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At Christmastime.
2
Then
New York, December 23, 2005
HMM. DECISIONS, DECISIONS.
Lucy honestly wasn’t sure what would be the best tool for the job. After all, it wasn’t every day she was faced with a project of this magnitude. As a photography student at NYU, she usually spent more time worrying about creating things rather than hacking them up.
Big knife? No, she might not get the right angle and could end up cutting herself.
Scissors? Probably not strong enough to cut through that.
Razor? She doubted her Venus was up to the task, and had no idea how to get one of those old-fashioned straight-edged ones short of robbing a barber.
A chainsaw or a hatchet?
Probably overkill. And killing wasn’t the objective.
After all, she didn’t really want to kill Jude Zacharias. She just wanted to separate him from his favorite part of his cheating anatomy. AKA: the part he’d cheated with.
Lucy didn’t even realize she’d been mumbling aloud. Not until her best friend, Kate, who sat across from her in this trendy Manhattan coffee-and-book shop interjected, “You’re not going to cut off his dick, so stop fantasizing about it.”
Nobody immediately gasped at Kate’s words, so obviously they hadn’t been overheard. Not surprising—they were tucked in a back corner of the café. Plus, Beans & Books was crowded with shoppers frenzied by the realization that they only had one and a half shopping days left before Christmas. Each was listening only to the holiday countdown clock in his or her head.
“Have you stopped fantasizing about having sex with Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jake Gyllenhaal at the same time?” she countered.
“Hey, that could actually happen,” Kate said with a smirk. “It’s at least possible. Unlike the chance that you, Miss Congeniality, would actually go all Bobbitt on a guy’s ass, even if he does totally deserve it.”
It wasn’t Jude’s ass she wanted to…Bobbit. She knew, however, that Kate was right. Lucy wasn’t the violent type, except in her fantasies. She might have fun playing a mental game of why-I-oughta but she knew nothing would come of it.
“Can’t I at least wallow and scheme for an hour?”
“Sure. But we should’ve done it over beer or tequila in a dive bar. Coffee in a crowded shop just doesn’t lend itself to wallowing and scheming.”
True. Especially now that this place was no longer the same quiet, cozy hangout she’d loved since coming to New York three and a half years ago. It had once been her favorite place to meet up with friends, do some homework, or just enjoy the silence amid the scent of freshly ground arabica beans.
Since a recent renovation, though, it had turned from a cute, off-the-beaten-track coffee bar into a crazed, credit-card magnet, filled with overpriced gift books, calendars and stationery. Driven city dwellers who excelled at multitasking were flocking to the place to kill two birds with one stone. They could buy a last minute gift for Great-Aunt Susie—a ridiculously overpriced coffee table book titled The Private Lives of Garden Gnomes, perhaps—while they waited for their Lite Pomegranate Vanilla Oolang Tea Lattes with whip.
Christmas had been reduced to expedience, kitsch and trendy drinks. Fortunately for her, she’d dropped out of the holiday a few years ago and had no intention of dropping back in.
“Face it, girlfriend, revenge just ain’t your style. You’re as violent as a Smurf.” Kate grinned. “Or one of Santa’s elves.”
“Not funny,” Lucy said, rolling her eyes. “So not funny.”
Her friend knew how much she disliked the silly costume she had to wear for her “internship” with a local photographer. Intern? Ha. She was a ridiculously dressed unpaid Christmas elf wiping the drool off kids’ chins as they sat on Santa’s lap. What could be more sad to someone who dreamed of being a serious photographer? Someone who was leaving to study abroad in Paris next month, and hoped to go back there to live after graduation? Someone who planned to spend the next several years shooting her way across Europe, one still image at a time?
That girl shouldn’t care about Jude. That girl didn’t care about Jude.
But at this moment, Lucy didn’t feel like that girl. For all the violent fantasies, what this girl felt right now was hurt.
“You know, for the life of me, I still can’t figure out why I ever went out with him in the first place.” She swallowed, hard. “I should have known better.”
Kate’s smirk faded and she reached over to squeeze Lucy’s hand. Kate had been witness to what had been Lucy’s most humiliating moment ever. Said moment being when Lucy had let herself in to her boyfriend Jude’s apartment, to set up his big surprise birthday party that was scheduled for tonight.
Surprise! Your boyfriend is a lying, cheating asshat!
Jude had already gotten started on his birthday celebration. Contrary to his claim that he was going to “pop in” on his family for the day, Jude had apparently decided to stay in town and pop in on his neighbor’s vagina.
