A Little Bit of Trouble (38 page)

My last thought echoes through my mind as I throw myself in front of the woman I love, I won’t fail this time. I will save her.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Everything goes black.

My Name is Loryn

     Tears shouldn’t soak my face but they do. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry but how can I not?

     Everyone crowds
around the deep hole as the Priest says a few words and the coffin is lowered into the ground. My heart breaks with each inch that it sinks.

    “Are you okay?” Marie asks softly and wraps her arm around me. I nod and wipe at my eyes. “It’s okay to cry you know.”

     I shake my head, “I promised Lucas I wouldn’t.”

     She nods and keeps me tucked to her side. We throw the dirt onto the coffin followed by a few roses. My heart continues cracking, m
y eyes burn and my body tingles with remorse. Maybe there was something I could have done… but I can’t keep letting myself think that. I promised Lucas I wouldn’t.

Lucas… he saved my life.

     “Come on,” Summer says softly
.

     Even though I said my goodbyes and made my promises and my peace I’ve still cried. “I need a drink.”

     “Yeah,” Marie and I agree at the same time.

     She’s a god damn warrior. Even at gunpoint this woman stayed calm and collected. She battled with a man for a gun for crying out loud. Every chance she got she instructed me on what to do, she knew someone would come and so we made that stupid plan. To argue
and distract to give whoever it was the time to grab the gun that Daniel had dropped when his buddy turned on him to run off into the sunset with Dana. They thought I’d bring the hundred thousand dollars they asked for in return for my cousin. I didn’t. Marie had a plan for that too. She was going to grab Dana and run, we had it all mapped out, but then Dana and that asshole turned on Daniel last minute. He’s not dead, even though he got shot four times in the chest by Dana’s fuck buddy, who is now awaiting a sentence.

     Another wave of tears flow freely down my cheeks and even a sob escapes me. The girls are on me in an instant, soothing me, telling me it’s okay and we’ll get through it. But there’s only one person I want to see, Lucas, and he’s not here.

     “Are you okay?” Summer asks.

     “There’s one more promise I need to make,” I say softly and step away from everyone. “I need a moment.”

     “I’ll wait here,” Summer nods to the others to leave, they do, Chris stays by her side. “Thank you,” I mumble weakly and head back in the direction I came. I continue past the fresh grave and follow the path around until I catch sight of the two identical headstones, both heart shaped but one is bigger than the other.

     I stop and kneel before the larger one. “I’ll never try and replace you.” I clear my throat, my voice is a little raspy and my throat is sore. “You’ll always be Lucas’ first love, his wife, the woman he grew up with. You’ll always be Amelia’s mom. I’ll remind her of that every chance I get, I promise. And I’ll look after them both and I’ll love them both until they both decide they don’t want me anymore. Because there’s no way I’ll ever get enough of them. You should be proud, your daughter is a beautiful, strong and amazing little girl. I’m grateful for the chance to be a part of her life. I’m just sorry you’re not here to see it and I’m sorry I never got to meet Annie.”
The tiny grave saddens me greatly. Just the thought of a child’s lifeless body in a box in the ground. That poor little girl, to have lost her life so young. I touch the headstone and let the tears fall. My chest aches for Lucas, how it must have felt waking up with no daughter and no memory of how he lost her. I’ve seen his love for Amelia, I’ve experienced the intensity of it and I have no doubt that love was exactly the same as what he had for Annie and to have that ripped away… he’s the bravest man I know.

     With a nod I climb back to my feet and return to Summer and Chris.

     “You ready?” Summer asks and links her arm through mine.

     “I just need to go home,” I sniff and look at everyone heading to the wake. Maya and James have gone ahead and are probably already by the bar. They really don’t like funerals but they insisted on being here for me. “Can you take me home?”

     Chris steps forward then and
removes me from Summers’ grasp, “I’ll take her. You guys go and see to everyone.”

    
“Thanks Chris,” I sniff and cling onto his arm. He takes me to his car and hands me tissues every five minutes as we drive home. His silence is comforting, he’s not trying to convince me that everything will be okay, he’s just there.

     “Do you need help up? Are you okay?”

     I hug Chris goodbye, “I’ll be fine.”

     He nods and watches me head into the apartment building. Time to go home.

    
I step into my bedroom and stand in the doorway. Yep it’s my bedroom now, I finally moved in to Lucas’ apartment.

     “I knew you loved that damn rabbit really,” I snigger and the most gorgeous green eyes I’ve ever seen look straight into mine. He smiles and opens his arms to me, “he just won’t leave me alone.”
He nudges Godzilla to the ground.

     I climb onto the bed beside him
, careful not to knock his leg which is suspended a foot or so off the bed. It’s a horrendous sight but that’s understandable when you get shot in the hip twice. “I cried.”

     “I know.”

     “I’m sorry, after what she’s done…” he places his finger over my lips and pulls me tighter to him, “baby, don’t. She was still your cousin. You grew up together and whether she was a bitch or not she was still a part of who you are.”

     I nod and bury my face in his chest, “Where’s the nurse?”

     “She’s in the bathroom. Amelia is in her room. Can you fix her something to eat?”

    “Yeah,” I kiss his jaw and sigh a little when he winces. He’s in pain because he chose to save me. Someone gave their life for mine. It’s surreal. When he told me he loved me of course I believed him… but to the extent that he’d throw himself over me to protect me from bullets, never in a million years could I imagine he felt so strongly for me. How will I ever repay him?

