Lex and Lu (29 page)

Seething and red with mortification, Lu followed Lex through the stadium and out into the night. Lex could feel the rage emitting from her pores, but he continued on, not stopping until he reached his car. Opening her door, he released her hand and tucked her safely inside. Walking around the back of the car, he opened the truck, placed his bag inside and lowered his forehead to lean against it. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he tried to get ahold of this incessant anger and pulsating jealousy that coursed through his veins. Looking up to Malcolm Helms and seeing Lu next to him had sent his exhilaration and adrenaline from the win spiraling into a vortex of emotion that he was unable to decipher. Thinking that he had everything tamped down, he closed the trunk and made his way to the driver’s seat.

He sat down and put the key in the ignition. As he placed it in drive, Lu reached over and slammed the gearshift into park.

“What the hell is wrong with you? How could you say that to me?” Lu’s face, flush with anger, bore into his.

“What? Calling you my baby mama?” He asked sarcastically.

“Yes!” she yelled.

“Isn’t that what you are?”

“I don’t appreciate you throwing colloquial phrases at me like that. For you to describe me as some typical cleat chaser who purposefully got pregnant degrades me and your daughter.” Her indignation reverberated through the car.

Lex laughed. “Oh, I’m so sorry that you are offended that I compared you to some average girl. Did I offend the super-brain Lu?”

Lu leaned over the console, right in his face. “I am so much more than that and you know it. You want to be mad at me for what happened,
fine.
You want to pretend like I don’t exist while you force me to move to a new country so you can have access to your daughter,
fine.
But don’t you dare insult me in front of a colleague or degrade me and my daughter. That I will
not
stand for. Do you understand me?”

Lex pushed forward, moving directly toward her face so they were mere inches apart. “You stole nine years from me. You denied me my daughter. You don’t get to make demands! Do you understand me?” He grabbed her around her arms and gently pushed her back into her seat. Reaching around her, he pulled the seat belt over and buckled her in. Throwing the car into drive, he pulled out of the lot and headed toward her house.

“Who’s with Nina?” he asked, glancing at the clock on the dashboard.

“Mrs. Auberly,” she mumbled as she looked out the car window, opposite his direction.

Shit swirled through Lex’s mind. The issues bombarded him, and he had a hard time trying to figure out what to tackle first. This had been his burden since his father’s funeral. He had no idea which problem needed his attention first. Right now, the problem he’d refused to deal with for eight months, the biggest issue, continued to pop up on his radar every moment of the last week. It was as if the dam of resentment and anger he’d built with the sticks of disappointment and hurt were cracking under the barrage that was Lu’s presence. The why behind his refusal to talk to her was no mystery. Confronted with her again, he knew he couldn’t continue to ignore her.

Still reeling from his conversation with his mother and his night at Willa’s, he began to think that he couldn’t take much more. Ironically, he began to see why his parents fought to keep all of this from him for so long. The constant controversy had strained his concentration and thrown him off his game. He knew he’d played well tonight, but the effort it had cost him was a price he’d never had to pay before. Between the loss of his father, the fight with his mother, and the effort to keep his mind off of Lu, he’d felt as though his nine years of markers were being collected.

He glanced over at her, caught up in the city racing by as he sped through the streets of London. Much like his decision on Sunday night, before he thought through what he was doing, he found himself pulling up to his apartment. Parking the car, he turned off the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition.

“Where are we?” Lu asked without turning toward him.

“My place. We need to talk.” He said it matter-of-factly, without any of the heat of their earlier interaction. He anticipated an argument, but Lu merely opened her door and stepped out of the car. He grabbed his stuff and led her through the underground parking garage to the elevator. With the haze of his anger dissipating, he took in her appearance. In black slacks, boots, and a pea coat, the only dash of color a scarf of his rivals’ wound around her neck, he tried not to think of her cheering against him tonight. Her hair was braided across the front and pulled to the side in a ponytail. He supposed it shouldn’t have, but it looked sophisticated on her. Her eyes trained on the flashing numbers as the elevator rose. As he watched her, flashes of their bodies entwined scrolled across his mind. Trying to block the memories, he trained his mind to think of his game, the goal he’d shot wide, the give and go he’d missed, the corner he should have connected. Thankfully, the elevator made no stops and he soon found himself opening his door and allowing her to precede him into his apartment.

