Page 82 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
Chapter 28
The smile on my lips is automatic as Lucas’s Uber car pulls up to the curb where I stand in front of Margo’s building. He leaves the engine running and gets out. He’s dressed in his old beat-up leather bomber and jeans and looks like walking sin with his dimple at full killer depth. He looks exactly the way he did the night I met him and I have a massive déjà vu moment.
“I’ve been looking forward to this drive all day,” he says. “Fond memories.”
My memories of our first drive to my parents on Christmas day are mixed, but I force myself to focus on the fond parts. Maybe it’ll help smooth over the lumps of trepidation floating in my gut. I would be looking forward to seeing my parents except I know they aren’t going to like hearing about my official search for my birth parents.
Lucas wraps me in his impossibly warm body, kisses my hair. His embrace feels like midnight excitement and hot cocoa by the hearth all in one, but I’m still freezing and shudder to prove it. It’s a crazy cold night so he wastes no time opening the door for me.
“Exactly like old times,” I say. “You should have given me one of those hugs that first night we met. We could have short-cutted a lot of—”
He’s shaking his head. “No way I’d leave out a second of time spent with you.”
Caught between an eye-roll and a melty sigh at his typical romanticism, my heart wins out because I know he’s sincere. When he’s not teasing me.
“You’re amazing. Not because you say such romantic things, but because you mean them.”
“Of course I mean what I say.” He settles in behind the wheel and checks the rearview, all business as he pulls into traffic. “I’m not just a pretty face you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I half laugh.
“I’m a smart man. I know it’s important to share my feelings.”
“And you do it magnificently,” I say, wondering if he’s slamming me for being a stupid woman because I hardly ever share my feelings, at least not purposely. Or not until he drags them from me kicking and screaming. But I decide he’s not like that.
“You don’t mind if I make one very important stop before we leave the city?” he says, eyes on the road, and obviously not expecting opposition.
“Do we have time?” I’m thinking about an extra early start at work in the morning to make up for leaving at five tonight.
“For this, we need to make time. Besides, this little car packs a lot of speed.”
Now I’m envisioning a race to Cold Springs up the Hudson River Parkway Grand Prix-style.
“Should I have brought my racing helmet?”
He chuckles and then pulls over. When I look up I’m surprised to see that he’s pulled up in front of my old building. The surprise is quickly followed by cold wariness.
Roy, the doorman, comes to meet Lucas at the curb as he gets out of the car. Whatever misgivings I had disappear when I see Roy, and I jump from the car into the frigid air. As I rush around the car to give Roy a hug, I see Lucas hand him a package. My curiosity meter shoots to the heavens.
“What’s this?” Roy says.
“Open it and find out,” Lucas says with a grin made of part mischievous devil and part sex god.
Roy rips open the envelope and finds a set of old-fashioned car keys, no fob, no buttons. I recognize the Fierro logo formed in the heavy bronze of the key chain. Roy looks a question at Lucas and so do I.
Lucas says, his grin more devilish than before, “It’s parked in the garage on East 74thStreet. You can drive it any time you want. Between the limo and my old standby here, I haven’t had much of a chance to give it the attention and exercise it deserves.”
“You talk like it’s a horse,” I say.
He laughs. “I do think of it as a good old friend, a living thing. It was my first sports car as a boy. A gift from my parents when I was sixteen. They had it shipped here for me last Christmas and it’s been killing me—until now—to pay for the garage to keep it. But . . .” He gives an elegant shrug only muffled slightly by his leather jacket.
“And you want me to drive it? What kind of car are we talking about?”
“A Fierro 100 Special Circa 1964. Better known as the Fierro Devil. Fierro Red.”
The look on Roy’s face would have matched the look of Cinderella when her pumpkin turned into a golden coach. I’m thinking I’ll have to catch him when he faints, but he remains standing.
“Say something,” I say.
