Surrendering to Us (11 page)

“So, Tate, in the interest of disclosure, what do you do?” It was a terrible transition, and made it very clear that I was changing the subject.

“I’m a corporate attorney at a firm in Cambridge.”

“Impressive. I thought about going to law school, but I always knew I wanted to work for my father. Still, I guess I could always go back.”

“How are things going with the company? You’ve had some . . . difficulties recently, or so I’ve heard,” Tate said. At least he’d tried to put it delicately.

I sighed.

“That’s a bit of an understatement. Things are . . . we’re doing the best we can, but reassuring our clients is a full-time job right now, and we’ve been struggling to fill the positions that are now vacant while at the same time doing enough background checks to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.”

We talked some more about my company and how I’d started working there, and April jumped in. She ran a non-profit that helped out-of-work women (many of them single mothers) get back on their feet with job training and interview skills and professional attire. I’d liked her immediately, but after she told me what she did, I liked her even more.

She reminded me of my own mother. Gorgeous and put together, and able to tackle anything with a serene smile. The girls had two more fights that she broke up without even raising her voice. April Blythe was one of
those
women. The ones who had it all. I wanted to hate her, but I was in awe, so I couldn’t.

After the initial ice was broken, we moved into the kitchen where April had quite a spread set out.

“I didn’t bake any of this,” she confessed to me. “I was going to pretend that I had because I was trying to impress you, but then I was worried about you asking for a recipe, so I figured I should just be upfront.” I wouldn’t have asked for a recipe, and knowing the food that Sloane could turn out, I would have stayed in ignorance.

“Your secret is safe with me,” I whispered back as I picked up a little jam and cheese tartlet.

“Momma, I want a cookie!” Gracie said, tugging at her mother’s skirt.

“Cookie!” Fiona shrieked, trying to push Gracie out of the way.

“You may each have one cookie. Remember that candy you had?” They both shook their heads.

April sighed.

“Cookies have lots sugar. If you eat too much the sugar monster will come and nibble on your toes while you’re sleeping.” She growled and tickled both of them, and then handed each a cookie and told them to go sit at the little kid-sized table in the corner of the room to eat.

Tate and Lucah were chowing down on what looked like shrimp and chicken skewers on the other side of the kitchen.

“God, I hope that bit about the sugar monster doesn’t send them to therapy when they’re older. But you do what you can, right?” April gave me a tight smile and grabbed a tartlet herself. “So, you and Lucah are living together now.”

“Uh, yes.”

“I’m not trying to interrogate you,” she said, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I’m just, well, I’m shocked. But you have to know by now that he’s not the kind of guy who jumps into a commitment like that. Which means you must be pretty darn special.” The guys came over, as if they sensed what we were talking about.

“Hey,” Lucah said, putting his arms around my waist from behind and resting his head on my shoulder.

“Hey,” I said, turning my head and giving him a smile.

“What were you talking about?” he said, swaying us back and forth.

“None of your business, Mr. Blythe,” I said, grabbing another tartlet and holding up for him to eat. Unlike in the car, he didn’t lick my fingers. April and Tate were both watching us, and it was almost as bad as being caught mid-coitus. I had a tendency to forget anyone else was around when I was with Lucah. In addition to the getting emotional at random moments and the urges to declare my love almost constantly. Side effect of love.

I moved away from him and grabbed another tart. Those things were addictive.

April started talking about the Company Ball. Lucah had shown her some pictures he’d covertly taken of me coming down the steps. I hadn’t known he’d taken him. Stealthy.

“Where did you get that dress?” April said as she showed me the pictures on her phone. Thankfully, I wasn’t making a weird face in any of them. Or at least not in any of the ones that Lucah had sent her.

“My best friend made it. She’s a designer.”

“Oh, right. Sloane.” Lucah had told them about Sloane as well? Lucah tensed up again at the mention of her name.

“Wow, I guess you know pretty much everything,” I said. I was a little pissed that Lucah hadn’t informed me the extent he’d told them about me and everything else.

“I’m sorry, I’m a little nosy. Your life just seems so glamorous. I’m a little jealous. You’re going off to balls and the most exciting part of my day is finding Cheerios in my bra.” That made me laugh, and then the girls came over again, begging for more cookies.

To distract them, April mentioned something about showing me their rooms, and that was all it took. Ten minutes later I was sitting on the floor of a room that was purple as far as the eye could see and getting a tiara put on my head.

“Now you’re the princess,” Gracie said. The ceremony to make me a princess had been quite elaborate and required me to submit to having my hair brushed (yanked, tangled, teased), my face covered in glitter, and a cape being put on my shoulders.

“Well, thank you so much. I’ve always wanted to be a princess.”

“Unkie Lu is the princess too, but you can be the princess today.” A chuckle made me turn my head and I saw “Unkie Lu” standing in the doorway with his arms crossed, watching the coronation process.

“What do you think? Should I wear more glitter to the office?” I batted my eyelashes at them.

“Shoes!” Fiona yelled. I’d taken my heels off, and she was trying to put them on. Lucah came to help her and somehow he got her standing and shuffling as she squealed with glee.

“I wanna try!” Gracie said, abandoning the tiara and going for the shoes. Girls after my own heart. Then there were shoe races from one end of the room to the other, which were quite hilarious.

“Rory? Lion. Grrrr,” Fiona said, turning her hands into claws and throwing herself at me. I caught her and she kept growling and trying to claw me. I tried tickling her sides, and that seemed to work as she collapsed and giggled while Gracie slid from one end of the room to the other in my shoes.

“I don’t think you’re getting them back,” Lucah said.

“I have other pairs.”

“Rory?” Gracie said, skating past us.

“Yes?”

