He had a plan, and it wasn’t to fall in love. He had three months of high school left, three months to spend with kids who’d been together since birth, it seemed. He’d be going back to Chicago soon. He was just passing through Manningsport.
And then prom night came, and for once, he was in the right place at the right time. When he saw Colleen on the dock, being held by that dickless wonder, he felt something bigger and more powerful than anything he’d felt since his father had been led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. He would’ve died for Colleen O’Rourke that night with a glad heart, no questions, no hesitation.
From that night on, he and Colleen were together. They weren’t dating, hanging out, hooking up. They were together. He was locked in from the second he kissed her, something he’d been thinking about doing from the moment he first saw her, something he’d vowed not to do because it was certain that even one kiss would bind him to her.
He was right. The second his lips touched hers, a word came into his head, a word from long ago when his mother was still alive, when Spanish was still spoken at home.
Mía. Mine.
Colleen was his.
They managed to wait until after graduation to seal the deal; the first time for both of them, two kinds of birth control because he was paranoid about getting her pregnant, the way his father had done to his mother. He went as slowly as he could, heart thudding so hard he shook, unable to believe that she’d have him.
It got awkward, they were nervous and inexperienced, and it was amazing anyway, and when he was on top of her and inside her at last, and he was just holding still for fear of causing her any more discomfort than he probably already was, she opened her eyes, those beautiful clear eyes, and just looked at him. Colleen who always smiled and always laughed was serious now, and for one beat of his heart, he thought she was going to say Get off, leave, this isn’t working.
“I love you,” she whispered instead, and the words wrapped around his chest and squeezed hard.
No one had said those words to him in a long, long time.
“Say that again,” he whispered, just to make sure he’d heard right, and she laughed, and the sound was even better than her words.
She could do that—flip a switch like that. She’d be laughing with her friends on the green, eating an ice cream cone, and she’d see him walking to the hardware store, and her eyes would change from that slightly knowing, sly smile to unguarded and soft and full of so much that he could drown in it. Or the reverse, too—one July night they were lying on a blanket in the backyard of her house, just holding hands, and Lucas was trying to figure out a way to tell her he loved her, because of course he did, and of course she knew it. But the actual words...they were harder.
Just say it, his brain instructed. Don’t be such an ass. She tells you five times a day. You’re gonna blow this, you know.
But the words stayed locked.
Colleen rolled on top of him, looking at him, and there it was, that soft, gentle gaze that seemed to know every event that had torn off a chunk of his heart—his mom’s slurring voice as her ability to speak died little by little, his father’s arrest, the phone call that came from the prison at 2:36 a.m., asking if he was the son of Daniel Wakeman Campbell—every jealous thought he’d ever had about Bryce, every lonely minute spent trying to be invisible...Colleen’s love erased them all.
But all he could do was look at her, touch her face, and hope she knew.
She smiled just a little, almost as if she was answering his question. “I’m starving,” she said, and her smile grew in a flash, and his was born. Because yeah, it felt as if he had never smiled until her.
Her family liked him well enough—except for her father, which was understandable. Pete O’Rourke tolerated him, though, and Lucas appreciated it. Her mom exclaimed over his manners and always made a lot of noise when she was coming down the hall, giving them a warning to keep it clean. Connor watched him at school, and then seemed to mellow, realizing that Lucas wasn’t some player out to break his sister’s heart.
In late August, she drove him to Chicago, ten hours of them holding hands and barely talking, and dropped him off at the university, took an unnecessarily long time to unpack his meager belongings and walked around campus with him.
Then it was time for her to leave.
“I’ll call you in an hour,” he said, kissing her for the hundredth time.
“Nah,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I’m already over you. It was a passing thing, like a virus.”
He waited.
“Fine,” she said. “I love you.”
“Say it again.”
“Say it again,” she grumbled. “Not that you’ve ever said it once, mind you.”
He kissed her, feeling as if he was saying goodbye to the brightest, best thing that life had ever granted him, and Colleen wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against him. “I love you, too,” she said, and her back hitched with a sob.
“Adiós, mía.”
“God, I love when you speak Spanish. So hot.”
Then she got into her car and drove off, tossing him a cheery salute that contradicted the tears that gleamed on her cheeks.
He stood there until her car turned the corner. Kept standing there until she pulled up again, because he’d known somehow that she’d drive around the block to see if he’d left. She got out of the car, laughing, and jumped into his arms again. “Go to your dorm, idiot,” she said. “Call me in an hour.”
So his plan became more complicated. Stay in college, make good grades, get a job that earned a lot of money, take care of Steph and the girls...and marry Colleen.
For three and a half years, it worked. Whenever possible, in between working as a security guard at a gleaming skyscraper downtown, between fixing Stephanie’s car/furnace/pipes and the occasional stint babysitting the girls, working summers for a construction company, keeping his GPA over 3.7, he saw Colleen. He’d hitchhike back to Manningsport when he could, or kick his roommate out for the weekend when Colleen came to Chicago. They called, emailed, instant-messaged, took advantage of whatever form of communication available to them.
