Page 70 of One More Time
He chanted her name over and over, a beautifully filthy song meant for only her ears. As his body shook, Lucy locked her ankles around his thighs and held on. At the feeling of him pulsing inside her – the hot, wet intimacy of it – Lucy could feel the final vestiges of her fearful barriers fall away. All the cracks in her heart that she’d plastered over and fortified for so many years were exposed, glistening and raw.
It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
NICKY
Nicky padded back into the bedroom and quietly made his way to the closet using the flashlight on his phone, but on its lowest setting so he wouldn’t disturb Lucy. He stowed his acoustic guitar, the Moleskine notebook, and pencil back in their places, feeling a sense of accomplishment; one he’d been missing for more than a year. Something good was brewing in the chicken-scratched notes he’d been making. He knew it like he knew the crackle under his skin and the restless churning of ideas in the back of his mind. They were familiar old friends, allies in the process. They made it impossible for him to stop, and difficult to sleep.
He shrugged off the hotel bathrobe, leaving it in a perfect white pile on the floor, and slid his naked body back under the covers with Lucy. He slowly moved closer to her until her heat warmed the chill of his calf and he could feel her breathing on his shoulder.
She stirred, rolling on her back and opening her eyes with a flicker of her lashes.
‘What time is it?’ she asked groggily.
‘About three,’ Nicky replied.
‘In the morning?’
‘Yep.’
‘Ugh,’ Lucy groaned, rolling back over and tucking herself into Nicky’s body, resting her head on his shoulder. She threw her leg over his as he curled his arm around her body and settled a hand on her hip. ‘My sleep schedule is fucked,’ she complained.
‘You get used to it after a while,’ Nicky said. ‘Eventually you find a balance that’s a little less vampire-ish.’
Nicky felt her chuckle in his forearm. ‘My students will love that. Sorry, you can’t go to the bars tonight, guys, class is at midnight.’
Her talk of work was like ice on his skin. It burned, and made him want to jump. To scream. But after their conversation about ‘The Breathing Room’ he was beginning to understand that his disappearance when they were kids, and the bullshit with the song that came after, were wounds that ran deep. He and the song had both had long, lingering effects on her life. Could be that because it had all happened when she was so young, they’d done something essential – fundamental – to the way she viewed men and relationships. The way she trusted and dealt with things. The guilt was like a weight he couldn’t lift. He didn’t know how to move it. To change what happened. To fix it. The exhaustion he felt made it worse. And she was in his arms.He didn’t want to waste that time thinking and feeling guilty. That could wait.
‘Why don’t you go back to sleep and I’ll wake you up at some normal hour?’
‘Do you even know what a normal hour is?’
He teased, ‘Eleven-forty-five?’
She laughed, then he felt her sigh. ‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Anything,’ he replied.
‘It seems like you’re alone a lot. Don’t hang out with the guys from the band all the time. That just because I’m here or—’
‘The band’s been together a long time. After all these years we’ve figured out what works for us, so that we don’t end up exploding and taking the whole thing down with us.’ Nicky searched for the right words. Sleep deprivation and songwriting had made his thoughts slow and sticky. ‘We’re basically in each other’s pockets for months on end. Soon, we’ll be together for a solid year. In the off times we go our separate ways. Like we store up the solitude, time with family, so that when we come back together, we can enjoy it. But we also know we have time away to look forward to when we inevitably start annoying the shit out of each other.’
Nicky’s mind drifted, imagining the possibility of storing up time with Lucy. Of holding on to thoughts of her when they were apart. Would it be enough?
‘It sounds sort of … lonely,’ she whispered.
‘Sometimes, it is.’
Months in an empty house. Kids grown.A lotof the time, it is.
‘Everyone always calls you Nick,’ she said with a drowsy slur.
Nicky liked her like this. All dozy and unguarded.
She asked, ‘Should I call you Nick now?’
‘No, Lou,’ he said, rubbing a hand over her hair. ‘You should always call me Nicky.’
