Lucas : A Preston Brothers Novel (Book 1)(29)

Her hands meet my bare chest, and I look up at her, startled. “Luke…”

“What?”

She shakes her head, her eyes wild. “That wasn’t for Cameron!” she whisper-yells.

“But you knew it wasn’t date!” I whisper back, just as confused as she is. “Right?”

“Says the guy who changed outfits four times!”

I shrug, unable to hold back my smile. It’s like having Old Laney back. I like Old Laney. “It’s not like it matters,” I say, one hand on the door behind her, the other grasping her wrist. Her hands are still on my bare chest, warm and soothing. “You ignored me the entire time.”

“I did not!” she says, her nose in the air.

“You totally did!” Somehow, I manage to laugh. “You didn’t even sit next to me in the car and you wouldn’t let me buy your ticket or your food, and then you disappeared for what felt like forever before the movie even started.”

“I was upset,” she whispers, her gaze lowered. She tries to remove her hands, but I keep one there, wanting her to touch me, to tease me, even if she has no idea she’s doing it.

I wonder if she can feel my heart beating wildly beneath her fingers. “Why were you upset?”

“Because… because…” she stammers.

I take a risk, move closer until the heat of her body radiates against mine. “Because why?”

She shakes her head again, working through her confusion. “But you got that girl’s number…”

“Laney.” I press into her now, trapping her between me and the door. In the back of my mind, I know it’s wrong. I can’t have her; she doesn’t belong to me. But fuck, I want her. I wait for her to look at me before saying, “I asked you. I looked you right in the eyes and asked if you’d mind and I wanted so badly for you to say yes. For you to tell me that you didn’t want me with another girl because you wanted me for yourself.” I look down at our bodies pressed together, and my voice drops to a whisper, “Do you know how disappointed I was when you told me you didn’t care?”

Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “But…”

I lean in, my mouth an inch from her shoulder. “But what?”

“You said you’d call her.”

I release her wrist and as soon as she drops her hand, I link my fingers with hers, wanting to touch her, to hold her hand, to make her see things from my perspective. “I never called her.” I pull back, watch her eyes—see the confusion turn to clarity.

“I remember that day so differently,” she mumbles.

I take a chance I should’ve taken back then, wet my lips, kiss her neck. “I meant what I said, Laney. I’ve loved you forever.”

“Don’t do that,” she whispers. “We can’t make the same mistakes again.” Then she pushes me away. “I have to go. Cooper’s waiting.”

I bite back my disappointment, my frustration, my anger. “Then why are you here, Lane?”

She doesn’t respond, she simply turns and walks out my door.

Why were you here, Lane?

I find myself smiling.

Because she’s loved you forever, too, idiot.



The next day, I wait for her in the parking lot with a Snickers bar. “Friends,” I say.

“Friends?” she asks.

I shrug. “For now.”





Chapter Eighteen





LUCAS





Loving Laney from a distance is hard, but not as hard as hoping to one day loathe her. That’s impossible.

Between Tuesday to Thursday, I treat her as mine. It’s as destructive as it is healing, but I don’t know any other way to deal with the feelings I have for her.

I wait for her in the parking lot in the mornings, walk her from her locker to her car in the afternoons. I eat lunch with her, show up late to her work when no one is around just to get that extra time in. We don’t discuss what happened with us. We definitely don’t discuss Cooper. We dance around in circles, over and over, around and around. She plays the game as well as I do. When Cooper is around, I smile, nod, do everything he says, and I pretend like I’m not in love with his girlfriend. She waits by the tunnel for him after practice, every practice, and I smile and nod at her, too. But that’s all I do because upsetting her relationship with Cooper means upsetting her, and that’s the last thing I want. And so I creepily lurk in the shadows of her life (not literally) and wait for my turn. She doesn’t realize any of this, of course, because she’s so naive, so innocent, so Laney.



Cooper heads for the locker room a minute before I do. “Hey, Luke!” Lane smiles brightly at me from her usual spot.

