truth is, haven’t these past couple of days only given me the incentive to go out there and want to have more? These guys have opened up a whole different world to me. A world where there is no struggle. No people calling me names.
Just because this life is easier, that doesn’t mean I have to think badly of my father and the way he brought me up. It tells me I can live differently, just like I always wanted.
I find myself outside of Lucas’s room. I only vaguely remember Stone telling me where each of their rooms were when he brought me here the first day. I haven’t been in any of theirs, but I’m hoping he’s here now. He, out of all of them, gets it. He won’t judge me for the thoughts bouncing around inside my brain.
The shades are down in his room already, so I don’t know if he’s asleep or if he’s in there at all, but I knock anyway, my heart in my throat. “Yeah?” he calls out.
“It’s Dakota,” I say.
Within three seconds, he’s pulling the door open, and then we just stare at one another for a moment. His hair is wild around his head. The lights are on in his room, so I know he wasn’t sleeping. His room is a mirror of mine. There’s barely anything in it, just the few simple yet tasteful pieces of furniture that match my own. A towel lies on the ground at our feet, and steam billows from the bathroom. He kicks the towel to the side. “Are you okay?”
Embarrassment creeps up my cheeks. I’ve literally never had anyone to talk to except for my dad and Dickie, and neither one of them were big on talking about feelings. I poured my feelings into the souls of books and they spoke back to me. I found the same thoughts and emotions I had murmured in words and phrases. It didn’t matter that the characters weren’t real. It let me know that I wasn’t some freak like I’d been told all of my life.
“Hey,” Lucas says, stepping closer.
My lips buzz, remembering his kiss. It was straight out of a fairy tale or chapter twelve of a romance novel. I’d never been so thoroughly kissed in all my life, but I knew what it was when I felt it because of the books I’d read. Those kinds of kisses don’t come but once in a lifetime, but now that I’m standing right in front of him, I’m freezing up. I don’t know what to say. Or what to do. I’m still in a cell of my own making.
Or was that my father’s making? It’s so hard to tell sometimes.
Lucas grabs my hand and leads me to the bed. The movement shakes my thoughts up, and I realized I’ve come to him in the middle of the night but haven’t said shit. My social skills are definitely lacking. “So, today was...weird.”
“Just weird?”
I take a deep breath, picking at a spot on his sheet while he puts a pillow behind his back, so he’s propped up against the headboard. “Exciting and scary and humiliating,” I say, finishing my thoughts. If I’m going to talk to him, I may as well go all out.
Lucas frowns. “The last thing you should feel is humiliated, but I can’t fault you for it. I remember how I felt when I first met Stone and his father. I didn’t have anything either and everything they did for me seemed like something I needed to pay back. It was a long time before I accepted the fact that gifts among friends are just that: Gifts. There’s no payback necessary. No one’s holding it over your head, wishing you would pay up already.”
“I’m hardly friends with Stone,” I say, a sudden longing hitting me in the chest. The picture Lucas paints for me is so tempting.
“No, you’re more than that,” Lucas says. When I give him a funny look, he sighs. “You’re tied together by this treasure. Now you’re tied together by what’s going on. You guys couldn’t escape the trajectory of your lives if you tried. Stone knows it, too. He always has.”
That reminds me of something Lance Jacobs said. He told Stone to fuck me to get me out of his system. I peek up at Lucas. “Do Stone and his father get along?’
A crease forms between Lucas’s brows. He runs his hands through his hair, looking away briefly. “That’s a tough question, and