Put Me Back Together(56)

Feeling mischievous, I decided to test out Brit’s theory. Sitting up in my seat as we sat at an intersection waiting to make a left turn, I leaned toward Lucas and brushed my fingers through his hair. His golden eyes darted to my face as I gave him a sly smile.

“What’re you doing?” he said uneasily.

Edging over even farther, I placed my lips beside his ear and whispered, “Am I making you nervous, Lucas?”

I heard him beginning to respond when I opened my lips and slid my tongue across his earlobe. Lucas sucked in a breath and the car swerved suddenly to the left, then back again. Luckily I’d checked that there was no traffic around the car before making my move.

“Jesus, Katie!” Lucas said as he completed his turn, breathing hard, his eyes wide and his hands gripping the wheel for dear life.

I fell back into my seat, giggling. “I got you, I got you!” I sang until he was laughing along with me. “You’re such a sucker! I would have seen that one coming from a mile away.”

“I told you I wasn’t any good at multi-tasking,” he said, still shaking his head. “But you just wait, I’ll get you back.”

I didn’t have to wait long. At the next stop he swiftly put the car into park, undid his seatbelt, and pulled me toward him, kissing me so firmly and deeply that for a moment I forgot entirely that we were in a car on a busy street with people walking by. When a car behind us honked, he broke the kiss and gave me mocking frown. “That’s for using your siren ways against me,” he said, shaking his finger at me as he took the wheel again.

“Well, if that’s my punishment, I think I might just have to do it again,” I answered with a coy grin, and he groaned like I was hurting him.

I didn’t know who this flirty, brazen girl was that had taken my place tonight, but I hoped she stuck around. She was already a hit, both with Lucas and with me.

We turned into the parking lot of a sketchy looking strip mall and I began to hope this wasn’t actually where we were eating. Maybe there was a super secret entrance to a swanky restaurant hidden between the dingy dry cleaner’s and the seventies decor family eatery? But I didn’t want to seem judgmental, so I kept my hopes to myself.

Lucas got out of the car then ran around to my side to open the door for me. I stepped out gingerly due to the heels Em had insisted I wear and took the arm Lucas held out.

“What a gentleman,” I said appreciatively, and saw that his eyes were still riveted to the four-inch strappy sandals on my feet. (I was stunned Emily had let me have them considering the state her boots had been in after my daring run through the snow, but she’d said they were her first date good-luck shoes and I had to wear them. “For the sake of the date,” she’d said dramatically, handing them over.)

I felt the palm of Lucas’s hand run down to the small of my back, then press me closer to him so he could speak into my ear. “You wouldn’t think I was such a gentleman if you knew what was going through my mind after seeing those shoes,” he said, his voice thick, his lips grazing my ear. It was the same move I’d pulled on him in the car. I was surprised he’d only swerved. I would probably have crashed right into the curb.

In my heels I was much closer to his height, and I didn’t have to stretch that far to whisper back. “Well, get ready, because under this coat I’m wearing a dress to match.”

Lucas gave me a burning look and I literally had to take him by the hand and lead him toward the sidewalk to get him to move.

As I’d feared, we stopped in front of the rundown-looking restaurant. I wasn’t wrong about it being a family eatery. Its name was actually Mama’s Table. Glancing through the window I saw lots of parents and kids, booster chairs, and booths with cracked vinyl seats. I remembered Lucas’s long hours at the club and his borrowed car. He obviously didn’t have a lot of cash. Maybe this was the best place he could afford.


“Looks great!” I said amiably as I waited for him to open the door for me.

He gave me a funny look and kissed me on the forehead. “Thanks for faking that for me,” he said. “This is going to be great, though, I promise. I just need you to wait here for a sec.” He waited for my nod, confused as it was, then went through the restaurant doors.

Only when Lucas was out of sight did I feel the heaviness descend upon my shoulders. Leaning against the brick wall beside the door, I quickly scanned the half-empty parking lot and began twisting my fingers. My hands were already puffy and startlingly red because I’d been doing it all day, almost nonstop except for the car ride. Without Lucas to distract me, my mind was drawn immediately to the note.

After placing it on the coffee table I’d been irrationally afraid to touch it, and had sat huddled on the couch for most of the night, staring at it as though it was a poisonous snake and might uncoil and strike me at any moment. I had not slept at all, and when morning came I’d gone straight over to Em’s under the pretense of date prep. She’d done my nails and taken me out for lunch, chatting almost nonstop about Lucas and the date and how sure she’d been that we’d patch things up, and I’d been more bright and cheerful than I’d ever been. (Em had actually asked me several times if I was feeling all right.)

Suddenly, my own defense mechanism revealed itself to me like a jack-in-the-box and I saw that the flirty girl in the car was just another version of that persona, a gay and giggly mask to cover the quivering girl inside. When I was laughing and happy, even as a pretense, the fear couldn’t touch me. It was an opposite method to the one I’d been using for years to battle my fear—namely lonerdom and a surly disposition—but then, I realized, I’d never been this afraid before, not in six long years.