Page 115 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
I turn to him. He doesn’t pull me in, but I can’t help myself now. I go to him and lay my face on his chest and put my arms around his body. I need him to be mine. Now I understand his possessiveness. I get it. After a beat of hell, he wraps his arms around me.
“Do you still want to go home by yourself?” he murmurs.
I nod my head against his chest, not looking at him. “I need to throw up in private.”
This time he doesn’t laugh. This timeIthought it was funny. I let go of him and back up. The impatient driver shouts out his window. Lucas gestures for him to wait a minute. Politely.
His smile is at about ten percent of its normal wattage. “You going to be okay? Maybe you should see a doctor.”
“No. It’s just nerves. A lot of emotional turmoil. It’s catching up to me.”
He nods, leans down and kisses me full on the mouth, one hand gripping my head, as the driver honks his horn. It’s a short kiss.
“Tomorrow,” I say and I feel a little like Scarlett O’Hara, hoping I didn’t realize how much I love Rhett/Lucas until it was too late.
* * *
When I get home,I’m tired, but I’m more pent up and anxious. I shouldn’t have left Lucas there. I should have stayed. What’s wrong with me? Am I still too cowardly to commit to him?
In my room, under the covers of my bed, the nausea still there, but manageable, I tap in Lucas’s number on my phone. It rings three, then four times and I realize he’s probably sleeping. The cad. I let it keep ringing and wonder how many rings I get before it goes to voice mail.
Six rings, then his recorded voice comes on. I hang up and dial again like one of those stalker girl maniacs who can’t help themselves, who obsess over a man endlessly. I don’t give a shit if that’s who I am right now. I have to put us back to rights.Now.
His phone rings twice, three times and I’m in peril of crying when I hear a click and his non-recorded actual voice in my ear.
“Melissa.” He’s clearly groggy.
“Lucas. I love you. I needed to call and tell you again. I should have stayed with you.” He’s silent a beat and my stomach disagrees with me.
“I know,” he says.
“Which?”
“Both.” Now I hear the smile in his voice.
“Confident as always.” I laugh and want to pinch myself. “Why do you put up with me?”
“I only needed to remind myself what kind of day you had yesterday. I can’t even pretend to know how it would feel if it were me in your shoes. I admire that you’re still standing, that you haven’t drunk yourself into oblivion or done something else worse.”
“True. Unless you count throwing up. That’s pretty nasty.”
He laughs and says, “I wish you were here.”
He doesn’t sound so sleepy any more and I think he may be thinking about some phone sex action, but my gut clenches at the thought.
“You’re amazing. Undaunted by puking—“
Now he really laughs. “Is it still that bad?”
“Let’s put it this way, I’m thinking of sleeping on the bathroom rug,” I exaggerate for a chance to hear him laugh again. He does and I’m smiling in the dark in spite of my stomach aching over nerves and my heart aching over my parents—all four of them--and my exhaustion.
“Maybe it’s more than nerves,” he says more concern than laughter in his voice now.
“Could be that bug. I haven’t exactly been taking care of my immune system lately. Not sleeping right.” Not eating right either now that I think of it, but I’m not going to over-confess.
“In that case I want you to get some sleep now and don’t be in a hurry to get to the office early tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else?”
