My Lucky Days: A Novel (9 page)

I
sat on a bench next to the student union, staring at the winter flowers as they moved softly in the wind. The blooms were a mix of orange and deep purple, which were supposed to represent black. But the soft petals missed that last bit of deepness, the last piece of the color scale that would push them into darkness.

“I’m here. I’m here.” Peyton came staggering down the sidewalk toward me. Her blonde hair was in a high ponytail on top of her head. From the direction she came, I assumed my roommate was running late and had to pay to park in the garage again. She would have that place paid for by the time she left here.

I got up from the bench. Time to enter the chaos of frantic students rushing to class. “We have to run.”

“I can’t.” She winced. “I’ve got a pounding headache.”

“That’s called a hangover.” I smiled. “You can do it. Just get there, and I’ll take notes for you.”

One of these days, Peyton and I would both be educators of America’s youth. That was a scary thought when it came to my roommate.

“Okay. But let’s just walk. We can still make it on time. Just slower.”

“Come on. You know we have to at least fast-walk.”

We had only taken a few steps when my phone buzzed. I stopped walking down the sidewalk as I stared at the screen. My backpack pulled on my shoulders, making the news weigh even heavier.

He was gone.

“Why are we not moving? I thought you were in a hurry?”

I glanced at Peyton who was several steps ahead of me. “I got a text from Lucky.”

“Sexting before noon. I like this guy.”

“No, he left.” I let out a deep breath. It was too soon to feel this slight ache taking hold of me. “Says he’s sorry for not being able to tell me goodbye in person. But there’s a cancellation at some bar in Nashville that’s important. They want him to fill in tonight.”

“Damn. That was fast. You become his girlfriend, and then he hits the road.”

“I’m not his girlfriend.”

“You are
sooo
his girlfriend.”

“I . . .” But I couldn’t come up with anything to say back.

“Exactly.”

My phone buzzed with a second message. I read it while Peyton snooped over my shoulder. And the weight got even heavier. Lucky was already scheduled to be in Nashville later in the week. So he was staying for almost two weeks.

I guess this wasn’t going to be a gradual dip in the pool. We were going straight into the deep end with a long-distance . . . whatever this was between us.

Peyton looked at me a second and smiled. “You really got it bad for this guy.”

I ignored her comment and put my phone away. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

“Let’s skip class instead. Go get manicures.”

“Peyton, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can.” She took a few steps back in the direction of the parking garage. “And what the hell. I’m getting a pedicure too. I don’t care that it’s winter. What if I meet a guy with a foot fetish? And he wants to kiss my toes, but he cuts his tongue on my jagged nails with paint chips. That would be disgusting. I can’t let that happen. I need to get this taken care of before I hurt someone.”

I laughed, rolling my eyes. “Only you would use that as a reason to ditch class.”

“Well, I’m closer to the car than the building at this point. I’ll have to run to even make it. And I can’t do that with my jagged toenails.”

“You know I can’t skip class, Peyton.”

“You
could.
You just won’t.” She gave me a pouty frown. “The world isn’t gonna come to an end if you miss one little class.”

“It might.” I shrugged. The chimes echoed across campus, signaling the start of my ten a.m. class. The anxiety grabbed me. I hated to be late. It physically hurt my insides. “I have to go.”

“I still want those notes,” Peyton said, but I couldn’t answer. I was already running down the sidewalk.

I had been in bed for almost two hours when my phone rang. The grogginess was strong, but I had never fallen asleep. Seeing his name on the screen, I answered with a smile on my face. “Hey.”

“You miss me yet?” His voice was deep and already familiar.

“Yes. So much that I haven’t been able to get out of bed since I got your message this morning.”

He chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m on a hunger strike until you return. Peyton brought in an IV.”

He laughed again, which made me smile a little bigger. Lucky had a nice laugh.

“I really am sorry that I couldn’t see you before I left, but there just wasn’t time before my flight.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I mean, you said it would be like this.”

He didn’t answer immediately. “I like it when you’re sleepy. Your voice gets soft with this rough edge. Pretty sexy.”

I couldn’t help but laugh even though I knew he was serious. I was laughing and feeling the sweet thrill in my chest at the same time. “So my voice does it for you when I sound like I have a five-pack-a-day habit?”

“Yes. Goes along with my naked image of you.”

I smiled. “I guess that means you’ve decided that I sleep in nothing while smoking until I fall asleep.”

“Yes,” he whispered.

I grinned. It was so easy to fall into this pattern with him. “What about you?”

“You wanna know if I smoke?”

“I guess. I assume the answer is no, but we don’t really know each other.”

I heard him let out a deep breath that ended in a faint laugh. “Well, I don’t smoke. Not even when I drink. But I did try it once in the eighth grade. I heard my mama yelling for me to come in the house. I was trying to be sneaky out by the railroad tracks. I thought I dropped it on the ground. But it accidentally fell down in my backpack. And I carried it inside the house.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Well, it caught on fire a few hours later while we were eating dinner. My mama thought something was burning in the oven, but it wasn’t on. By the time we figured it out, my backpack was destroyed along with my textbooks and a big hole in the carpet.”

