn’t gone. That we all have darkness in us. That I can let all of that go and be happy living in your house. Happy and safe and blah, blah, blah. Right?”
From the slightly stunned look on James’s face, it appeared that I had taken half the words out of his mouth.
But there was more: the other half. “Stand up, Lucas.”
I sighed, then finally got up and stood in front of him.
James took my hands suddenly, which caught me by surprise. I looked up at him, and he spoke right into my eyes. “All that stuff about you having light in you, and having a soul, and letting go … that’s all true. But that darkness you’ve seen, it’s also part of you. And it’s going to stick with you for a long time. There’s really no sense denying its existence.”
I blinked. “Uh, okay. So what the fuck do I do with it?”
“You already have your answer.” He gave me a gentle pat on my chest. “Your passion, Lucas. It’s right in here.”
“In here?”
“Your art.”
My eyes detached from his.
“Put all of that darkness somewhere,” he advised me. “You’ve learned from it. You are still learning from it. The trick isn’t to purge yourself of it, or to lament over how your pain is turning you dark; it’s to learn to live a little in that darkness and make it not such an enemy.”
I thought on my father. I thought on my step-mother as she sat at her vanity applying a fifth layer of makeup. I thought on the day I lost my mother. “Easier said,” I caught myself murmuring.
“That’s not all I want to say.”
“What else, then?”
He let go of my hands, then extended his own. “I wanted to …” His face went red, then he shivered and looked off, retracting his hand. “Nah, it’s dumb. I’m embarrassed.”
I wasn’t sure if it was a psychological trick to lure me into his adorable trap, but I will admit, he awoke my curiosity. “What is it? You wanted to what?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” He crossed his arms, still looking off toward the fountain.
“James,” I stated warningly.
Then he met my eyes again at once, this time without a trace of nerves. He extended his hand. “I wanted to … ask you to prom.”
I wrinkled up my face. “The fuck?”
“Lucas. I’m asking you to prom. I want you to be my date. I …” He cleared his throat. “I want to dance with you.”
There were a hundred different things I could have said right there to make fun of James. I could have laughed in his face, rolled my eyes again, or just walked away.
Instead, I took his hand.
He pulled me gently against his body, slipped his other hand behind my back, then led me in a slow dance by the fountain. I felt like everything disappeared and it was just the pair of us on that whole college campus. No one was nearby. No fountain roared next to us. No eyes could find us in the spill of light from the nearby streetlamp.
I was certain that in both of our heads, Chopin was playing.
It felt fucking fantastic to dance with James by the fountain. I never felt closer to anyone on Earth than I did in that moment. He held me against his body, and I held him against mine, our hands clasped softly, as we danced in a slow circle.
I laid my head on his shoulder after we danced awhile. He laid his head on my chest.
I didn’t know what the hell was happening, but I loved it.
I loved every second of it.
Then his heel kicked into the edge of the fountain, and the pair of us toppled. There was no stopping it. I tried for one fleeting second to maintain balance, then felt his grip on my shirt as he desperately struggled to stay upright.
Neither of us succeeded.
We landed with a loud, rich splash of water that swallowed us whole. The fountain was only two feet deep, but it might as well have been the deep end of a swimming pool for as soaked as we became with that one fateful plunge.
We were still holding each other when we sat up, sitting in the fountain. At first, we both burst out laughing, completely in shock at what the hell just happened.
Then the laughter slowly died.
All we could do then was stare into the other’s eyes, watery and shimmering with refracted light.
“Wow,” I murmured as tiny water droplets fell from the ends of my hair. “First dance at prom, and you already got me wet.”
He let out one light chuckle, then resumed staring into my eyes like he was mesmerized by something.
“Stop giving me that look,” I warned him.
He lifted his eyebrows innocently. “What look?”
“We can’t do this here. If you keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna rip off all your clothes and fuck all thirteen days of pent-up frustration out of you right here in this fountain.”
“Fourteen days,” he mumbled.
“I don’t think either of us are right. Are we even counting anymore?”
“My dick is.”
“Let’s get out of this fountain, dry off, and fuck off.”
“Let’s,” he agreed, out of breath.
Something was about to erupt between us, and it wasn’t going to be while sitting in two feet of water.
We climbed out, totally soaked, then strolled slowly across campus to let the night air dry us off. I ignored the quizzical stares of people who walked past us. We each had a need that couldn’t be fulfilled until we were back at the house.
It didn’t even occur to me until we’d made it halfway across campus to the parking lot that we were holding hands.
Holding hands.
Who the fuck had I become in the space of one little night?