“It’s not just Carlisle,” Lucas said. “This is the north country up here. I learned to skate practically before I could walk. People think it’s the violence I like, but it’s the skill. The blade work, the stick work. And the ice. So pure and clean. It’s a thing of beauty.”
She leaned forward and raised her hand to his forehead, tracing a circle on the smooth skin with her fingertip.
“Your brain’s beautiful, too. And you can live without hockey, but you can’t live without your brain.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know if I can live without hockey,” he said.
She was close enough to drink in the spicy smell of his shampoo, and beneath it, the warm scent of hair and skin. She remembered being in bed with him, feeling the bulk of him on top of her. She wanted to feel it again.
“You need to find some other source of excitement,” she said, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
He gave her a slow, dreamy smile. “That could help.”
It was a new experience for Kate, coming on strong to a guy rather than reacting to his advances, but she liked this one excessively. She’d let him get away the first time because of the complication with Jenny. She’d sensed by Jenny’s reaction when she walked in on the two of them that there was a history. Her suspicion was confirmed not long after, when Kate and Aubrey ran into Lucas on the Quad on the way back from class. The three of them chatted for a few minutes, and the chemistry between Kate and Lucas was so palpable that Aubrey spilled the beans. Jenny had told Aubrey that Lucas was her high school boyfriend, but she’d been too proud to come to Kate and call dibs.
“Hey,” Kate said. “Did you used to date my roommate? Jenny Vega?”
“You could call it that. We hung out. But it was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” Lucas said.
“Wasn’t it just last year?”
“It was high school. Nobody should be held accountable for what they do in high school.”
“Would she have a problem if we hung out?”
“We are hanging out.”
“Are we? Okay.”
“Look, Jenny broke up with me. As far as I’m concerned I don’t owe her a thing. But if you’re worried, ask her.”
“What if she says to keep away from you?”
“I take it back. Don’t ask her.”
Kate laughed. Lucas was watching her intently.
“Forget about Jenny, okay? I promise you, she doesn’t care,” he said, and grabbed Kate’s wrist, turning it over to examine the three small stars tattooed on its underside. “I like your tattoo. Does it mean something?” he asked, touching them.
“Funny, nobody’s ever asked me that,” she said, and paused, thinking about kissing his beautiful mouth. If Jenny wanted Kate to keep her hands off Lucas, she should’ve said something after she found them half naked together, right? But she didn’t. Kate liked the feel of Lucas’s fingers digging into her wrist enough that she lowered her head until her cheek rested on the back of his hand, rubbing her face against his skin like a cat. She expected that being close to him would make her heart beat faster. Instead her pulse slowed down, and she felt like she breathed easier. He caressed her hair, and she sat up, pointing to the star farthest to the left.
“This one is for my mom, who died. This one on the left is for my best friend Maggie, who ate a bottle of pills and OD’d when we were in tenth grade. I think of her every single day. And the last one is me.”
“Why are you there with them? You’re still alive.”
“For the moment. No promises,” she said, and looked up into his eyes so he felt the full weight of her remark.
“What, like you’d kill yourself?”
“Sometimes I get really sad. If I want to, nobody can tell me not to, because I’m the boss of me.”
He smiled. “Great, just what I need in my darkest hour. A batshit-crazy girl, with a ruby in her belly button and a death wish.”
Kate laughed. “Don’t knock crazy till you try it, my friend.”
After that, the conversation got deep fast. As different as they were, they had everything in common. They were born two days apart. Lucas lost his dad at the same age as Kate lost her mom. He hated his stepfather even more than Kate hated Victoria, and had a passel of bratty stepsibs who sucked up attention and food and took all his stuff. They both thought Carlisle was full of shit, and that Carlislers who “bled orange” were losers and fools. Neither one of them could imagine caring about a subject enough to declare a major. And they both cherished a fantasy that they’d never breathed a word of before to anyone: of hitting the road, no money, no destination, no phone. Vagabonding around with nothing but a couple of changes of clothes in a backpack until they got bored of it, which might be never. Maybe they would go away, together, far away, and chop wood and live off the land. They might never come back.
“Hey, you know what’s on here? You’ll love this,” Lucas said, pulling another quarter from his pocket. He pushed the jukebox buttons from memory, and Roger Miller drifted out, with that sublime finger-snapping.
“Trailers for sale or rent, rooms to let, fifty cents.”
“I do love this!” Kate squealed. “I know all the words.”
“Me, too,” he said, and laughed.
They started singing along. “‘Third boxcar, midnight train. Destination, Bangor, Maine.’”
“Ever been to Bangor?” Lucas asked.
“I’ve been a lot of places, but Bangor, Maine, is not one of them.”
“It’s like a five-hour drive. I know a great doughnut shop, opens at six. We could get ’em fresh from the deep fry.”
At that moment, Kate would have gone anywhere with him. She stood up and grabbed her coat. “I’m in.”
Lucas’s car was a faded old ragtop with bench seats that looked like it was held together with chewing gum and wire. He drove with one hand on the wheel and kept the other arm tight around her. She leaned into him, shivering, as the heater coughed and snorted. Once they hit the interstate, Lucas put his knee to the steering wheel and took Kate’s head in his hands, kissing her deeply, stopping only for occasional peeks at the road. They made out at seventy miles an hour, their tongues intertwined, their hands stealing underneath one another’s clothes, until the median came rushing at them and Lucas had to fight to keep control of the car. He righted it at the last second, and they looked at each other, hearts racing with panic, and burst into hysterical laughter.
“Let’s go park somewhere before we wipe out for real,” he said. “I know a place.”
He took the next exit, and got on the main road that ran along the river, heading back toward campus. A few minutes later, they pulled off onto a narrow dirt road that led to a gravel parking lot facing out over the water. A full yellow moon hung low in the sky, throwing off an eerie glow. The river was clogged with giant blocks of ice, bobbing and glinting, silvery in the moonlight.
“The cops won’t bother us here, not at this hour,” he said, smoothing her hair back from her face.
“Where are we?”
“Not too far from school, actually.”