"She just needs to catch up. Things will get easier. They’ll go back to normal."
He turned looking at her, his green eyes aflame, "I have a chance this time though. She already loves me. I'm not giving up."
Aimee laughed, "That’s a dangerous game dude. You never heard of Bro's before Ho's before? You could lose your brother over a girl." She recalled her own predicament with her sister and Blake. Things had never healed properly, her sister was living in Boston with Blake and she never spoke to her.
He nodded, "Yeah I know Aims but I love her so much it hurts and if there is a part of her that loves me, even if it's an old dormant part I cant just let the fire die. I hurt every day I'm here with them, watching them, seeing him happy holding the girl I know is mine."
"Then you gotta do what's best for you Luke."
"I like Lucas better."
Aimee shook her head, "I don’t."
He laughed, "You're a pain in the ass Aimee."
She wrapped a single arm around him, "You love me and you know it."
She got up and left him there and winked herself home. She snuck along her back yard to the street. Dusk in a small town was a lovely sight. She remembered every step she took around to her street. Her boots clicked on the concrete sidewalk.
She tried to sneak home and peak at her dad and sometimes Shane if she was in the mood for really fooling herself into believing she could ever let a human love her after the monster she had become.
She looked from behind a truck across the street from her house at her dad in the front window.
"Aimee? Are you real? Are you back?"
She flinched and looked at Shane standing beside the truck, "Hey."
He looked hurt just seeing her, "What are you doing here?"
"I just wanted to see him." She felt her heart break wondering why love couldn’t just be easy.
"So you're not back then, just spying?"
She nodded weakly.
His tone changed to angry, "He isn’t doing so hot. Not that you give a shit."
She turned to face him head on, she nearly melted seeing him in his jeans hugging his strong legs and his t-shirt stretched tightly across his chest. His face was more handsome than she recalled. She got how Ari felt completely. Her heart still told her she'd made the wrong choice getting back together with Aleks instead of going to see Shane and try to make things work. She knew she could hurt him and he was safer away from her but she thought about what Luke had said.
"I give a shit, about you both." Her words were weak.
"Then stay and see him Aimee. Stop hurting him. He loves you and he needs to see you. The docs are looking at it being cancer maybe."
His words were like a punch in the gut. She frowned, "No."
He nodded, "Yeah. Not that you would know. It's been over a fucking year Aimee."
She nodded looking across the road at the house with the large window in the front room where he sat watching TV. "Does Alise know?" She wondered how her sister could move to Boston knowing their father was sick.
"Yeah of course. She's insane and dating that psycho."
Aimee frowned, "He isn't a psycho."
She sighed knowing she would never win. Blake had betrayed her when he tried to commit her and broke her and Shane up and even though she was past it Shane never would be.
"Were you just leaving?" She asked looking at him and the big blue truck. It was newer than his other one. She hadn’t expected it to be his.
He shook his head, "Just arriving." He put a hand out for her, "Come with me."
She put her hand out letting him envelope it with his. The warmth that came off him was unbearable. She felt the connection of their skin immediately. It never felt like that when Aleks touched her.
Shane squeezed her hand pulling her into him, "I know you're different now, I saw you in that alley. I saw what you did to him, I get it. But I can't help myself. I love you more than I did before. I want us to try."
She looked up into his blue eyes and got lost for a second. His body against hers felt so right. She nodded, "I love you too." She couldn’t believe the words came out. She thought about Aleks for a second but knew her words were the truth.
He didn’t wait for her to back peddle. He lowered his face pressing his soft lips against hers. It was the kiss to end all kisses, his lips devouring hers, his hands pulling her off the ground up into his chest. He pressed her against the truck sliding his hand up the back of her t-shirt. His hands against her bare skin exploded heat throughout her body. Her hands started to heat. She put them into the air desperate to get them away from him, "Stop."
He stopped pulling away from her his eyes burning and his breath ragged.
She put her hands out, "These will kill you if I don’t keep control. I can't lose it for a second."
He nodded, "Lets go see you dad. Then we're going to my place. This isn’t over."
She bit her lip.
