Page 27 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Chapter 9
My parents adored Lucas on sight because that’s the sort of generous, loving souls they were. Before we sat down for dinner and within ten seconds of my introducing them to Lucas, they beamed with surprised happiness at my beau. To my parents, our relationship seemed far more serious than it actually was because bringing someone home for Christmas was an important step in a relationship.
That’s how my parents were: charmingly old-fashioned and good.
Lucas adored my parents, naturally. They charmed each other as if they were from the same place, belonged together. I felt loving and stifled and out of place, conflicted and confused. And then guilt inevitably layered on top as I took a bite of the canned cranberry sauce.
In all these years since I’d found out I was adopted, I’d been unable to banish the notion that they weren’t my birth parents, that there was a foreignness between us alongside the familiarity and closeness. How could I feel so connected and loved and loving and at the same time like I didn’t quite fit?
But that’s how I felt. I thought it would dissipate after I went to the city and made good on my promise to use my inheritance wisely and make a fortune with it. But now that I’d returned, having lost it all, I felt more out of place than ever. Who the hell was I? And shouldn’t I be over this kind of adolescent identity crisis by now, almost twenty-eight years old?
After dinner, it was time for Lucas to leave, but my parents liked him even more than I’d realized because they invited him to stay overnight. Surprising me most was that my dad spoke up first. I had no choice but to look pleased. Of course, Lucas agreed to stay after a quick glance in my direction.
Either he didn’t notice the waver in my smile, or he chose to ignore it. I don’t even know what I was wavering about. I didn’t want him to drive home alone at night after a long day. If he crashed I would have felt it was all my fault.
Maybe it was the idea of having my wildly passionate lover staying in the guest room, tempting me under my parents’ roof. Maybe it was discomfort with the idea that my parents had assigned him a much more important role in my life than I had.
Or was he important? Wavering again, I put on my real genuine smile when it was time to go to bed and I showed him the guest room. He had no overnight bag, but I gave him some guest toiletries and an extra pair of pajamas donated by Dad.
We both smiled in that way that lovers with a secret do as I handed him the plaid flannel pajamas. We both knew he wouldn’t wear them.
“Listen, as much as I’d like us to, we can’t stay together tonight, here.” I waved my arm to encompass my childhood home and all that it meant. A lot, both good and bad, warm and stifling.
“No worries,bella. I think we can sleep apart this one night out of respect for your parents and their peace of mind.”
He’d called mebella. He saidthis one night, as if there would be more. I was thrilled and uneasy at the same time. I was one big ball of conflict it seemed, contradictory feelings about everything swirling and messing with my head and heart. No wonder I wasn’t myself.
Or had all this contradiction and conflict been inside me all along, waiting to surface? I thought I’d put it all to rest long ago, made my decisions and set my path with confidence and no looking back. I couldn’t change course now, not even after the failure of my business. It was only a minor setback. It shouldn’t make me question everything about myself.
Not again.
“I’m glad I didn’t tell them about my business,” I said. “It would have ruined our pleasant Christmas dinner, our warm and homey Christmas Day.” It really had been all those things.
“Will you tell them tomorrow?”
“I know I should. I have to. If I’m going to stay a while . . .”
“Pride?”
“It’s a killer.”
He gave a soft laugh and touched my arm. “You should tell them in the morning. I’ll be there with you. Moral support.”
“I will. In the morning. Good night, Lucas.” I stood on my toes and kissed him on those perfect lips, lightly.
But when he cupped my chin and deepened the kiss, I didn’t stop him. I sighed with longing pleasure. Loud enough for my dad to hear as he came up the stairs, clearing his throat. When he reached the landing, he smiled at us. Lucas nodded.
“Good night, Daddy.” I hadn’t called him that in years.
“Good night, Lissy.” He hadn’t called me that in years either. “Lucas.” Both men nodded and smiled like they had some secret gentlemen’s agreement. There was a definite co-conspirator vibe I was getting from these two. Again, it made me both giddy and concerned.
We all went to our respective rooms and I tried mightily to keep calm about my confusion and play like all was well, as if this were a normal holiday visit.
But alone in my childhood room, in my narrow bed and wearing a red flannel nightgown with white snowflakes that I hadn’t worn since I last came home for Christmas break my senior year in college, there was no getting over my nerves. Something made me shake as if I were cold, made my teeth chatter like I was sleeping outside in the snow. I couldn’t blame this on Lucas.
I had to blame it on the fact that I couldn’t go back, couldn’t come back to my childhood as if I was the same person, couldn’t live here again with my parents as if I belonged. Because in spite of feeling loved by my parents, feeling nostalgic about the Christmas tree with my homemade decorations from grade-school, I couldn’t feel at home. I felt like a visitor. A welcome, well-loved visitor, like a distant favorite relative. Who knew, maybe every adult felt like that when they visited their childhood home.
Bottom line was, I couldn’t stay here.