“Is that really true?” I smiled in the darkness.

“It’s true. You can ask Colt. I was grounded from everything she could possibly ground me from. Including my guitar. I’ve never touched a cigarette since that day.”

“I like that story,” I whispered.

“I like talking to you,” he whispered back.

He was so good at sliding in the simple words that felt so large when they touched me on the inside. My eyes closed. “I like talking to you too.”

My head was spinning slightly from how fast this was progressing between us. I didn’t know him. Not really. And not well enough to be this attracted to him. And then suddenly my eyes shot open. “I have an idea.”

“Sounds dangerous.” His voice got deep as he joked with me.

“No, not exactly.” I laughed. “It’s a way for us to get to know each other while you’re on the road. We can ask a question every night that we talk. Switch off. One night you ask me, and then the next night I ask you. But whatever question the person asks, they also have to answer it.”

“So anything goes? Past or present?”

“Why not?”

“Can it be dirty?”

I shook my head, knowing I had stepped right into that one. “Fine. We can um . . . we can talk about how you don’t shower the entire time you’re gone. And you stink so bad that no one will talk to you after a show. Your sweaty pits are totally ruining your career.”

“Shit.” He burst out laughing. “Well, it all makes sense now. I thought it would be good luck. Thank you, Katie, for setting me straight. I guess I better let you go so I can go buy boxers. I was planning to wear this pair until I came back. Thought I might give them to you as a present. Something to hold while you fall asleep. Something that
smells
like me.”

“Gross.”

“Nothing says sexy like sweaty balls and sweaty boxers.”

I couldn’t stop laughing. “Stop!”

“Wait. Isn’t that a song? The sweaty balls song. Maybe it should be a song.”

“No!” I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying to keep quiet. It was a little after one-thirty in the morning, and I was sure Skylar and Peyton could hear me through the walls. Our voices eventually faded back down to just the sound of our breathing.

“You never said how the show went tonight,” I whispered.

“Good. It’s a small place, but you never know who might be in the audience. That’s why I needed to take the slot when it opened up.”

“Was it just you or did the band play?”

“Just me this time.”

I smiled. “I still haven’t seen just you.”

“You can in a few days. I’m doing one in Tulsa when I get back. It’s at a small bar downtown.”

“Okay. I’ll tell Peyton and Skylar. They are dying to officially meet you.”

“Okay.” I heard him yawn.

As I stared out into the darkness, I felt happy. He was a mess. But I liked that mess. “I’ve never dated a guy like you,” I whispered.

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“Good.”

He let out a deep breath. “I want to kiss you right now. Pretty damn bad. I’m sorry that I can’t.”

“You can kiss me when you get back.”

“Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll keep a tab of all the times I want to kiss you. You better be ready. ’Cause two weeks is a long time.”

My heart beat faster and my lips tingled from the memory. “Okay.”

We didn’t talk as I listened to him breathe. I never knew breathing could be so intriguing. The sound was calming, and I closed my eyes.

He yawned again. “I probably should go. I’m practicing with the guys early in the morning. We are going to do some stuff in the studio while I’m here. And you’ve got class.”

“Yeah. Okay.” But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

“Night, Katie.”

I had been staring at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes when I heard the ding of my phone. Opening the message, I felt the warm spark inside as I read his words.

L
UCKY:

Watching you as the moonlight shines,

I keep asking myself,

Could this girl really be mine?

So I pull you in close, kissing you softly.

And then your hands are in my hair.

My lips are on your skin.

I want to feel your body.

I want to touch you again.

T
he next few days were not much different than before. The air outside grew colder and the brown leaves blew away in the wind, turning the trees into barren sticks. The sky remained a solid gray and the nights got darker as the world headed deeper into November.

But the minutes felt sweeter. They smelled sweeter and tasted sweeter.

I felt the change on the inside. The way my absent thoughts went to Lucky as I wondered what he was doing while I was sitting in class. But it was more than just thoughts. It was the gradual build of anticipation all day, knowing at some point I would hear from him.

Lucky and I talked every night. Sometimes later than others. And sometimes for hours if he called early enough. The guy could make me laugh—like, doubled-over, hurt-my-sides kind of laughter.

But I think life was just easier two in the morning. Fewer inhibitions. Fewer filters.

Life got real at two in the morning.

I heard more stories of his childhood. The meanings behind some of his songs. He even talked for an hour one night just about his niece and nephew.

I saw through the jokes. I saw the real Lucky. I knew he cared very deeply for his family. When he loved, he loved hard. It didn’t take much to understand why he still had one foot here and one foot in Nashville.

Lucky didn’t know how to leave. And that was something I understood.