He walked directly to his room, leaving her to her own devices. He unpacked his bag, taking his time, getting control of his anger, then made his way back to the kitchen. He grabbed a wineglass from the rack above the counter.

“Red or white?” he asked.

“Red, please,” Lu answered from where she sat on the couch. Walking over to the bar, he pulled a bottle out, opened it and poured. Walking back through the kitchen, Lex grabbed water from the refrigerator and headed over to where Lu sat with her legs curled under her. Handing her the glass of wine, he sat across from her in a chair.

“Do you not need something stronger?” Lu asked, without looking at him.

“I absolutely do. But I’ve already broken my no-alcohol-during-the-season rule once this week.”

“You had a different occasion that warranted alcohol more strongly than this one?” she asked, again looking down into her wine.

Smiling ruefully, Lex said, “Yes. Jo trumps you in needing alcohol to handle.”

Lu’s head popped up and she met Lex’s eyes for the first time since their yelling match in the car. “Well, that’s something, I guess.”

“This seems to be my week for cleaning up the messes in my life.”

“Should I be offended?” Lu asked, holding his gaze.

“That I consider this a mess I have to clean up?” Shaking his head, he continued. “Nah. Save it. I’m pretty sure there’s something that I will say that will be far more offensive than that.”

“Hmph.”

“Does that mean you need an example?” he asked, his temper feeling the stroke of her feigned indifference.

Lu looked away from him and took a sip of her wine. “What do you want to talk about, Lex?” she asked, throwing in the towel.

“What were you doing with Malcolm Helms?” It wasn’t the most pressing issue, but it was bothering him, so he figured he’d get the easy one out of the way.

Lu eyes widened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe that this was a point of contention. “He offered me a job.”

Lex nodded. “Makes sense.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your research is pretty convincing, Lu. I can see why he’d want you on his payroll.” He saw the surprise flash across her face. He almost laughed that he could still read her so well sometimes. But then he remembered all that he couldn’t read when they’d last been together and the desire to laugh vanished.

“What do you know about what I do?”

“Everything.”

“Why?”

“We have a child together, Lu. I made it my business to know what you’ve been doing with the super brain.” He saw her struggle to hold back the smile. “Look, sport psychology is a growing field. I know your angle is unique, but I also knew that it wouldn’t take long for someone to want to exploit what you have to offer. I’m glad it was Malcolm.”

“Oh” was all she could manage. “What else, Lex?”

“I have a list, don’t you?” he said, his brows drawing together.

“Yes, but this is your show. And we don’t have much more time.”

Lex looked down at his watch. Getting up, he walked to the counter, where he’d dropped his phone. He picked it up and called Nina’s nanny.

“Mrs. Auberly, it’s Lex. Are you able to stay at Dr. Knight’s tonight? Dr. Knight will be home, but it will be late. I figure this way you can get a good night’s sleep. Thank you.”

Walking back to where Lu sat, Lex said, “We don’t need to worry about the time now.”

Lu looked up at him, shook her head, and rolled her eyes.

“I need for you to tell me what happened.” There were so many questions he had for her, but he needed to know it from the beginning. If he understood the sequence of events, maybe some of the answers to the other burning questions would be evident. He knew of one other question that he would absolutely have to ask, but he thought perhaps many would be answered when she told him the story.

“What do you mean?” Lu asked.

Lu wasn’t one for acting, so he took the look of confusion on her face for what it was. Perhaps he did need to be more specific. Leaning forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees, he looked her directly in the blue depths of her eyes. “I got on the plane. Then, what happened?”

“I already told you what happened,” Lu said wearily.

“I’m calling bullshit on that story you told me at the funeral, Lu. I’m sure parts of it are true, but I know you too well. You’re not vindictive, and you’d never keep our daughter away from me on your own.”

Lu bristled at his arrogance. They hadn’t spoken in nine years and he was an expert on her and her motivations. “You don’t know shit about me!”

Unfazed, Lex merely smiled. “OK, I don’t know shit about you. But don’t try to pawn that fairy tale of a story off on me.”