“Do you do sex?” For a second, I thought I’d misheard her sweet voice.

“What did you say?” She stopped skating and faced me, her hands on her hips.

“Do you do sex?” I looked at Lucah and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. I had no idea what to say.

“Um, I think that’s something that we should talk to Mommy and Daddy about, okay?” Lucah said, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. My shoes dropped to the floor. I stood up and put them on and Fiona held her hands up.

“Uppy, uppy.” I lifted her up and settled her on one hip. God, she was a lot heavier than she looked. Were children more dense or something? Maybe it was the candy and the cookies.

We took the girls downstairs and Lucah whispered in April’s ear what Gracie had said. Her eyes went wide and she looked mortified.

“I am so sorry. She asked about where babies come from last week, so we’ve been talking about that kind of thing. We wanted to give her the right terminology and so forth. I am so, so sorry.” I glanced at Lucah and I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

I lost it. Holding onto my knees and gasping, tears running down my face kind of laughing. The kind of laughing where you feel like you’ve gotten a workout. What made it even worse was Gracie hopping around asking, “What so funny?” Lucah laughed with me and eventually Tate and April joined in and a chuckle was had by all.

After we recovered, April took the girls (kicking and screaming) upstairs for their very overdue nap, and I was left with the Blythe men.

“So I know he’s going to kill me for it, but I’m guessing you’ve never seen any pictures of Lucah growing up, and I just happen to have some.” He walked back into the living room and pulled an album off a high shelf in the hutch next to the television.

“I haven’t, actually,” I said, looking at Lucah. He’d tensed up again. What was it about his childhood that he didn’t want me to see? I knew he’d been poor. Why would seeing pictures make any difference?

“You knew I had to do this,” Tate said to Lucah, who was silently fuming. “Mom and Dad would have done it, if they were here.” At the mention of his parents, the room got really quiet and still. Tate cleared his throat and turned to the first page of pictures.

There he was. My Lucah Blythe, boyish, with that out of control hair and those lovely eyes. He smiled up at me (sometimes missing a front tooth or two) from each picture. Christmas, birthdays, first day of school, here he was. His whole history that I hadn’t been a part of.

I sat on the couch and kept turning the pages. There were a few of him cuddling with his mother, and fishing with his father. A hand stopped me from turning to the next page. Lucah sat down next to me and stared at the pictures.

He got his hair from his mother. She had the kind of beauty that was timeless. Curvy and with a face that looked like it was pulled from a skincare ad. His father was built like him, with a ruddy complexion and Lucah’s sideways (and cocky) smile.

A tear fell from my eyes and dropped onto the album. I wiped it away, but another one was right behind it. I turned to look at Lucah and he was crying too.

His childhood had been a poor one, moneywise, but the love that radiated from his grinning face in every picture made my heart twist. Tate and April had left the room, so it was just the two of us.

I put the album on the coffee table and leaned into Lucah and he put his arms around me. I cried, and he cried and our tears mixed together and fell on our laps. Neither of us said a word, but sometimes, you didn’t need words. You just had to let yourself feel.

“I love you,” I said, holding his face like he so often held mine. “I love you so much.” His eyes were red and swollen, but in that moment he was so beautiful.

“I love you, too.” He pulled me forward and our lips met for a wet and salty kiss. But his lips were sweet and warm as they moved with mine.

“Thank you for letting me see this,” I whispered as I broke the kiss. “Thank you for letting me in.”

“I didn’t want to. You tricked me, Sunshine.” He tweaked my nose and wiped my eyes with his thumbs and then I did the same for him.

“I didn’t know I was going to need tissues for this visit,” I said getting up and going to get my purse from the table in the foyer. I knew I had a pack of tissues in there somewhere. I fished through until I found them and then Lucah and I blew our noses at the same time. Tate cleared his throat from the back of the room and Lucah and I both turned.

“Sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking,” he said as April peered at us from behind him.

“It’s okay,” Lucah said. “I’ve got to face it, and get used to it. Do you think I could take some of those with me?”

“We can do you one better.” Tate nudged April and she brought out another album, which turned out to be identical to the first.

“We had the negatives, so we had copies made. I’ve been holding onto them for a while because I knew you were going to want them eventually.” Lucah took the album and brushed some dust off the cover.

“Thanks, Tate.” He got up and they hugged, which I could tell wasn’t a common occurrence.

“I have one for Ryder too, if he ever gets his head out of his ass. What’s he up to now?” Lucah let out a long sigh and set the album down.

“He’s . . . I have no idea where he’s working, but he has an apartment, if you could call it that.”

“Is he still doing drugs?”

“He seems lucid when I see him, and he doesn’t seem high, but I really don’t know. I’m doing my best, but he’s twenty-three years old. And I’m not Mom or Dad.”

Tate just shook his head and April patted his shoulder.

“I feel like I should do something, but I just know it would blow up in my face,” Tate said, his face pinched with stress. “I’d give him money if I knew he wasn’t going to spend it on drugs, or some other stupid thing. I don’t know what to do.” We all stood there in stumped silence until a little voice called “Momma!” from upstairs.

“Duty calls,” April said, heading for the stairs.

“You did amazing. I knew you would,” Lucah said as we pulled out of the driveway and waved good-bye to Tate, April and the girls. I was absolutely exhausted. Kids were tiring.

“It was pretty awkward there at the beginning.” I grabbed another chocolate-covered potato chip and munched on it. It was nearly dinnertime, and I hoped I could convince him to stop somewhere so we could eat. Or at least go through a drive-through.

“No it wasn’t. You’re crazy.”

“Uh, it definitely was. I don’t know what you saw, but there was plenty of awkward going on.” He shook his head and slowed down to a crawl through the neighborhood.