Put Me Back Together (6 page)

He kept quiet—though I was pretty sure he was laughing at me under his breath—until I calmed down enough to look up at him. In what seemed to be his typical fashion, he was sitting back in his chair, completely at ease.

“How can you be so okay with all of…this?” I blurted, gesturing at the room at large. “How can you stand being stared at and talked about and stalked by random girls? Don’t you ever get sick of being Lucas Matthews?”

I bit my lips hard, realizing I’d probably way overstepped my bounds. As Em would have said,
You really should have backed the truck up there, Katie
. I’d basically implied I would hate myself if I were him. And just ten seconds after he’d called me beautiful.

Nice.

But Lucas didn’t look particularly insulted. Instead, he was looking thoughtfully out the window.

“Do I ever get sick of being Lucas Matthews?” he said to his own reflection. Then he looked at me again, his expression melancholic. “All the time,” he said.

Never in a million years would I have thought that Lucas and I would have a single thing in common, let alone two things in one day. Maybe I would have something to tell Em when I got home after all.

Shaking away the gloom, Lucas set his elbows on the table and crossed his arms like he meant business.

“So, Katie,” he said. “Your turn. Tell me something about you.”

I busied myself with taking another abnormally long sip of my drink. Uh-oh. He wanted to do the whole ‘getting to know you’ thing. I heard mayday cries blaring in my ears. Luckily, I’d spent years learning evasive tactics for just this situation.

“I really love this drink!” I said happily, holding it up for him to see.

He nodded at me as if agreeing and then his nodding turned to head shaking. “Really?” he said with some amusement. “That’s all you’re going to give me? You love chocolate?”

“But I really do,” I said seriously.

A mischievous grin spread over his face as the girl who’d taken our drink orders came over to us with a plate in her hand. She set it down on the table and batted her eyelashes at Lucas as he thanked her. I tried not to roll my eyes in return, but did not succeed.

On the plate now sitting between us was a warm and delicious looking brownie so thick and glistening with chocolaty goodness that my mouth started watering just looking at it. Then Lucas took his fork and cut it in half and the thick, fudgy insides began to flow out onto the plate, like some kind of volcanic eruption of chocolate delight.

I looked up at Lucas, my mouth still hanging partly open.

“I want that,” I said.

Lucas smiled even wider, holding the fork out of my reach. “Well I was going to just share it with you,” he said, “but now I have a better idea. Let’s call this our official Getting To Know Katie brownie. For every bite you take you have to answer a question about yourself. No answers, no brownie.”

“Every bite!” I said, gazing hopelessly at the treat and trying to count the number of bites with my eyes. There were ten bites there at least, unless I made them really big, which I imagined he wouldn’t let me.

Ten questions. I could do that…couldn’t I?

“What do you say?” Lucas said.

“Fine,” I said crossly, snatching the fork out of his hand. He didn’t put up much of a fight. “But I get the first bite for free. I need to make sure it’s worth it.”

Lucas nodded in agreement, his eyes twinkling. He said, “What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

Pulling the plate toward me, I cut the brownie into ten equal bites, letting the molten insides ooze out everywhere.

“You’re making a mess,” Lucas commented.

“Hush, you!” I said.

I dragged my fork through the chocolate sauce, then scooped up the first bite of brownie and brought it to my lips, inhaling that freshly baked smell before putting it into my mouth. It tasted so good I had to close my eyes as I chewed. I liked to worship my desserts in private.

When I looked up at Lucas again his eyes were so dilated they looked black.

“Forget the questions,” he said. “I just want to watch you eat it.”

I froze with the fork still in my mouth and there was a pregnant pause as we stared at each other. Then I set the fork down and looked away. A part of me liked this, just a little, while another part of me was seriously freaking the hell out. I wasn’t sure which part was winning.

Lucas sat back in his chair, as though he thought it would be better if there were a full table-length between us. He shook his head a few times like it was an Etch-A-Sketch and he was trying to clear it.

I just want to watch you eat it.

I couldn’t deny that when he’d said those words I’d wanted nothing more than to let him watch me eat it.

Oh God, what was happening to me?

“First question,” Lucas said, rubbing his hands together. “What’s your last name?”

Okay, not too bad. Easy does it. “Archer,” I said, claiming my second bite.

“That’s British, isn’t it?” he said. “Like the author, Jeffrey Archer.”

I breathed in, readying to make my speech. “My mother is Indian and my father is Danish, but his father was English, hence the last name Archer. My mother is actually from Australia, she was born and grew up there, but her parents emigrated there from India and then eventually to Canada, so here we are.”

I readied myself for the typical remarks Em and I had gotten all our lives. Exclamations of, “Danish and Indian. What an interesting combination!” and, “You’re so lucky. I’m just plain old Canadian.” They were all basically conversation killers. What exactly was there to say about your diverse ethnic background? Thanks for finding my racial mix fascinating? (Emily had once told a man in a checkout line that he had her to thank for keeping his world diverse. “You’re welcome,” she’d said to him, perfectly seriously. He’d tipped his hat to her.)

Lucas just looked at me and said, “I’m one-eighth French-Canadian.”

“Oh, I totally win,” I said, spearing two bites of brownie on my fork at once and shoving them both in my mouth.

“Cheater!” Lucas cried, picking up the plate and holding it to his chest. “Now you have to answer two questions in a row.”

“Fine,” I said, holding up my hands to prove my innocence.

He narrowed his eyes at me but placed the plate back down between us.

“Where are you from?” he said, his voice still laced with suspicion.

“Vancouver,” I answered honestly. Good. A nice big, anonymous city. Nothing to see here, move along. “And where are you from?”

