Wild with All Regrets, page 11
Jamie stirred a little in his bed, grumbling softly. “Mm . . . Lucas?” he croaked, sitting up on the cot. His beautiful hair was all mussed up, his eyes half-lidded with sleep.
“Shhh, you smarmy fuck. The wee ones are sleeping.” God, how much he wanted to trail his fingers through that silken gold, brush it away from his face, press a kiss to his temple. “C’mon, lemme get you back to civilized society before you get stabbed.”
Jamie yawned and nodded, rubbing his eyes. “I haven’t slept that well in a long time, if you can believe it.” He smiled and straightened his shirt. “You’re really comfortable, Lucas.”
Well yeah, that was why strange men paid him for sex. He rolled his eyes but smiled, his cheeks flushed. “All right, you dafty. Is your granny back today?”
“Mm. I’ll soon be out of your hair, don’t worry.” Jamie collected his things and kept nice and quiet until they were out of the apartment. He couldn’t contain his excitement for long, though, and as soon as there was no danger of waking the kids up, he began chattering again.
“Lucas, that was amazing when you kicked that drunk fellow’s ass last night!” He punched the air, taking up a boxer’s stance. “You must teach me to fight sometime!”
“You’re very odd, you know that?” Lucas smiled, putting his hands in his pockets. “Does your granny still live in the same place?”
“Oh, do you want to visit her? I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you again.”
“Ah, no that’s all right, I’ve got work soon.” He was ashamed of his background, still; he wasn’t sure he could stomach seeing that sweet woman right now.
Lucas walked him to her home and deposited Jamie on the front steps, glad to be rid of him once and for all.
“Okay. I kept you from getting killed all night and ensured you got home safely. We’re even. Bye.”
“Not by my count we’re not.”
“How do you figure?”
Jamie grinned. “Didn’t turn you into the police, sheltered you as a child, got you dinner. That’s three things.”
Lucas crossed his arms, clenching his jaw to stop his smile from getting out. “Technically, your father sheltered me as a child, not you.”
“And technically my father is unavailable, and I, as his sole male heir, inherit his boons. So, I don’t think we’re quite done yet, Connolly.”
Lucas sighed melodramatically. “What do you want, Murray?”
“Lemme come visit tomorrow. Show me around Dublin. I get the feeling we could be great pals.”
“And I get the feeling you’re an idiot.”
But Jamie wasn’t to be deterred by Lucas’s standoffishness. Sure enough, he met Lucas on the cusp of the tenement village the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Initially, Lucas was horrified to see the golden-haired fool putting himself in such danger just for the sake of his company, but little by little Lucas warmed up to his companionship.
Jamie would meet Lucas early in the morning, walk him to work . . . hell, he’d even do the odd construction shift with him sometimes. He’d meet him in the evenings too. They’d go to a pub together, ending up so drunk that they broke out in songs.
One night they got kicked out of the bar and Jamie thought it was so funny he couldn’t stop giggling.
“It—it’s just—” He was gasping. “We’re so—we’re so bad at—we sound like—”
The laughter was contagious, and Lucas was having a hard time pretending to be grumpy. “Cats fucking.”
“Exactly!” Jamie hooked an arm around Lucas’s neck and meowed. “I never—I’ve never been asked to leave a pub before!”
“Why exactly are you enjoying this?”
“Because we’re alive, Lucas! This is living!”
Lucas assumed the visits and the friendship would stop after Jamie started university, but they didn’t. After a while, Lucas made the effort to see Jamie, too, meeting him after his classes and doing whatever inane thing Jamie had in mind that day. He taught him to box, he taught him how to gamble, and Jamie returned the favor by teaching Lucas how to do complicated math and lending him books.
The friendship developed little by little over the coming weeks, and for the first time in his life, Lucas felt like he mattered, like there was some good in him after all. If someone like Jamie wanted to spend time with him then maybe . . . Jamie was brilliant with Lucas’s siblings, too, and Molly adored him. He was a decent sort.