At least, that’s who Lucy thought had been kneeling in front of the sofa with Jude’s johnson in her mouth when she and Kate had walked into the apartment. She couldn’t be certain. They only saw the back of the bare-ass naked woman’s head—oh, plus her bare ass and, uh, the rest of her nether regions. Ew, ew, ew. She was still fighting the urge to thrust two coffee stirrers into her eyes to gouge out the image burned onto her retinas. If she’d ever had any doubt she was strictly hetero, her response to that sight would have removed it.
“Maybe I should ask Teddy to beat him up.”
Teddy, Kate’s boyfriend, was as broad as a table, and could snap Jude like a twig. There was just one problem. “He’s more of a pacifist than I am,” Lucy said with a smile, knowing Kate had intended to make her laugh. Teddy was the sweetest guy on the planet. “Besides, we both know Jude’s not worth the trouble.”
“No, he’s not.” Then Kate grinned. “I am glad you got off a couple of good zingers, though. I still can’t believe you asked him if the store was out of birthday candles and that’s why he’d found something else that needed to be blown.”
That, she had to admit, had been a pretty good line. It was a rare occurrence; the kind of one-liner she usually would have thought of hours later, when reliving the awful experience in her mind. Though, in this instance, since she was now feeling more sad than anything else, she might have been picturing herself asking him why he’d felt the need to be so deceitful.
If he’d told her it wasn’t working out and he wanted to see other people, would she have been devastated?
No. A little disappointed, probably, but not crushed.
But to be cheated on—and to walk in on it? That rankled.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to speak. I’da been busy ripping the extensions outta that ho’s head,” Kate added.
“She didn’t cheat on me, Jude did.” Then, curious, she asked, “How do you know they were extensions?”
“Honey, that carpet so didn’t match those drapes.”
Though a peal of laughter emerged from her mouth, Lucy also groaned and threw a hand over her eyes, wishing for a bleach eye-wash. “Don’t remind me!”
Funny that she could actually manage to laugh. Maybe that said a lot about where her feelings for Jude had really been. This girlfriend-gripe session wasn’t so much about Lucy’s broken heart as it was her disappointed expectations.
She’d really wanted Jude to be a nice guy. A good guy.
Face it, you just wanted someone in your life.
Maybe that was true. Seeing the former man-eater Kate so happy was inspiring. But her brother Sam’s recent engagement had also really affected her. Their tiny family unit—made even tinier when they’d been left alone in the world after the deaths of their parents—was going to change. Sam had found someone, he was forming a new family, one she’d always be welcome in but wasn’t actually a major part of.
She’d wanted something like that, too. Or at least the possibility of something like that, someday. Heck, maybe deep down she also just hadn’t wanted to haul her virginity along with her to Europe, and had been hoping she’d finally found the guy who would truly inspire her to shuck it.
Yes, that was probably why she’d let down her guard and gotten involved with Jude when she’d known he wasn’t the right one in the long run. Being totally honest, she knew she was more sad at the idea of losing the boyfriend than at losing the actual guy. Not to mention continuing to carry the virgin mantle around her neck.
“Well, at least you didn’t sleep with him!” said Kate, who’d had more lovers than Lucy had had birthdays.
“I’ll drink to that,” she said, sipping her coffee, meaning it. Because being stuck with a hymen was better than having let somebody so rotten remove it.
Something inside her must have recognized that about him, and held her back. Deep down she’d known there was something wrong about the relationship, even though he’d gone out of his way to make it seem so very right.
Maybe Lucy really was the oldest living virgin in New York—kept that way throughout high school by her bad-ass older brother’s reputation, and throughout college out of her own deep-rooted romantic streak. Whatever the reason, she’d waited this long. So, as much as she wanted to know what all the fuss was about, she hadn’t been about to leap into bed with Jude just because he’d said he liked her photography and opened the door for her when they went out, unlike most other college-aged dudes she knew.
Good thing. Because it had all been an act. The nice, patient, tender guy didn’t exist. Jude had put on that persona the way somebody else might don a Halloween costume, sliding into it to be the man she wanted, then taking it off—along with the rest of his clothes—when she wasn’t around. He shouldn’t be studying to be an attorney, an actor would be much more appropriate. God, could she have been any more gullible?
Maybe Sam was right. Maybe she really had no business living on her own in New York or, worse, going off to Europe. Perhaps she was a lamb in the midst of wolves. She should’ve just stayed in the Chicago suburb where they’d grown up, gone to community college, done first-communion portraits at Sears, married a nice local guy and gotten to work on producing cousins for Sam’s future kids. At least then she wouldn’t be sitting here all sad at being cheated on by someone she’d hoped was Prince Charming.