He raised his eyebrows at me, but didn’t protest my table-turning move.

“A little town called Christie,” he said.

I shook my head slowly to show I didn’t know it.

“It’s a tiny place about an hour northwest of here. Blink on the highway and you’ll miss it,” he said. “There’s nothing much there, just a lake and a four-street square downtown, a rundown movie theatre, and a girl’s boarding school, but it’s home to me.”

I’d noticed that students who came from small towns were often apologetic about it, as though they thought their homes were too boring to mention. But not Lucas. I liked that about him. I liked that he wasn’t embarrassed to come from some small town nobody had ever heard of, like his past was nothing to be ashamed of.

I wished I could say the same.

“So your parents still live there?” I asked, claiming another bite while he wasn’t looking. A muscle clenched in his jaw and he scratched at the back of his head. When he smiled at me this time, I could see the strain. This wasn’t a question he wanted to answer.

“I thought I was the one asking the questions,” he said.

But he didn’t. I drew designs in the fudge with the tines of the fork and he watched me do it. It was the first time in a long time that I’d been able to stand being quiet with someone. Usually I would obsess about what they were thinking of me or how to get away or what to say next, because God knew I wasn’t exactly a stellar conversationalist. I didn’t know why I wasn’t feeling that way now, but I didn’t question it.

“Sometimes I miss living at home,” Lucas said. “That town was the world to me in high school. Everything was so much simpler then.”

“I bet you were the king of the school,” I said with a smirk. “You had a hundred close friends and you were class president.” His sheepish look told me I was on the right track. “I bet everyone knew your name, just like here.”

“What? Didn’t the kids all know your name at your school?” he said.

I winced internally. I’d walked right into that one.

“Oh, they knew my name, all right,” I said. They hadn’t printed my name in the papers, but every kid in my high school had still known exactly who I was even before I’d set foot on school grounds.

“Were you one of those popular girls?” he said with laughter in his voice. “Did you walk down the hall, swinging your ponytail around and making snarky remarks to your underlings?”

I had to laugh along. “No!” I said. “That was Emily.” I had another bite of brownie.

“But I’m sure you had boyfriends,” he continued, he tone light and teasing while my stomach dropped like a stone. “How many were there? Dozens, I bet.”

Nope, just one.

In my lap I began twisting my fingers, an anxious and painful habit I’d developed during the trial. I would twist my digits until the skin puffed red and the bones cracked, gripping so hard it felt as though my fingers would actually break. My hands would throb for nearly an hour afterwards as I went over in my head everything the prosecutors had said, and every look the Wesleys had given me, and every lie I’d told. Especially the lies.

I released my fingers and jerked my head up, startling the worried look right off of Lucas’s face.

“Why’d you quit basketball?” I blurted out, which was a pretty rude question to ask out of the clear blue, I realized, but I wasn’t too concerned about it. Anything to change the subject. Besides, Lucas was as unflappable as ever, as he cocked his head to the side slightly, considering his answer.

“Sometimes things have to end,” he said.

Now that was a bullshit answer if I’d ever heard one.

I said, “Yesterday when that guy asked you to come to the game, you lied to him.”

Lucas raised his chin at me. “How do you know I was lying?” he asked.

“It’s a talent of mine,” I answered. “But I’m right, aren’t I? You aren’t going to any game.”

His glance slipped to the window again and for the first time I suspected I’d made him uncomfortable.

That was the downside of evasive maneuvers. Sometimes in trying to deflect attention you ended up drawing unwanted attention somewhere else. For someone who’d spent her life hoping nobody would find out her secrets, I sure loved ferreting out other people’s. It was a sick habit.

“Sports are overrated, anyway,” I announced as I got to my feet and started gathering my things.

Lucas chuckled, shaking his head. “Where do you think you’re going?” he said. “There are still a few bites left here.” He taunted me by spearing a bite and eating it himself, smearing chocolate sauce across his bottom lip. As he wiped it away with a napkin I had to stop myself from leaning forward and capturing the last drop he’d missed with my finger, or better yet, my lips.

Dear God, did I just think that?

I was still staring at Lucas’s lips and as I glanced up at his eyes I realized he was staring right back at me.

“I think that’s enough questions for today, Mr. Inquisitor,” I said briskly. “Besides, I have class in twenty minutes.”

“I feel like I’ve been gypped,” he said sadly as he followed me out the door. “You used me for my baked goods and gave me nothing in return.”

If he thought that was nothing, he clearly hadn’t been paying attention. I’d told him a novel-length saga compared to what I normally shared with people, which was nothing.

“You’ll recover,” I said. “I’m sure some blonde beauty in your next class will be more than happy to fill you in on every detail of her life.”

“Yeah, well, Blondie doesn’t hold my interest,” he said, walking backwards in front of me. “Too much gum popping.”

He stopped in his tracks all of a sudden, causing me to plow right into him. “Besides,” he said into my hair, “I’ve always been partial to dark-haired beauties.”

His hands were at my waist, gripping my jacket at the hips, and somehow I’d looped one of my arms over his. Our feet were tangled together and I could feel his warm breath tickling my ear, his chest pressing against mine, almost as though we were embracing. For a brief moment I felt faint.

“Lucas,” I said, and he looked down at me, his lips tantalizingly close to mine. Resisting the urge to reach up and touch them with my own suddenly became an epic battle.

What the hell was happening to me?

I said, “You’re going to make me late.”

“God, I hope so,” he said.

I smacked him playfully on the shoulder and stepped away, filling my air with lungs as though I’d been holding my breath for an hour.

But Lucas wasn’t quite done with me.

“Give me your number, Katie Archer,” he said, holding his phone out to me.