Chapter Twenty-one- Effing Sound of Music
Ari
"Miss Ari you's needs to be getting up outta that bed. I gots your favorite here now, pancakes with chocolate chips and banana slices and vanilla yogurt. Now sit up ya here. Eats something for Annabelle."
She kept her eyes shut pretending the maid wasn’t there. Her stomach betrayed her grumbling away as soon as the smell of the pancakes hit her. She opened her eyes and looked at Annabelle standing beside her with Lucas holding a plate of food.
She shot up wondering how bad she looked after staying in bed for days like a sloth.
"Lucas?"
"Morning, well evening actually but yeah. Hi." He seemed nervous.
She smiled and then frowned, "What are you doing here?"
Annabelle winked at Ari and was gone instantly.
Lucas put the tray down on the bed in front of her and smiled, "Well I was thinking maybe we could start over since neither of us seems to know one and other any more."
She nodded taking her first bite, "Okay." She felt the hurt look crossing her face scared of trusting him again.
He looked distressed, "Look you and Ben and you and me obviously all kinda have a triangle. In your memory we were together and in my memory you chose him. I just want you to maybe, uhm well, just rethink your choice."
She laughed, "You suck at this. Look my memory is full of shit."
He closed himself off, "Oh. You want to be with Ben still?"
She shook her head, "No I mean the other, other me is a church girl goody two shoes. Not my thing. I'm a jock. I like sports. I like nature and hiking and animals not orphans and street kids. I don’t like talking about my feelings. I don’t know how I feel about church and god." She sighed, "I don’t feel that way about Ben. There is something there, it's not me though. I'm the one in control. The memories are just that memories but my body and my feelings aren’t confused."
He looked confused, "You suck at this too."
She nodded looking at his dark brow shaggy hair and green eyes and melted.
He smiled, "You love me?"
She smiled back biting her lip, "Well if you're still you then yeah maybe but if you're the asshat who was super mean to me downstairs then no."
He laughed, "Asshat, nice language. Not so churchy as I remember you."
"That’s what I'm saying, this new me has dreams like The effing Sound of Music. I mentally scold myself when I curse. She's insane, too grateful to the church. I like that I'm regular. I don’t like extremes of anything. I mean why did you like me?"
His eyes lowered as a grin crept across his lips, "Well I didn’t at first. I thought you were this annoying church girl who was too preachy and too moral, which sounds worse than I mean it to. But then sometimes I would see this other side of you, like when you ran. You were different. Closed off and quiet."
"I just wish I grew up in my life. I wish it was just me in here."
"Yeah you're kinda schizo. It's weird."
She took a bite and made a face at him.
He laughed stealing a bite of her pancake.
She watched him, there was something behind his eyes. Something he wasn’t saying.
"What's wrong?"
He shrugged, "Nothing? What?"
"You look sad kinda."
He shook his head, "Ben. You know he'll be super pissed and shit if you break up with him."
"You think I should date him falsely, pretending to be into him when I'm not? If he touches me I will probably vomit. It would be like my brother touching me." She shivered at the thought.
"No of course not. I just don’t want my brother hurt." His green eyes were dazzling. She moved the tray of food and crawled to where he sat.
She put a hand on his shoulder, "We need to take this one day at a time. Three days ago when I got here I was your girlfriend, we were together. My whole world is upside down now. Me and Aimee hardly seem to be friends, everything is a mess."
He frowned, "You and Aimee were friends?"
"Best, I was there when she got back together with Shane. I was the one who talked her into it."
"Wow you're from like another planet, her and Shane? You mean that cop she dated in high school?"
Ari sighed, "Oh my god, she's not with Shane?"
He shook his head, "No dude, she's with Aleks. Has been for like six months."
Ari picked up her cell phone from her bedside table and rifled through it, "Jesus I don’t even have her in my phone. Didn’t she take me to Roses?"
He laughed, "Yeah she mystery travels us all over, part of her job. I think she's always kinda disliked you though. She's very into science not religion."
Ari sighed again exasperated, "God I wish everyone would stop seeing me like that. I'm not her."
"Ari you are her to us, that’s all we've known."
"Yeah well it's not what I am."