“Hey.” I glance toward the locker room, let her know I’m aware of her situation. Sly. Then I lower my voice, keep our secrets hidden. “You’re still coming to Luce’s wedding tomorrow, right?” Okay, I don’t know if her possibly spending the day with me is a secret, but I pretend like it is. It’s more fun that way.

She nods. Her volume matching mine when she says, “I can’t believe they’re getting married so soon.”

“It’s Cam and Luce. There’s no point waiting with them.”

But I’ll wait, Laney. I’ll wait forever for you.



We’ve had a lot of functions on our property before. Birthday parties, company picnics, but never a wedding. When Luce would talk my ears off about it after I talked her ears off about everything going on with Lane, I couldn’t really picture what she had in mind. The moment I got Lachlan dressed and stepped out of the house, I knew her vision had become a reality. A section of our land is scattered in white… white chairs, white tents, white fairy lights. It’s as beautiful as she was in our mom’s wedding dress, walking down the aisle toward her forever. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when they said their vows. Romance and love and promises of eternity can do that to people. Even Dad.

Laney wiped at her tears the entire time, and I expected nothing less. She’d been around, watched from a distance as Cam and Lucy made love look easy. It wasn’t as easy as she thinks, but I let her believe in the fantasy.

At the reception, she sits with her dad and Misty. Cooper wasn’t invited. It was at my request, but Cam and Luce had no problem fulfilling it. They didn’t like Cooper either, and considering they went through their entire school lives with him, there was probably a good reason for it.



I tap Lane’s shoulder. “Come on. Lachy’s about to break out his dance moves. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.”

She takes my offered hand, walks with me to the dance floor.

“Watch me!” Lachlan yells, and he moves to the center of the circle and attempts what I guess is break-dancing, but really, he’s just rolling around on the floor. Still, my brothers and I pretend like it’s the greatest thing in the world, our hands in the air, our shouts of “Woah” and “Yeah” spurring him on.

Next to me, Laney laughs.

“The sprinkler,” Logan yells. “Do the sprinkler!”

So Lachlan stands, does the sprinkler dance.

I throw my arm around Laney’s shoulders, dip my head, speak close to her ear so she can hear me over the music. “You having fun?”

She tilts her head back, smiles up at me. “I am.” Then she motions over to where Cam and Lucy are sitting with their friends. “It was such an amazing ceremony, and Lucy looks so beautiful.”

“She’s the second most beautiful girl here,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. When I saw her get out of her car, my stomach did that stupid twisty thing. It shouldn’t be fair that one person can hold that much enchantment, that much grace. It took Leo shoving me and practically forcing me to trip over a pile of chairs for me to tear my gaze away from her. “You can look, but don’t touch,” he warned.

I was just looking.

Laney coos, fanning herself dramatically. “And Cameron…”

I tense.

She smirks. “He’s so dreamy,” she sings, teasing me about my assumptions all those years ago.

“Shut up.” I shove her away jokingly. “I totally thought you were into him, okay?”

Her smile falters, her hands going to her purse to fish out her phone.

“I have to go. Cooper’s waiting,” she tells me.

I rear back, my lips pressed tight. “Really? You can’t even stay for my speech?”

She looks as disappointed as I feel. “I wasn’t sure how long the ceremony would go for, and I told him I’d be there an hour ago.”

I sigh. “All right, Cinderella. Let me walk you to your carriage.”



“You cold?” I ask her, walking under the twilight sky toward the temporary parking lot.

She rubs her hands on her arms. “A little.”

I shrug out of my jacket and gently place it on her shoulders. “You really do look beautiful tonight, Lane.”

“Stop it,” she murmurs, backhanding my stomach. It’s like having Old Laney back.

I fake hurt, but she doesn’t. She grasps her hand, her eyes wide. “Have you been hitting the gym?” she asks.

“I have,” I say. “Under your boyfriend’s advice, actually. He suggested I need more power in my start, so…”