“More like King Creeper,” she muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Just thinking about Jude.”
Kate nodded, frowned and muttered, “Why are most men jerks? Other than Teddy, of course.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“There have to be other decent men out there, right?”
“Sam’s one,” Lucy admitted. “And my Dad sure was.”
“Mine is, too.” Kate frowned in thought. “Your father managed a car dealership, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And your brother, Sam, is a cop. My dad’s in sales, and Teddy’s a trucker. Hmm.”
“Your point being?”
Kate tapped the tip of her finger on her mouth. “Most of the guys you’ve dated have been like Jude. Rich, future attorneys, politicians, doctors…and dick-heads, one and all.”
Lucy nodded, conceding the point.
“And that’s the type I dated, before I met Teddy.”
She started to get the picture. “Ahh.”
“So maybe you need to look for an everyday guy, who works hard for a living, hasn’t had everything handed to him.”
That sounded ideal. Unfortunately Lucy couldn’t remember the last time she’d met anyone like that. They sure didn’t seem to be on the campus of NYU.
“A guy who’s so hot he makes you stick to your chair when you watch his muscles bunch under his sweaty T-shirt as he works,” Kate said, sounding lost in thought. She was staring past Lucy, as if visualizing this blue collar stud-muffin. “Who knows what to do with his hands, and has enough self-confidence that he doesn’t have to show off in front of a woman.”
Not used to Kate being so descriptive—but definitely liking the description—Lucy could only nod.
“Somebody like him.”
This time, Kate’s stare was pointed and her gaze speculative. Surprised, Lucy quickly turned to look over her shoulder, toward the front corner of the shop, and saw the him in question.
And oh, wow, what a him.
He was young—in his early twenties, probably, like her. But he didn’t look much like the guys she interacted with on a daily basis at school. He had on a pair of faded, worn jeans, that hung low on his very lean hips. They were tugged down even further by the work belt he wore over them, which was weighted with various tools. Powerful hammers, long screwdrivers, steely drills. All hard. Strong. Stiff.
Get your mind out of his toolbelt.
She did, shaking her head quickly to get her attention going in another direction. Of course, there wasn’t any other direction to go…he was hot any way you looked at it.
So she looked at it. Er, him.
Lucy lifted her gaze, taking in the whole tall, lean, powerful package. Though he wore the tools of the trade, he was not built like a brawny construction-worker type. Strong, yes, but with a youthful leanness—Hugh Jackman as Leopold, not as Wolverine.
Yum.
His entire body told tales of hard work An impressive set of abs rippled visibly beneath the sweat-tinged T-shirt. His broad chest and thickly muscled arms moved with almost poetic precision as he finished installing a new bookcase in the back corner of the shop.
He lifted one arm and wiped a sheen of sweat off his forehead, which just emphasized the handsomeness of his face, seen only in profile. He had a strong, square jaw, a straight nose. High cheekbones emphasized the lightly stubbled hollows below, lending his lean face an air of youth and power.
His light brown hair was longish, a little shaggy, and he swept it back from his brow with an impatient hand. Seeing the strong hands in motion made Lucy let out a long, slow breath, and when he turned around and she beheld him from the back, she had to suck in another one. Oh, my, did the man know how to fill out a pair of jeans.
Apparently she wasn’t the only woman who’d noticed. What she’d taken for shopper’s distraction earlier she now realized had been female appreciation for the beautiful display of raw, powerful male in the corner. Every other woman in the place was either sneaking peeks or outright gaping.
She was a gaper. No peeking about it.
Finally realizing she was literally turned in her seat to stare, and probably had drool dripping down her chin, she swung back around to face Kate. Her friend wore a similar expression. “Wow,” she admitted.
“Double wow. If I didn’t love Teddy, I’d be over there offering to take care of his tool for him.”
Lucy couldn’t help being wicked when she was around Kate. “I bet it could use some lubrication.”
“Atta girl!”
“But I think you’d have to stand in line.”
“With you?” Kate asked, her eyes sparkling.
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t think so. Cheated on and heartbroken an hour ago, remember?”
“Well, cheated on, anyway,” said Kate, perceptive as always.
“Touché,” Lucy admitted, not terribly surprised to realize she was already feeling better. What had felt like heartbreak ninety minutes ago had segued into a heart cramp. Now it was barely a heart twinge.
Kate glanced at her empty cup, and at Lucy’s. “One more?”
“Sure.”
“I got it,” the other woman said, grabbing her bag. She stood up and walked toward the counter near the front of the shop.
