I sip my drink and nibble on a fry. It’s crispy outside and soft inside. Perfect. “I never told you this. Actually, I never told anyone. The people who know know because they saw it.”
“So Bennie knows.”
“Yeah.” I reach for another fry. Lucas takes a bite of mashed potatoes piled high next to a sizable pork chop. “When I got home after the hospital visit, I looked you up. Until then I’d never bothered because…well, I don’t know. I just never did. It hadn’t seemed all that important. But there were tons of articles about you online. And when I saw the ones with you and Faye together, I just felt…dirty and gross, and as far as I was concerned, it was over.”
“Ava…” He reaches for my hand, and I let him hold it and hang on tight. We need this connection so that no matter what I say, we’ll know we’re okay.
“I told you about how poor my family was when I was growing up, but I didn’t tell you everything. My parents didn’t marry…and my mother blamed me. She was certain if I’d been a boy, Dad would’ve done ‘the right thing.’”
Lucas shakes his head. “Completely unfair of her.”
“She wasn’t rational when it came to my father. She was crazy about him, just obsessed, even though he was hardly ever home. He was…” I pause, debating how to say the rest without sounding pitiful. But what am I thinking? The story is pathetic no matter how I spin it, and just moments ago, I promised to be truthful. “He claimed to be a truck driver, so he was away a lot. Always missed holidays and birthdays, anniversaries…every date that mattered. I can’t think of a single time he celebrated a birthday or holiday with us.”
Sympathy softens Lucas’s expression. “We’ll never miss birthdays and holidays. I promise.”
I give him an aching smile. When he makes a promise like that in such a solemn voice, it’s impossible for me to not to fall even deeper in love with him. “Then there was a car accident. He didn’t make it, and Mom and I were devastated. But nothing could’ve prepared for us for facing his wife and daughter.”
I tighten my hand around his until my knuckles pale. Only Bennie and Elle know this humiliating chapter of my life. “They were so beautifully dressed in designer clothes. His wife’s skin was so smooth, so well taken care of. She was nothing like my mom, who worked herself ragged to support me. And the daughter… She was the kind of girl who led the popular kids in high school, you know?”
Lucas nods.
“Then we learned Dad wasn’t a poor trucker, but a bank manager. He might not have been filthy rich, but he was pretty damn comfortable. He just wanted to play at being a roughneck when he was bored with his white-bread suburban life, go slumming for some kicks with a woman he considered beneath him. I was basically the result of a failed condom. Which explained why he’d never bothered to spend any quality time with us. We didn’t matter. We were just a dirty little secret he kept for cheap thrills. He left everything to his real family. It devastated my mom so much that she just…came unhinged and drank herself to death.”
“So when you found about me and Faye, you thought I was doing to you when your dad did to your mother.”
I nod.
Letting go of his fork, he rubs his face with a hand. “Christ, Ava.”
“It’s hard for me to take a person’s word for something, especially when it comes to relationships. That’s why I’d have never come back after leaving the hospital, and why I didn’t want to listen to you when the deal between you and your father became public. I was starting to get obsessed with you, and I felt like I was becoming my mother.”
“I’m sorry. I never knew…”
“How could you? I didn’t tell you, and I’m not famous enough to be Googleable.”
A small smile quirks. “Googleable?” The smile disappears. “I’m glad you aren’t. I don’t want anybody to know about you. I want you to be mine alone.”
There’s a tiny edge of need in his tone that guts me. I squeeze his hand. “You have me. I’m not going anywhere.”
“It’s a miracle you came back, given your background.”
“I wasn’t going to, but weighing my fear and the pain of losing you forever… I had no choice.”
“Faye.”
I nod, then bite my lip as jealousy unfurls within me. “I know you care a great deal about her.”
“We were lovers years before I met you, and I like her. She’s older and more experienced than me and doesn’t play games. It’s…refreshing to be with someone like that.”
I drink some Coke to wash away the bitter taste in my mouth. I always thought I wanted to know the whole story about Faye and Lucas, but now that he’s talking, I’m not sure if I really want to hear it.
“But she’s not you, Ava. Nobody can be you. You’re the only woman who’s made me yearn.”
The quiet intensity of his gaze and voice ripples over me. It soothes the wounds of my soul, and I close my eyes to savor the warm, sweet moment.
“When I saw you for the first time at that restaurant, it was like seeing my fate. My future.”
I grin. “You liked my body. I remember you checking me out.” An understatement; he’d stripped me bare with his eyes.