Page 30 of No Place Like You

I flip through the channels on my TV, doing a bit of channel surfing before I land on an episode ofSupernatural.

“What is this?”

“Supernatural?”

Lucy shakes her head when I sit there gesturing toward the screen, where Sam and Dean are caught in a pickle, wrapped in chains and bindings.

“It’s demon hunting. Ghosts and?—”

“Who’s that?” Lucy asks, interrupting my obscurely vague explanation of the show I’ve been watching regularly for a decade.

“That would be Sam,” I answer, eyeing the way her gaze is glued to Sam Winchester’s perfect jawline and wavy hair. “Or Jared Padalecki. He’s the actor, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She nods in approval with her eyes still laser focused on the screen.Okay, so I guess I’m just chopped liver over here.

“We could watch something else…” I point the remote in front of me.

“No, no,” she argues, lifting a hand in my direction. “No, we can watch this.”

“Are you sure?Because?—”

She snatches the remote from my hand and shoves it in between the couch cushions. When Dean’s pretty hazel eyes wink at an unsuspecting woman at a bar, I swear I see Lucy swoon.

“Who knew two fictional brothers with the genetic pool of Adonis is what would get your attention?”

“Huh?” she asks, finally givingmeher attention after feeling as if I disappeared from her periphery when she discovered the Winchester brothers.

“Nothing, Lucy. Just enjoy the show.”

The large pink elephant that was in the room, the same one that blew a trumpet-level disturbance filled with our sexual past, has gone silent. As if we threw it a handful of peanuts to keep it occupied while we diverted our attention to ghosts and goblins and all the scary things that go bump in the night.

17

Dexter

“Where did you go yesterday?”Janet asks.

“Um, I, uh, had to go help a friend with something.” I pause, unsure why my voice sounds so clumsy while on the phone with my sister. It’s not like Janet would be upset that I left her place yesterday without so much as a wave goodbye. Maybe it’s just Lucy’s presence, unwittingly making me a little nervous and uncool. “She had an emergency.”

“Oh,” Janet answers from the other end.

I clear my throat through a rough cough. “Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

“I’m good,” she says, sounding pretty convincing. “I surprisingly got a pretty good night’s sleep. I think the changes my doctor made to my meds are actually helping.”

My face softens, and the tautness in my shoulders I didn’t even realize was resting there slackens. There’s hope laced into her voice, like it’s braided into all of the bad and the ugly she’s had to live with as of late, making not only her optimistic, but me too.

“Yay,” I exclaim quietly and Janet laughs.

Lucy walks into view just then. I’ve been in my kitchen, fixing myself a cup of coffee after I found that the orange juice in the fridge had gone bad, and calling Janet to check in on her.

Lucy’s wearing a dress that falls just above her knees. It’s a pale bluish color, one that looks like the color of the sky when the sun is starting to ease into dusk, and it’s not as bright but more muted and subtle. Her shoulders are covered with sleeves that cap them, and she’s finished off the entire look with an ensemble of necklaces, bracelets, and rings. It’s nothing special. In fact, she’s dressed down in something that looks as if she’s running errands or having a casual lunch with friends, but she looks like a literal breath of fresh air.

She waves a hand in my direction, obviously noting that I have my phone pressed to my ear, and pads her way toward the coffee pot behind me, stepping softly in her white Converse sneakers.

“Uh, Jan,” I say, my eyes on Lucy as she reaches for a mug from the wire dish rack, “I’ll call you later. Maybe I can come by later this week. I’ll bring over some ice cream and donuts.”

“Not my weakness!” Janet exclaims through mock agony.

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