Frustrated, Lu drank her wine and tried to figure out what she wanted to say. Having Lex five feet away from her drove her crazy. The smugness of his expression, as if he knew something she didn’t, made her want to smack the smile off of his face.

“Look, I let you get away with the story at the funeral because I was angry and I’d just lost my father. It was easier to accept your story than try to weed through it. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and it doesn’t add up. Come on, Harvard. Spill it.”

This Lex, the one sitting in front of her, cajoling her, this was the one she couldn’t resist. This Lex was the love of her life, the boy she’d fallen in love with when she was six.

“Let’s play a little game. I’ll start a sentence and you finish it.”

“What are you talking about, Lex?” she said, exasperation apparent in her voice and her big blue eyes.

“You know. A little word association. Don’t you psychologists use this stuff? First thing that comes to mind. So if I say, ‘Jo is …,’ you would say?”

“My savior.” Lu sat back, a little surprised that she’d tagged Jo with that moniker.

Lex’s eyebrow crept up, surprise evident on his face. “Interesting. OK, so what do you think. Can we do this?”

Lu shook her head. “Fine,” she conceded, knowing that he was determined to have this conversation.

“We’ll start with my original question. Ready?” At her nod, he continued. “I got on the plane and you …”

“Cried for three weeks.” Lu continued to look down at her glass, which was almost empty.

“Again, interesting. All right. This one’s a little harder. My mother, and I mean Amber, not Jo, wanted …”

“For me to kill our child.” She stopped thinking.

Lex took a deep breath as a surge of anger for Amber pulsed through him. “I was mad at Lex for …”

“Leaving me behind.”

“But I went along with the plan because …”

“I didn’t want you to end up resenting me and our child.” Lu refused to look up. She didn’t think she could take any reflection in his eyes. If she saw pity, sympathy, or confusion, she thought she’d scream. She didn’t know what he needed, but she felt like she owed him an explanation. Her brilliant plan at the funeral seemed to serve him as she’d preserved his relationship with his mother and brother. She didn’t want him to think of her as a sacrificial lamb. Lost in her own thoughts, she didn’t realize that Lex had gotten up and refilled her wineglass. She merely saw the level of wine in her glass increase.

She took a sip that seemed more like a gulp and waited for the next sentence completion. This little game that Lex concocted was what made him so dangerous. You got drawn in by the good looks, the athletic body, the quick wit, but you just never counted on his intelligence. He called her super brain and Harvard, but he was no slouch in the smarts department. He calculated his moves. She knew an ulterior motive for all of this existed; she just couldn’t figure out his game.

“You ready?” he asked as he returned to the chair.

Sighing and rolling her eyes, Lu looked up at him and wished she hadn’t. “Fire away, AJ.”

Chuckling, Lex sat back in his chair, thoroughly enjoying himself. “Jo is my savior because …”

“She saved Nina.”

“Really?” he asked, forgetting the game.

“Absolutely.”

“I didn’t fight because …”

Lu jerked up, as though she’d been stuck with an electric prod. Her eyes locked with Lex’s. “What did you say?” she whispered.

“I didn’t fight because …”

Lu couldn’t answer. Caught off guard by the question, she continued to stare at Lex. He didn’t look like he was enjoying himself anymore. He looked deadly serious, his green eyes boring into her. Nervous about his motives and intentions, Lu couldn’t figure out how to perceive the question.

“Fight what, Lex?”

“Any of it, all of it. Your mother, my mother. Why did you just fold? I left because I knew that when I came back you would be there with our child. I never doubted that. But you just crumpled. You let everyone else dictate the course of our lives. I just want to know why.”

He didn’t scream or yell. Leaning back in the chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, you could have mistaken his body language to mean that he was discussing the weather. No smile lingered on his face, but no anger lurked either. Without meaning to, Lu thought back to their exchange in the Sunday-school room. He’d been completely distant, as if some other man, one that she didn’t know, had pinned her to the wall and invaded her. Now it appeared as though the answers mattered but didn’t. As much as she’d hated what they had done to each other that day, she understood his passion and his anger. She wasn’t sure she understood his seeming indifference.