It was difficult, however, to keep Lucas’s attraction to Jamie under wraps. Jamie was so damned physical, and as much as Lucas relished the contact, it was a nightmare to pretend that he didn’t.
An arm draped over his shoulder, bonking their heads together affectionately, falling asleep together. Jesus, it was torture to be so close and keep such a distance.
There were a few instances in which Lucas almost, almost instigated something physical. Once, when Lucas had stayed the night at Jamie’s house, they had fallen asleep together in the large bed in Jamie’s room. Lucas had offered to sleep on the sofa, but Jamie wouldn’t hear of it. Damn thing was uncomfortable. They only had one bed. Nothing weird about two friends being close, yeah?
Lucas loved sleeping here; the sheets smelled like Jamie, and he was addicted to the feeling of being wrapped up in him. Jamie occasionally upped the ante by being something of a chronic sleep-cuddler, which Lucas simultaneously adored and loathed for similar reasons. He awoke tangled in Jamie’s arms and watched him for a while. Christ, he was beautiful. The way his little puffs of breath made his silky fringe waft over his forehead, his lovely thick eyelashes. Lucas found himself staring, mesmerized. Kiss him. Start with his forehead, play it off for laughs if he thinks it’s weird. Maybe he likes it, maybe you kiss his cheek next, then his ear, then his lips . . . Arch your neck for him, Lucas, feel his teeth on your throat.
Jamie’s eyes fluttered open, and he smiled. “Good morning sunshine. Sleep okay?”
Jamie never seemed to be bothered by waking up like this, which Lucas assumed meant the situation was so far from sexual that the thought had never even occurred to him. “No. You’re a blanket hog, you snore, and you stink up the room.”
Jamie wore a devilish smile as he grabbed Lucas’s wrists and pinned him to the bed.
Oh hello.
“I’ll show you who stinks up the room!” Jamie let loose a mighty wind and did not let up until Lucas cried for Granny Murray to come rescue him. It was not his most dignified moment.
Despite the difficulties, Lucas was quite content to enjoy their time together without making it about love or sex or any of that nonsense.
Winter was harder for the Connollys; there was less work to be had for Lucas, and it was nearly impossible to stay warm. Right around Christmastime, Molly received a letter from the local authorities saying that Mick Connolly had been found dead in a derelict hovel a few hours north. They queried how she planned to pay off the debts of her deceased spouse. Molly’s health wasn’t the best anymore, and she didn’t know what to do.
The whole thing sent Lucas to a terribly dark place. He stopped going out to meet Jamie, stopped responding when he came to call. Jamie was never one to be put off by a little friendly resistance, though. He made his way into the Connolly’s flat when Lucas wasn’t there, surely aware that Molly wouldn’t be able to say no to him. Lucas came home to find his friend pleasantly sitting with his mother at the table, a tepid cup of weak tea in his hands.
“Lucas . . .!” Jamie’s face lit up when he saw him. “I’ve been worried—Molly told me about your father . . . Lucas I’m so sorr—”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Lucas growled. “I don’t want any damned company.” He didn’t need Jamie’s pity, or his charity, or his friendship right now. Lucas was a Connolly through and through: a mean old bastard who would destroy everything good in the world and leave a trail of broken promises and misery in his wake. To hell with Jamie. To hell with Mick! He didn’t need anyone.
“Lucas!” Molly’s face flushed pink. She struggled to her feet and took a few moments to catch her breath. “Don’t speak to him like that! Jamie’s been nice enough to come visit. He’s even brought sweet buns for the children!”
Lucas’s face contorted with anger as he grabbed Jamie by the wrist and dragged him outside. He needed to get this off his fucking chest; he didn’t want to be censored by his own goddamn mother. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Lucas snarled, once they were out in the alley. “You can’t take a bloody hint, can you?”
Gray slush lined the streets, and Jamie’s beautiful hair was being evenly dusted with snow. “I thought we were friends, you prick! I wanted to see you because I was worried about you!”
