Page 59 of Rivals
I watch him leave the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror again. While I mess with my hair, I notice my cheeks are pink, and my eyes have a noticeable shine. Lachlan peeks his head back into the bathroom. “Leave it, I like your sex hair.” I roll my eyes and push it back, letting him have his way. He grins, grabbing his keys off the counter. His straight leg Levis, t-shirt, and boots look good on him. All he needs is a motorcycle, and we could fly away.
“You’re dressed like a kid,” he says while we wait for the elevator. I purse my lips and look at him. The corner of his mouth is tipped up like he’s about to smile, but he’s trying to push it down. I glare at him and flip him off. He shrugs. “I like it, it’s cute.” He fingers the straps of my overalls. “I like these, too.”
The elevator dings before I can come up with a response. We step through and find someone from the floor above is on it. Lachlan takes my hip and pulls me into his front as we ride down. We had a moment last night, and everything feels more complicated. Change is complex, and I don’t know if I like what’s happening between us. It’s overwhelming. My fingers itch to find one of those pretty lavender pills and make the questions stop swirling. But I don’t have any more, and I know Lach doesn’t.
We finally hit the ground floor, and he takes my hand, leading me out and through the door. He stands on the outside of the sidewalk, closer to the street, and holds my hand tightly in his grasp. I don’t think he would let go even if I tried to take my hand away.
Lachlan leads the way, and I don’t ask questions. We hurry across the crosswalk, and he pulls me under his arm while we walk down the street together. For a moment, it feels like this could be something real, something that could stay. Lachlan notices I’m looking at him and grins at me before facing the sidewalk ahead of us.
“When’s your next shift?” he asks. I pull my phone out to check my calendar because I always forget.
“Tomorrow.” He nods and stops at a little café with baked goods in the window. I hope I have enough money to pay for a coffee and maybe a muffin. The moment we step through the door the blueberry muffins slap me in the face with their heavenly smell. I think I could live in the blueberry clouds. A woman behind the counter greets us, and Lachlan steps around me while I look in the case at the muffins and New York-style bagels.
“What do you want, babe?” Lachlan asks. I stand up and look at the menu, calculating the price. I can afford a small espresso and a muffin. My stomach leaps for joy because I’m starving.
“I’ll have an espresso and a blueberry muffin, please.” I fish the bills out of my pocket, and before I can hand them to her, he’s passing her a twenty.
My jaw drops. “Lachlan, you can’t—“ He holds his hand up to stop me. The woman gives him his change, and he throws her a charming smile. My stomach clenches for entirely different reasons. When this man smiles, it’s like the sun emerging from the clouds. Or it’s the end of a nasty storm, and you can finally stick your head outside to breathe for a minute because the roof isn’t about to fall on your head.
His expression dips, and he takes a step closer to me. “You alright, little bird? Where did you go?” My eyes burn, and the deep ocean of my feelings that have tormented me for as long as I can remember surges up.
I can feel people watching us as his hand clasps the back of my neck, but he holds me captive with his sailing gaze as he handles the waves of my soul. He kisses my forehead, and the woman clears her throat, handing us a bag with our food and one of the two coffees we ordered. Lachlan finds a table by the window and plops down. He grabs another chair and drags it next to his, patting the seat before he leans back and kicks his legs out.
I sit in my designated seat, and he tosses his arm around my shoulder as he takes a sip of his coffee. I pull his bagel and my muffin out of the bag and take a giant bite. “Good?” he asks. I close my eyes and nod as the flavor of the blueberry bursts on my tongue. He grabs his bagel and takes a bite, clearly not as moved.
My coffee comes, and I sit there content with my now. I’m not thinking about what has to be done next, but then I think about Italy. I know what Lachlan wants, but it’s against my very nature to say yes to him. “So, Italy,” I mumble around my muffin.
“Are you ready to talk about it?” I shrug sheepishly, and his face drops. “Revna, we will get there. But we need a plan, and I need you on board.” I focus on chewing on my muffin. He eats more of his bagel, and I look out the window, watching people rush by, always busy, always focused on something else. One benefit of being an artist is you look at the world around you with a different lens. That’s what’s so special about it.
I reach for my coffee and find Lachlan’s hand on it instead. “What are you scared of, baby?” he asks. I shrug again because I can’t say what I’m afraid of. I can’t articulate how I felt when he asked me to move in with him. I can’t explain how safe I felt when he held me and I cried. I can’t describe the experience of Lachlan and me together, with him above me and wholly around me. I’m totally and completely overwhelmed, and the only thing on my mind is running because I don’t even have an answer for myself.
He moves his hand from my coffee, and I take a sip. “I think you’re afraid that if you do this, you’ll be all in, and there would be no going back.” I almost ask him if he wants to have a future with me in it, but as much as I would like to consider that, I don’t know if we can. I don’t think it’s possible for someone like me.
I take my last bite of muffin while Lachlan leisurely sips his coffee. I can see the softness in his eyes flare as he waits for me to give him an answer. He hates it when I don’t answer right away, and I’ve gotten, unfortunately, good at giving him a whole lot of nothing.
“Are you ready?” I nod, and we stand and leave. Lachlan doesn’t hold my hand as we walk back to his place, but maybe this is a good time to get some space. I know he will demand an answer from me, so I need to figure out what it is.
Once we get back to his place, I immediately grab my bag and gather my things. I need space and I need it now. “What are you doing?” I ignore him and shove my dirty jeans from the floor into the bag. Another thing Lachlan and I have in common is that we are beyond messy. Clothes are everywhere, shoes sprawled, I don’t think we have ever made the bed, and his art space is chaos like us.
“I need space,” I mumble.
“Like hell you do. You are avoiding everything, and we don’t have time for that,” he grits out.
“Well, make time, Lachlan. I can’t be here right now,” I yell back.
“Get the hell over your fear and face it, Revna. You don’t think I’m scared? You don’t think that this doesn’t scare the shit out of me? Stop kidding yourself. There are two of us here, and you are only considering how you feel.”
My heart stops in my chest. He’s right. I know he’s right. I need a pill. I need something because I can’t take this, it’s too much. “We have finals that we need to do.”
“I know you’re done with them. Your last one was photography, and I know you did it.”
“I didn’t edit them.”
“Is that all you need so you can tell me you’re going to Italy with me? Then let’s go. I will walk you to school right now. I can’t do it alone, Revna, you know that.”
“I need space! This is too much!” I yell again. I almost scream at the top of my lungs because I swear he isn’t hearing the words coming out of my mouth. No one ever does.
I look around for my other clothes and grab my hoodie to shove it in my bag. Before I know what’s happening, his arms wrap around me. He throws me on the bed and straddles me, hands and hips, rendering me immobile.
