Page 64 of One More Time
As the music swelled from all four instruments on stage, driving toward the conclusion, Lucy felt herself break.
Every barrier she’d thrown up over the decades began to crumble, piece by piece. They fell away and left her exposed. Raw.
The tears tumbled out of Lucy then, coursing softly down her cheeks and soaking into her T-shirt. It was too much. There was an earthquake rumbling inside her, and the rubble was piling up with no way to stop it.
Lucy stood, willed her feet to get her out of the seats and up the aisle. Behind her, she registered the distant sound of the song ending and of the assembled crew shouting and clapping their approval. But Lucy couldn’t stop. She had to go.
As the massive theater door closed behind her, she heard her name break through the din.
Still, she kept going.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
LUCY
1990-Something
Lucy woke up with an unfamiliar weight on her middle. An arm. Not her own.
Nicky Broome.
He was there. It hadn’t been a dream.
Lucy could feel his breath, strong and steady against the nape of her neck. Feel the heat and solidity of him pressed against her back.
She knew she was supposed to be cool about it. No big deal. Whatever. But her stomach didn’t get the message. It flipped – a tumble of excitement and glee. She allowed herself a grin and an internal squeal because he was there and they had all summer. All fucking summer.
The smell of the ocean and the morning sun warming the shore drifted into her little bedroom. They mixed with the scent of Nicky’s hot, salty, sexy-man smells and Lucywanted to soak in it forever. It was freedom and joy and adventure and comfort. The summer uncurled like flower petals in her mind’s eye – beautiful and infinite. So, she stayed there in Nicky’s arms as long as she could, focusing on their touch points in turn. His hand over her belly button. His forearm on her waist. His chest against her shoulder blades. The rough hair on his thighs scratching at the back of hers. The tops of his toes grazing her heel. It was only when her bladder threatened to burst that she finally forced herself to move.
On her way out of the bathroom she slipped into the sexy robe Kim had given her for graduation. She called it a ‘dressing gown.’ To Lucy it had always felt like a silk costume fromDynasty– until she had a naked man waiting for her in her bed.
‘Well, good morning after,’ said Kim cheerily from the living room, dropping her jacket on the sofa. ‘Your stud still here?’
‘Bedroom,’ Lucy replied.
Kim smiled and gave Lucy the hubba-hubba eyebrows. ‘Well, keep all that in there. I’ve gotta get ready for work.’
‘How was your night? You good?’ Lucy asked.
‘Sogood,’ Kim replied. ‘You?’
‘I don’t have the words, Kim.’
‘That good, huh?’
Lucy could only nod. She didn’t know how to quantify the jumble of things going through her mind. Her body. It was too much to process without caffeine and cigarettes. It was butterflies. Butterflies and rainbows. Fucking unicornsand a bunch of other sappy things that Lucy knew were too much and yet also not enough. So, she vowed to just kept her mouth shut until she could make sentences that didn’t sound like a detailed description of Lisa Frank stickers.
‘I get off at seven,’ Kim said.
‘I start at five.’
‘Smoke break at six?’ Kim asked.
‘You got it.’
‘I would hug you, but you smell like sex and bad decisions,’ said Kim.
‘Right back atcha,’ Lucy quipped.
