“Lucian,” I corrected.
She laughed then, and I laughed too. All of the weight of the universe, the unknown, the rules, God, and what would become of the two of us just dissipated. It vanished and we became two people giving and taking from each other all in the same.
We spent the entire day in bed, goofing off, making love, and getting to know Lucian and Evey in a completely new way. That was the moment when I started to change my mind and believe that we could actually be together.
“WELL, WE HAVEN’T turned into pumpkins yet,” I said, curling my naked self into Lucian’s strong body. It was the afternoon… we were still in bed.
His chest rumbled as he said, “‘We haven’t yet,’ is right. You can’t tell anyone, Evey. Who knows what will happen?”
“I figured that. Anyway, who would believe me? But are you going to stay here, with me?” He knew I wanted him to. I didn’t have to say it.
He seemed more resolute than before. “Yes. I’ll have to meet with Mona later. You’ll be sleeping. I need to talk to her. I’ll find out if there’s anything we can do.”
“How are you doing, having not had a drink?”
“I’m fine. I haven’t even thought about it. I really only developed that habit in the last couple of years.” He squinted, searching my eyes as if he was trying to read my mind. “Is it strange for you, knowing that I’ve watched you grow up?”
“No.” I had thought about it earlier but decided it wasn’t strange at all. “It’s not. It’s oddly comforting.” I had a lot of questions for him, but I was content to stay in bed with him forever and pretend like everything was completely normal.
“Evelyn, do you have questions for me? Do you want to know things about us? About you and me? I had to…”
“It’s a little fuzzy, like when we met in the bar and when you told me who you were.”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to…” He swallowed. He was hesitating and nervous. I felt his heart speed up.
“Did you do something to me?”
“I had to make you forget me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Just tell me what you did.”
“We use our thumbs and press them to your—”
“I remember.”
“You do? You remember a lot, don’t you?”
“You told me you loved me.” I sat up. “I remember, you said, ‘I’ll always be here for you.’”
“I don’t know how it’s possible, but it didn’t work on you. It was temporary.”
“How many times have you done that to me?”
“That was the only time, I swear to you, Evey.”
“Swear to God?” I demanded.
He smirked. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“I swear to God. It was the one and only time I have ever tried to erase your memory. I’m good at what I do. I normally wouldn’t have to do that. But swearing to God…”
“What? It’s frowned upon?”
“No, it’s just meaningless. People shouldn’t lie to each other to begin with. People shouldn’t have to fear hell in order to tell the truth. They should fear that their lies will ruin relationships or get them in trouble, here now, on Earth, with the people they love.”
“You sound human when you say that, Lucian.”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted for you… real truth. I can’t tell you what will happen once you’re gone from this Earth. How is that for faith? I can tell you for sure though that there are consequences to your actions here, while you’re living.”
“You were Keith the other night, weren’t you?”
He nodded, and then rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. I thought he was avoiding making eye contact with me. I wondered if he had felt guilty for the stunt he pulled in Keith’s body.
“You were actually Keith?” I asked again.
He nodded again. I started laughing hysterically. Lucian was trying to control his own laughter.
“So the erectile dysfunction thing was your way of keeping me off him?”
“Yes.” He chuckled. “I’m not proud. Lies, Evey, all lies. I regret getting myself into that mess.”
I stopped laughing. “Why didn’t you just make love to me as Keith? I was obviously willing.”
“Yeah, you were all over him.” He seemed irritated by that fact.
“Why didn’t you let him make love to me?”
“It wouldn’t have been love for you, not with him. And if I had gotten out of his body and let you guys… you know? It wouldn’t have been love for him either. I had overheard him earlier. He wasn’t into making love that night. He just wanted to have sex with you. I’m sorry, Evey. I hate telling you that. I was trying to protect you.”
“So he wasn’t into me?”
“He was into you. You’re beautiful. No man on this planet wouldn’t be into you, but that night Keith wanted to party. It would not have been special for you or for him. Trust me.”
“Maybe I didn’t need special.” He grimaced. “Anyway, I sensed that it was you, once we were in the club,” I said. “You could have made love to me as Keith.”
I was lying in bed, naked, next to this celestial creature, and he was just a man to me. A beautiful, jealous, kind, loving, possessive man.
“I wouldn’t have been able to satisfy you as Keith.” He smirked. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
Then we were kissing again.
Of course I had a lot of questions. Questions like, “Am I dreaming? Is this possible?” I’d had a hard time believing in the tooth fairy as a child, let alone the fact that someone or something had been following me around my entire life and that that something or someone looked like this guy. When I was a teenager, I had actually thought that the government was a sham, so religion was total fiction to me. That’s how cynical I was. I had thought love was a choice not a feeling. Of course that could have been due to Brooklyn’s negative influence after we had become old enough to date. Somehow, every guy, regardless of how much I liked him, eventually turned into a buffoon by the end of the night. I wondered though if maybe Lucian had more to do with that than Brooke.
“So why Beckett? He was a good guy,” I said.
“Evey, Beckett is the worst kind. I know messing with him the way that I did was not right. I blame the whiskey, but I’m glad I did. Beckett is not what you think. He had a date lined up after you. He was texting her in the bathroom.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No.” He frowned. “I hate telling you stuff like that. There’s no reason for it. It has nothing to do with you.”
“It seemed like he liked me.”
“He did. He liked you, and he liked some girl named Karla and another girl named Michelle. It’s just his age. He gets a lot of attention, and he likes it. He’ll always be that way though. I’ve been around for a long time. Men like that don’t commit because they need a lot of attention, all the time. He’s like Brooklyn’s male counterpart.”
“Well, that makes sense.” And it did, once I thought of Beckett in those terms. “Maybe we should set him and Brooklyn up.”
“No, they’d fight over who had more prospects.” He laughed.