My Lucky Days: A Novel (15 page)

I cut a large slice of apple pie. It was more of a cobbler with a gooey cake layer on top. Wiping my finger off with a napkin, I reached for a fork.

“Katie, pop that in the microwave and put some of that ice cream on it.”

I glanced up and smiled at Peyton’s aunt Shelby. And I assumed the creator of the apple pie. I nodded in her direction. “Good idea.”

Stepping into the kitchen, I noticed the table was full of men playing cards. Poker, I think. I put my plate in the microwave, watching the little kids running in circles in the living room. Before leaving the kitchen, I added a large scoop of ice cream on top of my pie.

I ran up the stairs to Peyton’s room, shutting the noise and people away behind the door. I sat down on her full-sized bed, which took up most of her room, which was the size of some people’s linen closet. It was small, overwhelmed, crowded, and not very tidy. This should have made the hairs stand up on my arms. But for some reason, it didn’t. I loved this room. It smelled of sunshine and pie just like the rest of their house.

I picked up my phone from the comforter. “I’m back. You there?”

“Yep. So what kind did you get?”

I took a deep whiff of my bowl. Lucky and I were having a “pie date” for Thanksgiving. His idea since we were spending it apart. A little moment of the busy day, carved out just for us.

“Apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. You?”

“Do I seem like someone who would have just one kind of pie?”

I laughed. “I didn’t know we could get more than one kind?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I think you cheated.” I took a bite of mine. This might be the best apple pie I had ever eaten. “So what did the rule-breaker put on his plate?”

“There has to be rules in order for them to be broken.”

“So Pie Date has no rules then.” I took another bite, tasting the little morsel of heaven as it literally melted in my mouth.

“Are you eating yours already?”

“Uhhh . . . maybe.” My words came out muffled as I tried to swallow. “Yes?”

“You were supposed to wait.”

“You said we didn’t have rules.”

“Just one. We eat pie together. And I hear you licking your lips, Katie. You’re eating pie without me.”

“Stop talking and start eating,” I teased, considering I was done. But he didn’t have to know. Reaching over, I set my plate on Peyton’s nightstand. I stretched out on her bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of him eating through the phone. I even liked the way he ate. I liked the way his humor and happiness transcended into all of his everyday things. Breathing. Laughing. Eating.

Peyton suddenly opened the door. My roommate gave me a smile as her eyes took on a wicked glint. And then she snatched my phone right from my hand as she fell onto the bed next to me. “Hello . . . Luck.”

I closed my eyes, waiting for whatever inappropriate thing she might say to him.

“So have you seen Clark?” She paused. “Oh, you are.”

Peyton had fixated on the drummer after the show in Tulsa. And on the drive to her parents’, she subjected me to an entire, one-sided hypothetical conversation, which lasted for a full hour. I was glad that she was interested in an actual person instead of some random guy on barstool number two.

But I wasn’t sure about this Clark idea. It might complicate things with Lucky. And I didn’t want complications from a one-night obsession of hers. I wanted her to be happy. But Clark plus Peyton would just equal tears and probably an STD. And I’m not sure who would be the carrier.

“Oh, you are going to see the new James Bond movie tomorrow with him.” She sat up, shaking the bed with her excitement. “Yeah, we should do that when we get back.”

She hit me on the arm, mouthing the words “double date.”

They chatted for a few minutes about movies, and then her face lit up. “Hmm . . . best Bond. I think it’s a toss-up.” Peyton smiled, staring up at the ceiling. “Sean Connery has the better British accent. It’s more British-y. But I would go with you on Daniel Craig. I think he has the better ass.”

“That’s enough. Give me the phone.” I gestured to her.

“Bye, Luck. And tell Clark
hello
. . .” she purred seductively. I swear she got drunk from regular old iced tea at dinner. Peyton handed the phone back over to me and then bounced off the bed. “You might hurry it up, or we won’t get on Nana’s team for charades. I need her to share some of that vodka stash.”

As she opened the door, I got hit with a wall of noise coming from downstairs—laughter and yelling as kids chased each other through the house.

The first time I came home with Peyton, I had sat on the porch most of the weekend. The constant people and motion and
lots of talking
took some adjustment. But I understood my roommate after that visit. She always needed to be just a little louder, just a little wilder, and just a little brighter to shine through that chaos.

“You still there?” I asked, lying back against the pillows again.

I heard Lucky’s laughter. “Drinking while playing charades with Nana. And I was worried about you getting bored in Bedford.”

“There’s nothing slow or boring about thirty people crammed into a space meant for twelve. And then they play games. They
love
games.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Actually, it’s not bad.” I smiled. “Peyton has a nice family.”

I listened to him eating, scrapping his bowl and licking his spoon. And then I pressed my ear closer to the phone. “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

I heard the loud sounds again coming through the speaker. “Are you eating pie on a train?”

“Yes. I’m in the back of a boxcar. Got my little sack bag of clothes and a bowl of pie. That’s how I go back and forth to Nashville. A little cold, but it works.”

“Always the joker.”

And then his voice shifted to a deep, throaty sound. “But I wanted to be Batman.”

“You are impossible.” I rolled my eyes.

“But you like me anyway.”

“Sometimes.”

Lucky laughed. “The train runs close to my mama’s house. I actually love the sound of it. When I was a kid, I would go out and wait for it to come. I liked listening to the sound of the cars and seeing them go by. Count them. Guess what was inside of them. Sometimes I still do it.”

“And sometimes I think you’re a kid trapped in a twenty-year-old’s body.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“So you say.” I clenched my fingers at my blunder. “I’m sorry. Is that okay to joke about?”

