Lex and Lu(44)

“OK,” she said with a shrug.

Reluctant to step away from her, Lex looked around, hoping for an out so that he could get some control of his anger. Pete wasn’t far away. Throwing him a “please help me” look, which he knew his brother would catch, he waited for Pete to walk toward them.

“Hey, Little Bit. Does Uncle Pete get some time today?” he asked, with a natural ease that came with familiarity.

Unreservedly, Nina got up off the bar stool and went into his arms. “Can we go on the swings?”

“You bet.” Looking at Lex, Pete said, “OK if I steal my favorite niece away?”

Nina giggled. And Lex knew this was an inside joke with them.

“Uncle Pete, I’m your only niece,” she responded in a well-rehearsed way.

“Oh, that’s right,” he said, looking sheepish, as was part of the joke. “You’re just too smart for me, Nina.”

Another giggle.

Lex watched it all, fascinated. His brother was obviously a permanent fixture in Nina’s life. A streak of jealousy shot through him. This was fucking torture and too much to take.

“We’re going to head outside,” Pete said, asking his brother for permission with his look.

At Lex’s nod, Pete turned to leave. Lex stopped him. “Know where I can find Will?” he asked.

Pete looked at him questioningly, remembering their last encounter.

Lex rolled his eyes, indicating it was OK. So Pete acquiesced. “She ran next door. You may want to wait until she gets back.”

Lex knew that code. “OK. Can you let her know I need to chat with her?”

“Yup. I’ll send her over.”

Pete left and Lex made his way back to his father’s office to wait for Willa. Closing the doors behind him he moved to Mike’s desk. Sitting there, he took stock of everything. He was angry. He was jealous of everyone’s relationship with his daughter. He was infinitely sad over the loss of his father. He’d never felt so out of control in his life. Emotions completely foreign for him beat at him from every angle. He longed for a return to normalcy—practice, a game, a focus. But even as that thought flew through his mind it dawned on him that his normal had been infinitely redefined. Struggling with a new vision of what his life would look like, the soft knock at the door indicating Willa’s arrival caught him completely off kilter.

Willa never waited for permission from anyone, so when she sat down in the chair across from him he smiled at her out of a great appreciation for the woman that she’d grown to be. They’d been close. His intimacy with Lu had changed that, but not in a bad way. Now, facing her across his father’s desk, Lex knew that any road back to that closeness would be littered with causalities of this war that he was about to wage. As he gazed at her, he felt a millisecond of regret, but then that unfamiliar anger that had become his companion today took over. Fuck it, he thought.

“I guess I should apologize for slapping you earlier, but I just can’t bring myself to do it,” she started.

Again, his appreciation for her bluntness overtook him. He smiled the Lex smile, showing her that he got it. “Well, that seems appropriate as I’m not going to apologize for what happened. And for that matter, I’m not going to apologize for what is about to happen.”

Willa looked at him, truly looked at him for the first time. She didn’t look at him as the harbinger of the last few days. She looked at him as one would in taking stock of an adversary. And that made her sad. He was everything that their youth had promised. Successful, confident, intelligent. He hadn’t given in to his own appeal. He continued to work at who he was and what he wanted to achieve. She respected him. And it made her proud. But she focused as she would in a courtroom because she knew this was not a friendly conversation. She felt the energy radiating from him. It wasn’t a positive force. Suddenly a little fearful for her sister, Willa sat back in her chair, attempting to radiate confidence.

“Much of this conversation is something I should be having with your sister, but I’m afraid I can’t trust myself to be in the same room with her right now.”

Willa simply nodded, knowing he wasn’t expecting a response.

“Although I haven’t had much time to think about this or attempt to come up with a better solution, I have come to a conclusion. I’m going to tell you so that you can talk to Lu. Then, on Monday, you will receive the documents from my lawyers. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but be assured that I’m going to win.”

Willa didn’t say anything. But she admitted to herself at that moment that she feared this Lex. She’d forgotten how determined he was. And Lu didn’t have that kind of fight in her. Mostly, because of her guilt, Lu would make this as easy on Lex as possible. It might destroy her, but the way she loved him, she’d do it for him. Although looking across the span of the desk at him, she wasn’t sure that this was a Lex that Lu knew enough about to love.