Page 87 of Meeting Mr. Adorkable
Lucian settled back into his seat. He could check his cell for social media. That was all, because he wouldn’t be checking it for anything else. Maybe he text his mum, tell her what had happened, tell her not to come and pick him up from Heathrow. He could… he couldn’t be bothered. Everything, even the tiniest thing, was too heavy and too much.
He closed his eyes and drifted. That voice… known and beloved, a voice he’d never forget no matter how much he wanted… that voice, calling and frantic, accompanied by a banging on the roof of the car, by the door being wrenched open, by Bibi shouting, Bibi shaking him—
“Oh, my god. Luci, wake up. Wake up!”
“Errggh… What? What’s happened?” Panic seized him. Had there been some kind of atrocity, some kind of emergency, some kind of—
“Lucian Blaxston, where are you?”
Lucian froze. The voice that wasn’t a dream was growing louder, was coming closer.
“Over here, over here, over here.” Bibi was waving and screaming, jumping up and down. “What the hell…”
Lucian peeked out of the window. Bibi had covered her mouth with her hands as she stared back down the interstate, but she wasn’t alone as dozens, scores, of people all looked in the same direction, jaws dropping, fingers pointing, knuckles pressing against lips.
“Lucian, I need you to get out of the car. Please.”
A thud accompanied by gasps from the crowd, a thud that sounded close by.
No. He wouldn’t open the door and get out. He was on his way to the airport, back to his proper life, a life that had no place in it for Arlo McDonald.
He opened the door and slipped out.
“Lucian?”
He looked up. “What…?”
Arlo stood on the roof of a large, heavy SUV.
“I’ve been looking for you, calling your name over and over again.”
“I was dreaming.”
Arlo shook his head. “No. This isn’t a dream. This is the here and now, and you and I are very much awake.”
Lucian shielded his eyes from the sun, which had grown hotter and brighter, making Arlo little more than a silhouette, but a silhouette whose green-gold hazel eyes bore into his.
“Why are you here, Arlo? You said we were over. You told me to go home. You didn’t want me. You didn’t love me. Even after I told you what I feel—felt—about you, you never said it back. So, why the hell are you here?”
“Because I had to find you. I had to tell you I was wrong. I had to tell you I’d made the biggest and worst mistake in my entire life. And I made it because I was scared.
“You were right. I was scared, and I was the coward you accused me of being. I was scared history was going to repeat itself, scared to take a chance. Scared that I was taking you away from everybody you love and the incredible life you could have back home. Scared that one day you’d wake up and know you’d made the wrong decision, and that you’d hate me for it.”
“But wasn’t that my decision to make? Whether to stay or leave? Whether to take a chance? To believe that this time it could — it would — be different? You had no right to make that decision for me, yet you did.”
Arlo nodded, the pain in his face breaking the fragile little nugget that was all that remained of Lucian’s heart.
“I tried to convince myself what I was doing was the best for both of us but I knew, in here,” Arlo said, pressing a hand to his chest, “that I was lying not only to you, but to me too. Hurt now, or have a whole world of hurt later. Those were the only choices we had. Or that’s what I told myself.”
“Why were you so convinced it — us, you and me — would crumble to dust? We wanted the same thing, or so I thought. I was prepared to lay it all on the line and give love another shot because despite all the shit that’s been thrown at me, I believe in love. But you didn’t. You showed me that by retreating, by telling me to leave because you weren’t good enough for me, and that I should go home and live out the incredible life that was waiting for me. You gave up on us without a fight. And maybe I did too, because, maybe, we’re not worth fighting for.”
A collective gasp rose around them, accompanied by mutters and groans. Cell phone cameras flashed. Lucian didn’t care. He didn’t care that his and Arlo’s sad little drama was being played out in front of strangers who’d have a story to tell over a beer and a bowl of chips, or to laugh over as they showed friends the video they’d taken.
“You accused me of being a coward. You were right to, because that’s what I was.
“I let myself listen to others’ doubts about us and what we could be together. Words, I know now, that were meant in good faith, even though they were wrong and felt like knives in my back. But they fed my fear that I wasn’t capable of a love that would last a lifetime because look at the mess I’d already made. I couldn’t let myself fail again, baby,” Arlo said, his voice cracking, “but most of all, I couldn’t fail you.”
Arlo’s head dropped forward and Lucian’s heart clenched so hard it took his breath away.