“Why, Jamie? What a fucking joke—who the hell do you think you are?” Lucas threw his hands in the air. “Some rich golden pretty boy with a stick up his ass, oh yes, I love coming to the worst part of Dublin, I love staying in a house that smells like piss and failure, I love watching Lucas bloody Connolly try to scrounge together enough money to feed his family while I can afford to shower the whole dirty lot of them in sweet rolls! What the devil’s wrong with you, Jamie? I tried to rob you, I could have killed you, and you want to see me? Want to spend time with me? You got a death wish?”
Jamie watched him with an obvious fear in his eyes.
Say something, you coward!
Lucas stepped forward, his eyes wild with anger. “Oh, and of course my stupid mother tells you my father died. Christ. Christ! He was a drunk wife-beating piece of shit who crippled us with debt and—and—I’m no bloody better than he is.”
Lucas’s voice cracked and his head fell forward. It was true. It was all true. He’d been the reason his parents got married. If not for him, none of his siblings would have been born either, none of them would have starved and died. His father had always told him he was broken, he was wicked . . . hell, he’d left because Lucas was. . . shit. It was all his fault.
“He always said it, Jamie. People like you don’t like people like me. I’m poison, I’m a cancer. I’m a dirty thief, I’m a sinner. I’m the reason my family is starving, I’m the reason we’re all miserable. Who I am— what I am has spoiled everything. I’ll break everyone I love.”
“Oh . . . Lucas . . .,” Jamie whispered. “That’s awful, I never . . . what a terrible thing to say to your own son.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us have filthy rich fathers who love us and pay for us to go to university, mothers who don’t have to keep working until they get ill, a bunch of siblings rotting in the ground already!” Lucas shoved Jamie, knowing full well his anger was misdirected. But all of this venom had been festering in him for so damned long, it was hard to stop himself now that he had the chance to vent. “I’ll ruin you if you let me. I’ll kill you, Jamie. I’ll destroy everything you are.” Something inside of me is broken.
His ears were burning red; his lip was quivering ever so slightly. Oh no, he was getting emotional. He tried to feel angry again, he needed this to get Jamie off his back once and for all—push him away. Push Jamie away, protect him, protect him. “And I don’t need your damn charity! I never want to fucking see you again!”
“You asshole!” Jamie stepped forward and put his hands on Lucas’s arms. “Where the hell is this coming from? You’re not wicked, you’re not broken! You’re worth knowing and you’re worth loving! You’re not your bloody father and you never will be! You think he ever gave one second’s thought to what his choices were doing to his family? No! He was wrong about you then and you’re wrong about yourself now! I see good in you, Lucas Connolly, and I want you in my life. I care about you. I worry about you when you’re struggling, stupid.” Jamie pulled Lucas into a tight embrace, and Lucas found himself clinging right back.
“Jamie . . . ” he sniffled, burying his face in Jamie’s jacket. “He beat me, and he disappeared one day, and I was so glad, because I prayed that he’d never come back. We didn’t have enough food. Jessie nearly died that winter— he always said it was my fault, Jamie, if I wasn’t like . . . if only I was born different, he—”
“Fuck him,” Jamie whispered. “Look at me.” He met Lucas’s eyes and smiled at him, the dim light of the streetlamp illuminating the sheen of gold in his hair. “I admire your strength, Lucas, your honesty—you’re the type of man I want to be. Someone whom his family can rely on, someone who always puts others first. I look like a coddled little twat next to you—you make me want to be a better person. On top of that, you’re funny, you’re clever, and you’re cranky and bitter . . . but deep down you’ve got the sweetest heart in the world. I can’t get enough of you, Lucas. I want to be with you, and you make me so damned happy.” He gripped Lucas’s shoulders and met his eyes.
“Look at me.”
“You’re worth knowing, you’re worth loving. You are not broken, there is nothing wrong with who you are or what you are. Stand with pride, Lucas; love the man you are. I wish I could make you see yourself the way that I see you. Please,” Jamie whispered, “don’t tell me to leave.”
The halo of light danced around Jamie’s hair, and for the second time in his life, Lucas thought he was seeing an angel.
“Never, Jamie, never.”
