“Lucian,” I said, softer, repentant. “I’m not here to manage you. I’m here to support you. If you’ll let me.”
He turned then, his expression mulish, and crossed his arms over his chest as he regarded me. “That work both ways?”
“Yes . . .” I frowned. “Why are you looking at me like I’m full of it?”
“That’s not how I’m looking at you.”
“Oh? Then explain that smirk, because I am armed with frosting and have been told I have a mean squeeze.” I picked up the bag in demonstration. It got a half smile, which is what I’d been angling for. But it died quickly.
“You want to talk about the scripts you’ve been reading, Em?” His tone was quiet, but there was an underlining thread of accusation.
I set the bag down. “You think because I haven’t talked about the crap material sent my way that you shouldn’t talk to me about what happened with Anton just now.”
Lucian leaned a hip against the counter. “It works both ways, doesn’t it? You want me to open up—then why can’t you?”
“Fine. I’ll open up. I’m worried. I want to do more with my career than is being offered. I have to figure out how to do that when the powers that be hold all the cards. When I’m not with you, I think about that too much. My stomach aches at random times. And sometimes, in the dark of night, I try very hard not to freak out, because I know I’m so much better off than most people, and I shouldn’t complain about being a famous actress who can’t get her way. But I’m still scared and uncertain, and I hate it.”
I stopped and let out a shaking breath. “Is that enough sharing for you?”
Lucian pushed away from the counter, the line of his mouth grim. He reached me in two steps and, before I could protest, pulled me close, wrapping me up in his arms. I sank against the broad wall of his chest with a shudder.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped against my hair, his fingers clasping the back of my head firmly. “I hate that you feel that way.”
I nodded and pressed my palm to his firm flesh.
He snuggled me closer, as though trying to eliminate any space between us. “No, I mean it. You shouldn’t have to carry that load alone.”
“Like you do?”
My soft whisper stilled him. Then he let out a breath. “Yeah, like I do.”
I rubbed his chest. “That’s the point, Brick. If we’re trying to be together, we should be able to tell each other these things.”
He huffed out a dark laugh. “Is that what this whole relationship thing is about?”
“So I’m told.”
Lucian sighed and combed his fingers through my hair. “I didn’t exaggerate when I said I was no good at this.”
“No, you really didn’t,” I teased.
Lucian grunted. “Brat.” He poked a ticklish spot, making me laugh and edge back enough to meet his gaze. His was fond but tired. “Cassandra wanted me to share my troubles. I tried in the beginning, but I found it easier not to.”
“Why?”
“This is going to sound ridiculous, but she always agreed with me, even when I knew deep down that I was in the wrong.” He shrugged, wincing. “I found I didn’t want that type of support.”
“Greg would tell me, ‘Babe, stop complaining. You have it so easy compared to me.’”
Lucian scowled. “Fuckwit.”
“Yes, he is.” My smile ebbed. “I don’t think I fully realized until just now how much that messed with my head.”
He nodded, biting his bottom lip in contemplation. And for a minute neither of us spoke. We had so many walls, hidden ones and ones we’d shored up, as though under siege. He’d warned me he was an emotional wreck, but maybe I should have warned him too.
“I imagine going to that event, and all I can see is me standing there like a sad cautionary tale,” he said with sudden frankness, his eyes bleak. “Look at poor Oz, can’t play, cut down in his prime. Shake his hand, kids; give him a big hug of support.”
“Oh, Lucian.”
He held up his hands, warding me off, as his eyes grew shiny. “Standing there with the people I used to play with, compete against. Guys who still can play. And there I am, the one who has to walk away when it’s over.”
“So don’t go. If it hurts you that much—”
“It hurts either way.” He ran a hand over his face, grunting with a ragged sound. “I’m pathetic if I go. I’m pathetic if I stay home.”
“You are not pathetic.”
His smile was a bitter, twisted thing. “I keep telling myself that, but it doesn’t take.”
I ached for him, but he knew that. It was clear by the stiff way he held himself, eyeing me with a mix of caution and warning. I pressed my hand against the cool smoothness of the counter. “I didn’t want to go to Macon and Delilah’s wedding. I thought of all my friends and former coworkers looking at me with pity and . . .” I shuddered. “Pride is a fierce thing, isn’t it?”
A stiff jerk of his chin was his only acknowledgment. His gaze moved off, away from me, and I knew he was trying to collect himself.
“But going took away all the what-ifs. I did it. It’s over. Life changes, but they didn’t pity me the way I thought they would.”
Lucian slanted me a look from under the thick fringe of his lashes. “There’s one key difference, honey.”
“Which is?” I knew what it was, but I wanted him to say it. Because I wasn’t going to be the woman who made everything easy for him.
“You still want to act.”
“You don’t want to—”
“Not in some exhibition. Not . . .” He took a breath, then let it out swiftly. “Hell, Em. I don’t think I can handle getting on the ice again, knowing I can’t go back to the sport.”
The ice. He loved it with all his soul. I knew that. You only had to see him play to know it. The ice was a part of him, and it had been cut off without warning. I held his gaze, letting him see that I understood.
“If I told you I didn’t know how to skate, would you teach me?”
He blinked, but a genuine smile of shock pulled at his mouth. “What?”
“Would you teach me?” I repeated. “For fun? Would you be willing to do that if I said I was a sad excuse for a skater?”
The smile tilted and grew. “Hell, you’re good.”
“Good?”
“Don’t give me those innocent big blue eyes, Snoop.” He touched the edge of my jaw. “You know exactly what you’re doing, tempting me like that.”
“Is it working?” I took his big rough hand in mine. “Will you skate with me, Lucian?”
“Damn it,” he muttered, but he didn’t look upset. His green eyes sparked with some unnamed emotion. “All right, honey. I’ll take you skating. I’ll try that much. For you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lucian
Ice had a scent, crisply metallic and pure. My love of that scent was so ingrained that anytime I caught a whiff of it, my heart rate would immediately kick up, and blood pumped through my veins with greater purpose. But a rink? That mix of ice and damp rubber, with a faint lingering of chlorine under it all? That was the scent of home. My religion.