“Because he says he knows people on the board at the museum. The board that controls my mom’s job. As long as I agree to hang out with him, just be friends, then he swears her job there will be safe.”
“Are you kidding me?”
It didn’t seem like he was really asking me so I didn’t bother to answer. Lucas paced the kitchen like a caged tiger, muttering to himself and looking very much like he wanted to pull his hair out. Clearly there was some inner turmoil there and holey macaroni was it intense.
“You can’t listen to him, Mel. Please,” he said, pausing in front of me.
The intense conflict was gone from his face, replaced instead with stoic determination.
“He can’t really affect your mother’s job. He’s just trying to coerce you into choosing him," Lucas declared. “You can’t believe a thing he says, he’s an evil son of a . . .”
“Evil? What, like the devil on my shoulder?”
“A lot like that, actually.”
“And what does that make you? The angel?”
He half shrugged, with an uncomfortable look on his face. Fudge monkeys!
“You’re serious!”
“Sort of,” he said, striding across the room as though the extra space would make this conversation more comfortable.
“How can you be ‘sort of’ serious? Are you honestly trying to tell me that you’re an . . . angel?”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“I am.”
“Ohhh—kay.”
“You think I’m crazy.”
“A little bit,” I saw no reason to lie. “Aren’t angels supposed to wear like white dresses and halos and stuff, not walk around sporting sexy cars and blue jeans?”
Lucas looked at me quizzically for a moment.
“You think my car is sexy?”
“Sooo not the point, Lucas.”
“Right, sorry. Well, how would you like it if I said women are supposed to wear dresses and take care of the house and children, not run around all over town with their friends in pants and sneakers?”
Okay, I get it; old fashioned notions.
“So what, did your wings go out of style?”
Lucas quirked a little half grin that made my stomach do funny things.
“No, they’re still here, you just can’t see them because they exist . . . sort of . . . on a different plane, let’s say.”
“Can I feel them?”
“Not as you are. Your soul can feel and see them but not through the confines of your human body.”
“So, you could show me but you’d have to kill me?”
The other half of his mouth tipped up and there went my stomach again.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Then I’m just supposed to take your word for it when you tell me something like that?”
“What if I could prove it?” he offered.
“I’d love to see you try,” I told him, not completely sure it was the truth.
Best case scenario he was about to do something entirely freaky. Worst case, the only remaining guy in my life was about to prove to be a raging lunatic. Kind of a lose-lose situation.
“Well, my abilities on this plane are pretty pathetic compared to those on the ethereal plane, but . . . How about this?” he asked and I jumped a mile.
In the blink of an eye he had covered the space between us. I hadn’t even seen him move. He was just there; right in my face. I stifled a scream and leaned back, indulging in a little personal space. Before I could process a coherent thought he folded me in his arms and held me close. My heart was thundering in my chest and it had little to do with his impressive scare tactic. The heat radiating off of his body was soothing and I leaned into him, pressing my face to his shoulder. It felt as though the room was spinning. Like I was becoming intoxicated just from his nearness.
“Look,” he whispered so close to my ear that his breath tickled my neck.
Reluctantly I withdrew my head from his shoulder and glanced past him. This time my scream couldn’t be stopped which was unfortunate since it was right in Lucas’ ear, but who could blame me. There, over his left shoulder, close enough to touch was an exposed beam of our twelve foot ceiling. Turns out it wasn’t the room spinning, it was us . . . twelve feet in the air. I immediately fisted his shirt in my hands and held on for dear life.
Holy . . . yea, just holy. Oh man, oh man, oh man. This could not be happening. This could not be real. Maybe Lucas slipped me some of those drugs Jason had. That was the only explanation. I looked around desperately for some kind of wires attached to the roof. Maybe this was his idea of an elaborate practical joke. Maybe I was being punked. Then I remembered it was my house we were floating in. When could he have rigged something this extravagant? Simple, he couldn’t. I looked anyway. There were no wires. We were flying like freaking Superman and Lois Lane, only Lucas wasn’t an alien, he was an angel. I looked up at Lucas with eyes that I couldn’t keep from bugging out of my head and he shot me an ‘are-you-satisfied-yet’ grin.
“Okay,” I gasped. “I believe you. I believe you. Put me down now. Please.”
“Relax, I would never hurt you,” he said softly as he lowered us back to solid ground. Part of me wanted to kiss it when my shoes made contact, but I thought that might be a bit extreme.
“An angel,” I repeated, like an idiotic parrot. “So what does that make Jason?”
He pinched his lips tight and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Like . . . the devil?” I felt stupid just saying it out loud.
“Not Lucifer himself, but one of his, yeah.”
“So let me get this straight, Jason’s a . . . demon and you’re an . . . angel, and you’re just telling me all of this now?”
“I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this at all,” he explained, growing deadly serious. “There are rules to all of this.”
“All of what? What rules?”
“The battle for souls.”
“That’s what you two have been doing? Fighting over my soul?”
