Sloane looking brokenhearted and brave, her arm in a sling, those emerald eyes glittering with defiant tears.
“What did you do?” I’d shouted at her. What I’d meant but hadn’t said was, “What did he do?”
“Lucian, you’re a smart man,” Emry stated as he peered at me over the rim of his glass.
I already didn’t like where this was going.
“What are you getting at?”
“As a reasonably intelligent man, I’m going to assume that you know you can’t just forget the past or pretend it doesn’t exist. And as you’ve spent significant time in therapy with a brilliant therapist, I’ll remind you that the only way out is through. You can’t just keep putting your emotions in a box with a lid and expecting them to stay there. That’s not what feelings do.”
“Then I’ll remind you that we both know why letting those emotions out of their box is dangerous.”
“You have a lot more control than you give yourself credit for,” he pointed out.
“That control hinges on not letting my emotions get the better of me.”
“There’s a difference between quelling impulses that everyone has and refusing to acknowledge any feeling at all.”
I scoffed. “I have feelings that I acknowledge all the time.”
“For instance?” Emry prompted.
“For instance, I’m hungry and annoyed right now.”
My friend chuckled. “Pepperoni and sausage?”
“Fine.”
“Lucian, I don’t pity you for what you went through as a child any more than I excuse you from doing the hard work of realizing you are a whole, complicated man capable of not only experiencing happiness but sustaining it.”
“Why is everyone so obsessed with happiness? There are other aims a bit more worthy than walking around with an idiotic grin on my face.”
“Let me say this. You’re a grown man who has achieved wild levels of success, which in itself is impressive. But when you factor in your upbringing, it’s downright miraculous. Trust yourself to handle having feelings. Even the uncomfortable ones.”
The man gave me too much credit. He didn’t know what I was capable of. But I did.
I exhaled slowly.
“Out of curiosity, what did she do this time that aggravated you?” Emry asked, his eyes dancing behind his half-moon spectacles.
“She got fingerprints on my desk,” I said testily.
Our bickering had always turned me on. It was a weakness that made me feel pathetic. But today she’d taunted me on my own turf, and my cock had risen to the occasion so swiftly I’d gone light-headed.
I’d wanted her. I’d craved her. And I would have had her right there on that desk.
Maybe that was the answer. Maybe this torturous tension between us would finally vanish if we gave in, just once.
Emry chuckled. “Sooner or later, my friend, you’ll learn that embracing the messiness of life is where you find its greatest treasures.”
“I prefer my orderly piles of money, thank you.” But I wasn’t thinking about bank balances. I was thinking about Sloane, thighs spread, red lips parted as I finally thrust home.
“Come on. Let’s order our dinner, and then I’ll let you trounce me at a game of chess.”
11
Shania Twain Is a Beautiful Badass
Lucian
Twenty-three years ago
H
ere we go,” Simon Walton said as he set a Garfield coffee mug that said i wish this were lasagna at my elbow.
We were facing off in the breakfast nook in the Waltons’ kitchen, a room that was almost the size of the entire first floor of my house. Leaves of orange and rust whispered on the other side of the angular windows above the banquette.
On the freshly painted turquoise table between us sat a worn chessboard midbattle.
“Thanks,” I said, still frowning at the board. I liked that he didn’t question me or make fun of me for asking for coffee. Men drank coffee. I was learning to like it.
I closed my fingers around the knight’s head and moved it deeper into enemy territory.
“Remember, you can’t just go on the attack willy-nilly,” Mr. Walton explained. “You need to have a plan. A strategy. You can’t just think about what you’re going to do. You have to predict what your opponent is going to do.”
With that advice, his bishop neatly destroyed my knight.
“Damn it,” I muttered, picking up the coffee.
Mr. Walton grinned. “No quitting. See it through.”
Annoyed, I sacrificed a pawn.
“And that’s checkmate,” Mr. Walton said, nudging his glasses up his nose.
I slouched against the yellow patterned cushion. “I don’t think I like this game.”
“I have a feeling with a little more practice you’ll find your stride. It’s just like what you do on the football field from inside the pocket.”
It was a November Sunday afternoon. Which meant no game, no practice, no escape from the hell I lived next door.
Dad was out fishing with friends. Mom was where she spent most of her free time when my father wasn’t around: alone in her bedroom. I’d spotted Mr. Walton in his backyard deadheading flowers and volunteered to help.
“How are the chess lessons going?” Karen Walton asked, sweeping into the room with two bags of groceries.
“Great,” Mr. Walton insisted.
“Terrible,” I said.
We both rose from the table and each relieved her of a bag. While Mr. Walton laid a loud kiss on his wife, I busied myself with delivering the bag to the huge central island. There were small messes and chaos here. A haphazard stack of cookbooks, a flour spill next to the porcelain container that no one had gotten around to cleaning up. The bowl of apples sat half on and half off a magazine open to an article about sending kids to college.
Messes weren’t tolerated in my house. Anything that might be a trigger had to be avoided at all costs.
“There’s more in the car,” Mrs. Walton announced, giving Mr. Walton an embarrassing pat on the ass. Affection was something else that didn’t exist at my place.
“We’ll get them,” Mr. Walton insisted. “Treat yourself to a cup of coffee while my protégé and I unload.”
“What would I do without you two? And I think I’ll have wine instead,” Mrs. Walton said, giving me an affectionate pat on the arm as she headed toward the large built-in china cabinet that housed a menagerie of mismatched bar glasses.
I didn’t quite manage to hide the wince when her fingers accidentally came in contact with my latest bruise. The Waltons drank. There was wine at the dinner table, and I saw Mr. and Mrs. Walton sometimes enjoying cocktails on the front porch. But I never saw either of them drunk.
That was the difference between Mr. Walton and my father. Self-control.
Maybe that was what he was trying to teach me on the chessboard.
“Football injury?” Mr. Walton asked, looking at my arm.
“Yeah,” I said, tugging the sleeve of my shirt down to cover the bruise. The lie stuck in my throat.
Mrs. Walton crooked her finger at me and pointed up. I hid my smile. I liked being needed even if it was just for my height. I found her favorite long-stemmed wineglass with flowers etched on it on the top shelf and handed it to her. She wiggled it in her husband’s direction, asking a silent question. Mr. Walton gave her a geeky thumbs-up, and I pulled a second glass off the shelf.