“Can I come in?” he asked when his eyes finally met mine again.
“Sure,” I replied, holding the door open.
He heard the Sinatra and let “That Old Black Magic” pull him out to the patio, where he knew I’d been.
“Cocktails? This late?”
“Couldn’t sleep; I figured one of these should do the trick.” I held up my tiki tumbler, then took another long pull. “So?” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but it wasn’t hard to tell that I carried a grudge from earlier. He’d hurt me.
“I’m sorry I left you tonight. That was a bad idea.”
“Bad because you left me? Or bad because you left me and went off with her?”
“Is there a difference?”
“There is.” I sighed, settling back into my patio chair, crossing my legs. Once more, his eyes flickered to my skin. Once more, I observed this, and filed it away.
“So, what happened?” I asked, hating myself for wanting to know. But I did. Something was beginning to simmer, deep and low and barely there, but beginning to peek out around the sad. Anger? Jealousy? Fear?
“In a nutshell, she told me she wants to come home. It seems that Mattress Giant doesn’t pay too well.”
“She’s only been there a little while; it takes time to build an acting career. Is she taking classes? Does she have an agent? She shouldn’t give up so easily; she needs to be patient,” I rambled, convincing no one that my concern for her career was the only reason that I thought she should stay far, far away.
“Julie isn’t really known for her patience.”
“Tons of my old pageant friends went to LA and tried their hand at acting. She should stick it out awhile longer. She should . . .” My voice trailed off, because Lucas was just shaking his head.
“I was surprised to see her tonight. I can’t deny that it messed with my head a bit. I haven’t seen her since our wedding day. Christ, how weird does that sound?”
“Not that weird,” I managed.
“I saw her that morning, though I wasn’t supposed to. I was already at the church and she came to get pictures taken. Everyone was trying to keep us apart—you know, groom not supposed to be see the bride?” he asked, his eyes flitting up to mine.
“Mm-hmm.” My mother hadn’t budged on Charles not seeing me before the wedding. What’s funny is, I’d had no opinion on it whatsoever.
“Anyway, I was there already, and stepped outside to get some air. And there she was, walking up the front steps of the church with her friends. Dressed in this ridiculously poofy white dress.” He chuckled, everything he must have been feeling in that moment written all over his face. “She was on her cell phone, and she was laughing. I stayed in the shadows just around the corner, and I remember thinking, she’s going to be my wife by the end of this day. Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a coat closet reading a note from her that she was leaving. She was already gone by the time I got it. And I thought, why did she even bother putting on the poofy dress?” He looked at me, like I might have an answer.
I couldn’t say anything.
“Anyway, she wouldn’t return my calls, she wouldn’t see me—she needed some time. But she was out of town and down the coast within days. We finally talked a week later, when she apologized. She kept going on and on about how it wasn’t working for her, and she didn’t want to stay in Monterey her whole life. I couldn’t even hear anything she was saying.”
“Lucas,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. Really, it’s okay. It’s funny, because now, I look back and see it. We broke up all the time, even back in high school. And she lied. A lot. About all kinds of things. Big lies, tiny lies, always with the lying. But, Jesus, who puts on a dress when she knows she’s not getting married?”
“Maybe she was still planning on going through with it. Maybe it hit her all at once.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Maybe she wants you back.”
“She’s not moving back to Monterey.” Lucas went toward the bar, where there was still a blender full of mai tais.
“She’s not?” I asked, examining my toes, trying very hard to keep my voice level.
“I told her to move back if she really wanted to. This will always be her hometown. She’s got good friends here, and all her family. She’ll always have a home here, and a circle waiting to welcome her back.” He paused to sip his cocktail. “But I told her that if she moved back home for me, that it would be a very bad idea.”
“Oh?” I squeaked, my voice rising through the pergola rafters and out to the stars.
“Yeah. Bad, bad, bad idea,” he repeated. I finally chanced a look up at him. His blue eyes burned with an emotion I couldn’t name. “It doesn’t matter if she wants me back, because the thing is . . . I don’t want her. I haven’t for a while now.”
“Oh,” I breathed.