“Yes. He’s trying to corrupt you, so please listen to me when I tell you to stay away from him.”
“So then, what’s the deal with Jenna and Kyle? Are they demons too?”
“No, Jenna and Kyle are human. Just a couple of my more epic failures. I tried to help them, but they were more interested in all of Jason’s temptations than anything I had to say,” he explained sadly.
Surprisingly, this actually made me feel a little better. At least someone I had met since moving here was a part of the human species.
“What rules were you talking about?”
“There are certain rules that both sides are supposed to abide by. They’re supposed to help protect the human’s free will, but clearly Jason hasn’t been playing by the rules when it comes to you, with spiking your drinks at the club and trying to use your mom against you. That is not how this is supposed to go.”
“Why couldn’t you just tell me all of this earlier?”
“Because that takes away your free will, too. If you chose to fall for his temptations I was supposed to sit back and let it happen. Warning you about what he is skews your opinions and therefore your choices.”
“But then . . . if it’s against the rules . . . why are you telling me?”
“Because . . . I let myself care too much about your soul,” he said, shaking his head slowly like he couldn’t believe he was saying the words out loud. “I’m not supposed to get attached. I’m supposed to protect what souls I can and let the others go, and then just move on to the next, but I couldn’t help it with you. You’re just so . . . I can’t stand the thought of your soul in his clutches, Mel. I couldn’t sit back and watch you end up like that.”
“Lucas . . . I . . .”
“No, I shouldn’t feel this way. I’m not allowed to feel this way.”
“You’re not allowed to care about other people?”
“That’s just it; I’m not a person, M
el.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“No, that is precisely the point,” he argued.
“Well, whatever it is . . . it sounds very lonely.”
“It is,” he lamented, looking sadder than anyone I’d ever seen before. Years and years of loneliness seemed to compound on him in that moment, making him look young and vulnerable. “The thing is, it’s never really bothered me . . . until now.”
“Lucas,” I reached out to touch his face but he stopped me.
“You shouldn’t,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care,” I told him, moving my hand to his cheek.
He leaned towards me.
“I shouldn’t,” he murmured.
“I still don’t care.”
My voice barely registered a whisper. His lips were mere centimeters from mine and it had stolen my breath away.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed, and before I could ask him what he was apologizing for his lips were on mine.
Soft and sweet, and burning like fire all at once, his lips clung to mine desperately. His large hand cupped the back of my head, pulling me even closer, and my arms wrapped around his neck holding him close. His kiss devoured me and left me aching for more.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped again, pulling away like I had burned him.
“What in the world for?”
“For that. For this.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I should have been stronger for you, Mel. I should have been able to control myself.”
“I don’t want you to control yourself. I want this,” I told him, waving my hand to indicate the two of us, together.
“Being with me . . . it’s dangerous. We’re breaking all sorts of rules here and it could get us in a lot of trouble. Both of us.”
“I don’t care about any of that, Lucas. I care about you.”
“I care about you, too. That’s why I can’t put you in danger. Don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see.” I knew I sounded like a petulant child but I didn’t care; I was too afraid to care. “All I see is you pulling away from something we both want. Is that what you’re doing, Lucas, leaving me?”
“No. Yes,” he groaned in frustration and took my face gently in his hands again. “I don’t want to, Mel. It’s the last thing I want to do, but it has to be this way. I care too much about you to risk your safety just for my own selfish happiness.”
For good glory’s sake.
“Well, you can be as selfless as you want, but I’m going to be selfish. I am not letting you go. Not without a fight.”
A pained smile crossed his face and it nearly shattered what was left of my already fractured heart.
“Don’t go,” I whispered, knowing anything louder and my voice would be shaking.
I caught a quick glimpse of the wetness in his eyes before he pulled me close, holding me tight.
“I’ll be close. Even if you can’t see me, I’ll always be close, Mel.”
His voice cracked on my name and it was too much. The tears poured down my face as he pulled away and left me standing there alone. I watched through blurry vision as he disappeared out my front door, my heart splintering into a thousand irreparable pieces.
*****
The first thing I did when I had finally composed myself again was tear that freaking ticket stub Jason had given me into tiny shreds and dump them in the trash can. Then I climbed the stairs and dropped into bed. My chest felt empty, like a hollow space where a heart had once beat. I couldn’t even come up with a single sarcastic comment to toss at my overly dramatic self. My heart just wasn’t in it. Instead, I fell asleep.
Without remorse the universe continued to conspire against me and the following morning mom was home from work. The one day I wanted nothing more than to lie in bed and wallow in self pity, and instead I had to put on a happy face and make nice. I couldn’t tell her what had happened. Even if it wouldn’t land me an appointment with a shrink, I had already not told her too much other stuff.
“Hi, honey,” she greeted me with a smile as I wandered listlessly into the kitchen and plopped into a chair. “Hungry?”
The last thing I wanted to do was eat; my stomach had been in knots all night reliving my conversation with Lucas over and over again. It would seem that I was quite the masochist. But my mother knew me too well and refusing food would be a dead giveaway that something was wrong.