He let out a deep breath. “If we can’t joke about things beyond our control, then we might just lose our damn minds.”

“I guess that’s true,” I whispered.

I felt the change in our phone call. The way our breaths moved with a static charge across the line. The way neither of us spoke. I heard the sounds of the world around us. It was a nice world. Peyton’s family had always been so very sweet to me. But I liked my new world with Lucky and I missed that new world.

“Lucky. I—” The feelings kept bubbling up inside of me. “I really miss you.”

“I really miss you too,” he whispered. “And when I see you again, I’m going to hold you so tight, I might not ever be able to let you go.”

I closed my eyes. “I want that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

The party was still going on downstairs and the kids were still running wild. But all I heard was the sound of him breathing. “Katie, can I ask you something?”

“You can ask me anything.”

“Did you love that other guy?” He asked so softly that I had to think about his words for a second to make sure I understood them right.

I swallowed hard. How did we go from talking about pie to discussing love? Maybe it was the talk of feelings. I wasn’t sure. But love was a deep question. One of the big ones. “Is that your question for the night?”

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I was just curious. Did you love him? I mean. You let him get closer than any other guy. You . . . well. I just wanted to know if you loved him.”

Lucky knew that Chase was my only serious relationship. The only guy I had ever had sex with. If I answered this question, he would be required to give the same answer back about his past relationships. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about all the girls before me. I hated this question in so many ways. I sucked in a deep breath and let it slowly out my nose.

“At the time, I thought I loved him. And maybe I did. But I think there are different kinds of love. Maybe I loved him in a simple way. He was like me. And I think we genuinely cared about each other. But I don’t think it was the kind of love that I hear in your songs. I think that kind of love exists too.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense. Thank you. You know. For telling me.”

I waited for him to say something else. It felt like an eternity. I heard the voices again downstairs. I looked around Peyton’s room, seeing the cheerleading trophies and faded pom-poms over the mirror.

But Lucky didn’t say anything else. Was he waiting for me? And as much as I didn’t want to know, I decided I needed to ask. I closed my eyes. “What, um . . . what about you?”

“You really want to know?”

Not really.
“Yes.”

“Well, like you said. I’ve put the words in my songs,” he whispered. “But the truth? I’ve never actually said them to a girl.”

“But you’ve felt them for someone?”

“No. I don’t think so. If I had felt that way about someone, I would have said it. I wouldn’t hold it back. I would tell her and everyone around me. She would never doubt my feelings.”

I was taken back by his words. Lucky had never given his heart to someone else. I felt happy and maybe selfishly relieved.

But how was it possible for him to have written those beautiful songs but never loved someone? “But what about your music? You’ve written songs about love. How do you write something you’ve never felt for a girl?”

“Maybe I know how it should feel.” He paused for a moment in thought. “I want what Colt and Callie have. And I’d like to think I could have it all. I could have their life. I hope I can love someone the way they do, the way I hear it in my songs, and still have the career that goes with it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s crazy to think that life is possible. But that’s what I want.”

I smiled, feeling the honesty of his words. “Someone once told me that anything is possible if you want it bad enough.”

“Sounds like a really awesome guy.”

“He is,” I whispered.

As the sounds of the house echoed in the background, I was drawn to the person on the other end of the phone. A strange feeling settled inside my body. Maybe it was all this talk of love and hypotheticals. Those thoughts made me ponder the path I had decided to travel with this guy, and I came to only one conclusion, which made me suck in a deep breath.

Lucky was either going to be the love of my life or break me into a million pieces that could never be repaired. Or maybe both.

I
returned from Thanksgiving break only to be tossed into the perpetual Monday blues as I walked down the sidewalk. I wasn’t usually like this, but I felt that cold blue feeling on the inside, knowing I was in town and Lucky was in Nashville.

I wanted to see his smile.

This was not a good feeling. Not one to be having yet. But I couldn’t stop that feeling from eating into me. I missed him. And part of me hated the fact that I missed him. Part of me wondered if I didn’t know any better.

Maybe I had dated Chase because I knew he was applying for medical schools far across the country. Maybe I fell into a pattern of finding people who would inflict this feeling. Maybe I was picking an impossible situation on purpose just because I understood this feeling.

It was familiar.

Being left. Being alone. Learning to cope.

When I turned eleven, my parents decided I was capable of taking care of myself. They were gone most weekends. Sometimes it was local places as they stumbled back home in the wee hours of the morning, but it was common for me to watch them pack suitcases.

My father would give me a handful of cash and one of their credit cards before they went off with new friends or met back up with old ones. My father’s boss liked to travel and often invited them along. Skiing in Aspen. Weekends in Vegas. Watching the ball drop in Times Square. Summers in the Cayman Islands. It was always some place fun without children.

I had talked to my parents briefly over Thanksgiving. They had been in New York again. Lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. My mother said it was beautiful. I’m sure it was.

I took a seat on the bench, partially hidden by a giant evergreen shrub. The chilly air blew across my neck. I pulled the hood up on my coat, trying to block it out. The cold metal bled through my jeans as I waited on Peyton to meet me for lunch.

I was early. She was late, which left me to watch people as they scurried to class. Another gust of wind swept across campus, making the students move faster. I searched their red faces for my roommate, but I saw only the unfamiliar.

I often wondered about the thoughts that went through their heads. Their secrets. Everyone had them, just different kinds of secrets and different levels of secrets. Some secrets were not that hidden, like the girl who walked by, wearing last night’s clothes. But some were more guarded, and I wondered about those. Were they lonely secrets or happy secrets?