     “You’re thinking about it again…” his tone is warning. I rest my chin on his chest and look up at him. “Stop thinking about it.”

     “I’m not thinking about it.”

     He smiles and I swear his smile literally oozes sex. I’m not even sure what that means, all I know is that it gets me wet in places I shouldn’t be thinking about now.

     “You’re a terrible liar.”

     “I just…?”

     “Loryn, I lov
e you. Get that into your head.”

     “
You almost died.”

    
He grips my chin with his hand and presses his soft lips to mine. Hmm. Heaven. “But I didn’t.”

     “
But you could have done.” I shudder at the thought of him on the ground, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with each weak breath as blood oozed from twin holes in his side. The bullets almost completely shattered the bone. He now has pins holding it together and a metal brace going down his thigh bone. “Your leg…”

     “Will heal.”

     “Lucas…”

     “Loryn. Forget it, stop thanking me, stop fussing over me.”

     “Why’d you do it?”

    
He chuckles a little, “Why’d I protect you?”

     “
Yeah. Most people wouldn’t have done.”

     “That’s because most people haven’t found their color,” he kisses my forehead and smiles softly, his fingers start tickling my arms softly. “I couldn’t imagine life without you. You’re my color, my girl. I love you even if you come with a little bit of trouble.”

     “
Yeah, I love you too, even if you’re a possessive, jealous, male idiot.”

     He holds his hands up in surrender and kisses my forehead before running his fingers through my hair, I love it when he does this. So relaxing. “When I can get out of this bed I’m going to fuck you in that salon and you’re going to call me God again.”

     “I didn’t call you God, it was
a figure of speech.”

     “Such a bad liar.” He bites my nose.
His expression suddenly gets thoughtful, when this happens it means he’s about to share something with me so I listen intently, “You are happy right babe? With me and Amelia I mean.”

     Am I happy? That’s a good question. I look around the room and notice Amelia lingering in the doorway, I open my arms to her, she smiles and rushes to me.

    Am I happy? I lost a child and
that was hard, it still eats away at me. I lost half of the equipment I need to make a child and that thought makes my chest ache but... I lost Lucas, and then I lost him again and again and Amelia and I’ve never felt more miserable. Not even when my ex screwed me over and ruined my life, not even when my mom vanished time and time again when I was younger. The last time I lost Lucas I thought he was going to die. That was the worst time of my life.

     Am I happy? I list things off in my mind, all of my happy moments
come to the surface of my memories and there isn’t one moment that doesn’t include Lucas or this little girl right here who is snuggled in my arms. So yes, I can honestly say I am happy. I could very well be the happiest person in the world. For the first half of my life I grew up with a mom that loved me but showed it very little, I was let down time and time again. Bullied and shunned by my own family because of my mom. Now I have this, this group that have accepted me and have shown me love and respect more than anyone else.

     Lucas sacrificed himself to save me. He loves me, I love him. I love Amelia too.

     “I’ve never been happier,” my words come out on a whisper.

     He sighs and closes his eyes, a peaceful look comes over his
features and his body relaxes. “Me too.”

     “Come on, let’s feed you,” I say to Amelia and lift her off my lap.

     “And then we can go to the park?” she grins and bounces a little on the spot.

     “We’ll see. Go wash your hands and face please.” She darts off without arguing. Such a good kid.

   
Lucas remains silent until she leaves. And then… “Can I get a blowjob now?”

     “The doctor said not until he removes the pins from your hip.”

     “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

     “No but it will hurt you!” I slap his chest, he only laughs. “
Get some rest.”

     “Stay here with me
for a little while?”

     I grin, “Like I’d go anywhere else.”

     Lucas saved my life, and Marie saved his. If Lucas hadn’t have protected me I’d be dead and if
Marie hadn’t shot at Dana over the guys shoulder Lucas would be dead. I don’t blame her for killing my cousin, it was kill or be killed. Dana wasn’t a person I recognized any longer, she was nothing but a shell of the woman she once was. It’s sad really, she was always mean but she never had an easy life.

    
We all handle things differently though I suppose. My mom turns to alcohol and runs away after making a hundred promises, I haven’t seen her since the day before I ended up in hospital and Dana turned to drugs.

   
I turn to the people I love for support but when I didn’t have all of these people I turned to my books and escaped reality until my mind could see nothing but the images that the printed words described.

     We were all worried about Marie over the past few weeks but she’s shown little signs of distress over her actions. Jacob is here and that has helped a lot. Marie really lights up around him.

     When Lucas
seemingly falls asleep I head into the kitchen to make some food and check my phone. I have too many calls and texts to respond to so I throw it back down and grab a bar of candy from the side instead whilst pulling items from the refrigerator.

     I smile when I see the unopened packet of pamphlets for Marie’s and my salon and studio. We’ve pushed the date back a few weeks, until Lucas can get out of bed. Only two more weeks and we’ll officially be open for business. How exciting. It’s amazing how different my life is now in comparison to a year ago. I never would have believed that I’d be sat here in the home of
the man I love, making lunch for him and his daughter. It makes me feel even worse for Dana, if anyone deserved a happy ending it was her, she had a rough life. I pray that she finds it wherever she is now.

    I’m sat down at the bar for ten minutes listening to the sausages sizzle under the grill when I get another text through to my phone… from Lucas.