“Sure, thanks.”
“I tried to make pancakes, but . . .”
She indicated the sink where a pan was still steaming under the faucet, and then the trash can where the charred remains of something could be seen. Oh, for the love of mothers.
“So . . . toast?”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, taking pity on her pathetic kitchen skills.
I grabbed a couple slices of bread and slipped them into the toaster because, knowing mom, she could manage to ruin that too somehow. When they popped back up all golden and crunchy I juggled them onto a couple of plates while mom pulled the butter and jam from the fridge. I buttered my slice and then smothered it in strawberry jam, then proceeded to break it into pieces and push them around my plate.
“Is something the matter, honey?” mom asked when she got up to rinse her plate. “You’ve barely touched your breakfast.”
Moms, why did they have to notice everything?
“I’m fine mom. Just tired I guess.”
“I hope you’re not coming down with something. There’s this terrible stomach bug that’s been going around the office.”
A stomach bug? That sounded like the perfect excuse.
“You know what, mom? I am feeling kind of queasy. I think maybe I should go lay down for a while.”
I felt bad about lying to her, and even worse about wasting what little time we actually had together, but I just couldn’t handle it today.
“Alright, honey. You go ahead and I’ll come and check on you in a little while. I don’t have to be in until noon today.”
Unless Mr. Stein calls.
“Unless Mr. Stein calls,” she repeated my thoughts verbatim.
At least some things in my life were still predictable. I crawled back under my covers, wishing there was a hole somewhere I could crawl into instead.
*****
Mom didn’t leave until she was scheduled to be in at noon. That was actually surprising. Any other day that phone would have rung hours earlier with some emergency or another, but oh no, not today. Today she hung around sticking her head into my bedroom every fifteen minutes just to ‘check on me.’ For once it was a relief to hear the car back out of the driveway and squeal down the road. She drove about as well as she cooked, and honestly it was some kind of miracle we were both still alive.
I napped on and off for a few more hours, doing anything and everything in my power not to think. Not to think about Jason, or Lucas, or angels, or demons, or souls, or anything at all. Because if I thought about anything then I would have to think about everything and then my head would explode. For the moment I kind of liked my head the way it was.
I had actually managed to extract myself from the bed and move down to the kitchen to raid the fridge when the doorbell rang at seven o’clock. I debated ignoring it, just waiting for him to go away, but decided it was probably best to get this over with. I was already in a foul mood anyway.
“Ready?” Jason asked cheerfully, extending his arm to me.
I glared at him.
“I really hope you’re not going to be this way all night. I was hoping we would all have a good time. You still have that ticket stub I gave you?”
“I’m not going,” I informed him.
“Oh, I think you really are,” he insisted.
“I really don’t,” I countered.
Why was it always like this talking to Jason, push and pull . . . and frustrating.
“I don’t think you know . . .”
“I know . . . everything. I know what you are, so you can just
get the hell out.”
Jason chuckled.
“Pun intended?”
“Get out,” I growled. “I’m not interested in any of your temptations, so just go, and don’t come back.”
“So, you finally worked out the details of our little ‘game’ have you? Well, sweetheart, you know it doesn’t work like that, right? You can’t just banish me like some after school special. I think I’ll stick around a while.”
“I’ve made my decision, Jason, aren’t you supposed to move on to someone else now?”
“Supposed to . . . I’ve always found those to be such restricting words. I hate to be restricted, and I kind of think you’re worth the extra effort. You are a special prize, my dear.”
Oh, lucky me.
“Well, I won’t be your prize,” I informed him.
“We shall see about that.”
He left and I slammed the door behind him, somehow knowing it wouldn’t be the last I saw of him. Lucas, however, I wasn’t so sure. He said he would be near even if I couldn’t see him. Was he near now? Could he see me? That wasn’t creepy at all. I was never going to be able to enjoy a shower again.
Suddenly feeling utterly exhausted I dragged my stubborn body upstairs to my room. I glanced over my shoulder no less than three times while changing into my pajamas, as if Lucas was suddenly going to manifest in my bedroom out of nowhere. That was stupid . . . wasn’t it? Of course it was. Even if he could, he wouldn’t. Lucas was too proper to be some kind of supernatural peeping tom. Jason I couldn’t say the same about. Perfect, now I was looking for Jason. Could he be near? Would Lucas know? Awesome, this was definitely going to land me in the loony bin.
*****
I ignored the doorbell the next night, and the next, and the next even when it was accompanied by angry knocking and a few choice words from Jason. My life settled into a new sort of routine—the exact sort of routine I had been trying to avoid since we moved here. I watched TV alone most of the day and then ordered in dinner almost every night to share with me, myself, and I. Mr. Stein had assigned mom a brand new project since her last exhibit had been such a resounding success. Unfortunately, the planning phase always took most of her time and I rarely saw her these days.
Once, a plate of beef stroganoff appeared out on the deck table. No note, but I knew who it was from. It was delicious as always.