In the dark of the alley, on a snowy night in December, in one of the worst parts of Dublin, Lucas Connolly found his reason for living.
1928
Lucas simply gawked at the . . . the thing, Jamie, whatever it was. He so often imagined what he’d do or say if he ever saw Jamie again. Would he confess his love? Tell him how much Jamie had meant to him, how awful it had been since they’d last seen each other? How sometimes—no, most times—Lucas envied Jamie for being dead, for not having to carry on in the mortal coil alone?
“I’m so sorry, Jamie,” he said finally, tears pricking his eyes. “I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault, I just . . . ”
Jamie looked a bit confused and patted Lucas’s shoulder, not that he could feel it. “That I died, you mean? Lucas, you can’t possibly blame yourself for that, can you? It was a war, right? People die in wars all the time.”
Lucas stopped and stared at Jamie, watching his face for any clue or sign that he wasn’t being truthful. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?” He wanted to be sure.
“I remember we were together; I remember I was panicking; I remember they were trying to take my gun off me. You stopped them, you kept them away so I could be alone for a second . . . then . . . then I got shot. It was in Belgium. Right?”
Lucas was well and truly horrified, and suddenly Jamie seemed unsure of himself.
“I don’t remember everything from my life, I remember my father. I remember you.” He paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts. “Is that not how it happened?”
Lucas shook his head slowly. “Yeah. Yeah Jamie, that’s how it happened. But it was my fault that you died. I couldn’t protect you; I couldn’t help you.”
“Lucas . . . ” He hugged him around the chest and huffed as his hands passed through the smaller man’s body. “Damn it! I hate being ethereal! Absence of physical matter is a bit shit, honestly. I want to hold you. I want to make you feel better. I missed you.”
“It’s okay,” Lucas said softly. “I’m starting to believe in God, Jamie, just seeing you here like this. It’s a bloody miracle.” He’d ached for this. He’d prayed for this. A life, or a limbo, maybe, with Jamie. A second chance, a clean slate, a shot at redemption. Yes, definitely a brain tumor. He smiled, and found his facial muscles were so unfamiliar with the expression as of late that it actually hurt his face.
“Jamie?”
“Yes, pal?”
“What’s your middle name?”
Jamie seemed a bit surprised at the question. “Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why?’”
“Because I can’t remember what it was, and if you can’t either, it means you’re in my head. It means you’re not real. It means I lost my mind and none of this means anything.”
“Could also mean I don’t remember everything from my life. I’ve been dead for years, that’ll wreak havoc with anyone’s memories, no?”
“You don’t know your middle name.”
“Lucas . . . ” Jamie looked a little worried about that fact himself. “Alan. My middle name is Alan.”
Jamie might have been making it up to make him feel better, his mind playing tricks, knowing that he vaguely remembered a funny acronym but it didn’t matter, it didn’t. If Jamie wasn’t real, then so be it. Being completely insane was better than living without Jamie for one more second.
“Alan. Good strong name,” he said softly, but he wanted to change the subject. It felt better to imagine he was real, and he didn’t want any evidence mounting to the contrary. “So. Um.” He had never been good at small talk, and his abilities had only declined over the last decade. Jamie being dead wasn’t helping much, either.
“How’s the afterlife? Death? God? That sort of thing?” Jamie offered, sitting down on Lucas’s couch and letting himself relax.
“It was abrupt and terrifying. Everything went white, then I didn’t feel anything. It was like before I was born. It was like just not being. I didn’t see God, I didn’t see heaven, there was no light at the end of the tunnel. There was nothing, and then there was you.” Jamie smiled. “Perhaps you and I have some unfinished business? Some debt I need to repay before I can get to heaven, that sort of thing. A task I need to complete. What do you think?”
He had such an energy about him; it was so perplexing. Lucas felt a little disheartened, actually. He hadn’t seen Jamie this vibrant and alive since . . . since before the war—since way before he’d died. Lucas had almost forgotten how sweet and lovely he’d been before . . . everything. He’d lost so much of himself; England’s war had stolen it from him.
