Page 4 of Lost
She stopped dead in the middle of the car park, and Lysander glanced around, looking for the man that had to be within shouting distance by now. His stomach backflipped.
The lawyer was already pulling out her phone by the time he looked back at her. There were several seconds of silence while she waited for somebody to answer on the other end. Then she smiled.
“Zack, darling, we’re here. Where are you parked?”
Lysander shifted the weight of his backpack from one shoulder to the other. Still on the phone, Mrs. Corte began to walk again. He trailed along behind her, still dragging his suitcase, and tried not to let his nerves get the best of him. This was it. There was no going back now. Every step they took brought him closer to the man, his final hope.
“Oh, there you are! Be there in a second.”
Mrs. Corte ended her call. For Lysander’s benefit, she gestured across the car park a short distance, to where two men stood beside a shiny black BMW. He recognised both of them immediately, despite never having met either one. Dakota had drilled their names and faces into his head enough times that he couldn’t have forgotten them if he’d wanted to.
Patrick O’Sullivan was leaning against the driver’s door, arms crossed firmly over his broad chest. He looked exactly as he did in every picture Lysander had ever seen of him — like a biker, his tattooed arms fully visible and his dark hair buzzed short. He donned a pair of aviators to protect his eyes against the glaring sun, their lenses like mirrors. He was shaking his head at the man pacing in front of him, a tiny smile on his face. It looked out of place on such an intimidating man.
Zachary Bennett paced back and forth in front of his friend, a half-smoked cigarette in one hand while the other stuffed his phone back into a pocket. The closer they got, the harder Lysander found it to look away. It wasn’t like he had never seen the man before — he’d been to the band’s shows with Dakota and she had their posters plastered all over her walls — but it was different this time. Because this time Zachary knew who he was, too. Five feet away from him, Lysander stopped.
The man turned and looked up.
He wasn’t as tall as Lysander had expected. There was maybe an inch of difference between them, with Zachary being the taller of the two. He had as many tattoos as Patrick, stretching from his shoulders right down to his fingers, and he wore a pair of sunglasses tinted so dark Lysander wondered whether he could even see through them.
As if he could sense what the boy was thinking, Zachary removed his sunglasses and their eyes met — jade green to steel blue.
“This is Patrick O’Sullivan and Zachary Bennett,” Mrs. Corte said, and for the first time Lysander was grateful to have her there with him. She turned to the two men and said, “Boys, this is Lysander Maverick.”
Zachary went on staring, eyes unblinking. Lysander shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He didn’t need to stare. He already knew what Zachary looked like, already knew there was barely any resemblance between them. Zachary was dark haired to Lysander’s sandy blond. Zachary’s nose was slightly wider; Lysander had his mother’s plumper lips. Dakota looked more like the man in front of him than he ever would. He wasn’t mad about it.
Patrick stepped forward, dropping his sunglasses to hang off the collar of his shirt and offering his hand in greeting. After a moment of hesitation, Lysander took it.
“Pat,” the man introduced himself.
“Lysander.”
“You’ve got quite a firm hand there, Lysander.” Pat gave him a reassuring smile, one that lit up his eyes and left dimples in his cheeks, and all thoughts Lysander had of him being intimidating vanished in an instant. “Don’t mind Zack. He’s still in shock.”
Lysander nodded. What else could he do?
Pat stepped aside, leaving him with a decent view of Zachary —his father— once again. Finally, Zack stepped forward. There was a moment in which neither of them moved but then, much like Pat had done, Zack extended his hand. Lysander grasped it.
Dakota had always dreamed of this moment. She liked to talk about how there would be a spark of electricity when their hands met, and how Zack would suddenly realise that yes, they were his children, how could he ever have doubted it? And he would pull them both into a hug that would last an eternity before both he and their mother fell in love and they all lived happily ever after.
But there was no spark of electricity, and Zack certainly didn’t make any move to hug him — and he would never fall in love with Lysander’s mother, because she was gone.
Dead, Lysander had to remind himself. His mother was dead.
“Hi,” Zack said, then cleared his throat uncomfortably. “It’s, ah... It’s nice to finally meet you?”
“Likewise.”
“And…I’m sorry about your mother.”
Again, Lysander nodded. He’d heard that one too many times lately, and he desperately hoped he wasn’t going to be bombarded with sympathies again. Besides, Zack was probably only sorry because his own life had been turned upside down by her death. As if he could tell Lysander was thinking it, he dropped Lysander’s hand quickly and rubbed the back of his neck.
Pat put a hand on Zack’s shoulder and squeezed. “Shall we get out of here?”
He took both suitcases and packed them into the trunk of the car, gesturing for Mrs. Corte and Lysander to get in. Lysander climbed in behind the front passenger seat, glad to find himself in a position where Zack couldn’t turn and stare at him for the duration of the trip. Mrs. Corte sat across from him, behind the driver’s seat, and kept smiling every time he looked her way. So far, so good.
The drive from the airport was a short one. Twenty-five minutes away from it, Pat had them parked outside of a large, dark brick house, so normal looking that for a moment Lysander wondered if they’d taken a wrong turn. There was nothing like it in Columbus, that was for sure, but it still looked so…unassuming. This was the home of a rockstar? Where were the obnoxiously fancy fountains and ridiculous hedge animals? The man had neighbours!
Everybody else had already climbed out of the car. He could see Zack waiting for him, looking as lost as Lysander felt, and decided not to let the guitarist suffer any longer. He slid out and joined his father, who motioned up to the house as if to ask,Well, what do you think?
