Page 94 of Promise Me Nothing
“Do you want to come with?”
But I’m already shaking my head. “I can’t. I have to work all weekend. Hamish said there are no exceptions.”
“You don’t need that job, you know.”
I glare at him and he gives me a soft smile.
“God, you’re so stubborn. Andsoindependent.”
“I’m glad you’re finally grasping that.”
He laughs, nods his head, then stands and heads for the door, but turns and looks at the mug on my nightstand.
“Do you not like coffee?” he asks.
I give him a small smile and scrunch up my nose. “Not really.”
“What’s your morning drink, then?”
I lift a shoulder. “Juice. Or tea.”
“Ah, sothat’swhy I keep finding tea bags in the trash. I thought maybe Thalia was sneaking into my Earl Grey, but it’s you.”
I smile. “Definitely me.”
Lucas takes one more sip of his coffee. “I’ll drive you to work today. That way I can say bye before I go.” He pauses. “You sure you’re going to be okay here by yourself this weekend.”
“Yeah. I’m a big girl, you know. I’ve handled worse things than what will probably be a bunch of loud drunk people on The Strand.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. “When I get back, we’ll spend more time together. I know you said you don’t want to be coddled, and I promise that’s not what I’m doing. I just… sometimes I get distracted. I really have been meaning to spend more time with you.”
“Lucas, you have a life,” I say, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. It’s the one thing I’ve been reminding myself whenever I’ve felt a little hurt at how little time we’ve actually spent together in the handful of weeks that I’ve been living here. “I wasn’t expecting you to be available to me 24/7. I love that I’ve been invited to hang out with your friends a few times.”
He gives me a nod. “Well, I’m going to make sure I have a different kind of schedule when I come back, okay?” He steps forward and gives me a brotherly kiss on the crown of my head, a new gesture of affection that has me smiling in its wake.
“Let me know when you’re ready to leave for work,” he says, then leaves the room, shutting the door softly as he goes.
I stare after him, my eyes still focused on the door long after he’s gone.
Sometimes, Lucas can be these two completely different people. Like last night. He’d seemed so distant. Drunk, which is one of my least favorite things.
And then there are other times when he seems like this really genuine guy with all these emotions he doesn’t know how to deal with. Like he was never taught how to process and feel and that it’s okay to be upset and cry and be disappointed.
Not everything has to be a party.
Not everything has to be a great time.
That’s not how life works.
I snuggle back into my bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe another hour of sleep will help me deal with whatever else is going on in my brain.
Lucas drops me off at work with a hug and a promise to check in with me over the weekend, wanting to make sure I’m okay being in the house alone.
Part of me delights in the fact that he’s being protective. It’s a component of my soul that didn’t get nurtured as I grew older and had a good amount of freedom because no one was paying attention.
However, the pieces of me that are very much an almost twenty-two-year-old adult isnota fan of his nosiness.
So I shoo him off on his trip with assurances that I’ll text him if there are any problems.