She was still his. He was still hers. He wasn’t sure why she kept him, but she did.
And then, one weekend when he had scored a plane fare that let him fly to Buffalo-Niagara for seventy-nine dollars, the shit hit the fan.
Because he hadn’t been sure he could get the time off from work, he hadn’t told Colleen he was coming. Figured it’d be fun to surprise her; she was going to Ithaca College, not wanting to be too far from home, from her elderly grandfather, specifically. Connor was at the Culinary Institute, which was a few hours’ drive, and Faith was all the way in Virginia. Colleen put on a cheery front, but Lucas knew she was lonely. She’d told him she’d be home this weekend, and the stars had fallen into alignment with that flight.
He stopped for a cup of coffee at an airport kiosk, tore open two sugar packets, glanced up and saw a familiar figure.
Colleen’s father was kissing someone who was definitely not Colleen’s mother. Who was, in fact, a redhead dressed in a tiny white dress that just cleared her (admittedly great) ass and who wore high heeled shoes and was wrapped around Pete O’Rourke.
Both of them had suitcases.
Both appeared to be doing a tonsil swab of the other with their tongues.
Mr. O’Rourke broke the kiss, looked up with the smug expression of exactly what he was: an older man with a very hot, much younger girlfriend. Then he saw Lucas. He froze for a second, and—horribly—smiled. “Lucas. How are you, son?”
He’d never called Lucas that before, that was for damn sure.
He took the hot chick’s hand and towed her over to where Lucas was standing, sugar packets still not emptied into the coffee. “This is Gail,” he said.
“Hi there,” she purred.
She was a knockout, Lucas would give her that. Long red hair, creamy skin, and a look in her green eyes that said she knew it.
Lucas didn’t say anything.
“Gail, babe, give us a second,” Pete said, and Gail gave both men a sultry look and cruised away, ass swinging in a blatant advertisement. Pete folded his arms. “So this is awkward,” he said. He gave Lucas a fake smile, his eyes completely uninvolved, like a snake’s.
“Yes,” Lucas said.
“I think it’s obvious what’s going on here, so I won’t bother saying it’s not what it seems. It’s exactly what it seems. But it would obviously hurt my family—Colleen especially—to hear about this.”
He kept talking. More of the same. I’m not terribly proud of it...Colleen’s mother...haven’t been right for a while...just happened...wouldn’t understand.
He made Lucas’s skin crawl. The kind of man who thought he was smarter than everyone else, who endured conversation from his wife. Slick, that was the word.
But Lucas knew how much Colleen loved him. She was a daddy’s girl, but not in a bad way. Just in maybe a typical way, a girl who thought her father was the smartest, funniest, greatest guy around. Steph had felt the same way about their dad. And yeah, with Colleen, Lucas would admit, Pete was okay.
“So I hope I can count on your discretion, son. No reason for anyone to get hurt here.”
Lucas gave him a long look. “I’m not your son,” he said.
Mr. O’Rourke’s eyes narrowed. “True enough. Well, you probably have to get going. I gather you’re visiting my daughter.”
Lucas didn’t bother answering. Glanced over at Gail, who was putting on lipstick to the fascination of a security guard, then back at Pete. Without another word, he hefted up his backpack and walked away.
When he arrived in Manningsport a few hours later, he stopped at the Black Cat, the scummy little bar where Colleen occasionally filled in. Her face lit up when she saw him, and he smiled as she launched herself into his arms.
“I was just thinking about you!” she exclaimed, her eyes bright. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Spaniard. Kiss me! Do it!”
He obeyed, and the unclean feeling from the airport faded.
Colleen took him home for a late dinner, and they sat at the kitchen table. Jeanette cut him a slab of cake before helping herself to one, and said how Pete was in Mexico...a conference for commercial property owners.
“You didn’t want to go?” he asked carefully.
“Oh, well,” Mrs. O’Rourke said, waving her hand demurely. “Pete said it wouldn’t be any fun. Just a hotel with a lot of drunk people.”
“Dad hates those things. Wouldn’t want to drag Mom there and make her suffer, too,” Colleen said.
Yeah. What a champ.
All weekend long, it throbbed like a rotten tooth, and every once in a while, he’d reach out and touch the thought. Framed how he’d bring it up to Colleen. Hey, mía, I ran into your dad and his lover at the airport or Hey, Colleen, how are things with your parents? or This conference of your dad’s, Colleen—it’s no conference.
A hundred times over the weekend, he started to tell her, and stopped. It wasn’t his place. Maybe it would blow over. Maybe Pete and Jeanette O’Rourke had an arrangement, an open marriage, whatever.
Colleen drove him to the airport Sunday night, waited with him as she always did, every minute together precious. She lay with her head on his lap, her long black hair glistening under the lights, a smile on her face, eyes closed.
She looked so happy.
“Things are good with your family?” he finally asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she said without opening her eyes. “You know. Connor’s perfect, Mom’s discovered scrapbooking, and Dad...Dad’s been working a lot.”
Now was the moment.
But the smile on her face...he couldn’t. Stroked her hair instead.
