Johnson Family 1: Unforgettable (23 page)

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They ate their meal in front of the television and afterward Ivy sat on the couch, snuggled beside Lucas. She still had her hair wrapped in a towel.

“What do you want to do tonight?” she asked. Tomorrow she had to pick up Katie from her mother’s house, and he flew back to Atlanta the next day.

“Why? You have something in mind?”

“Maybe.” She peeked up at him.

“What?” he asked in a guarded voice.

“I think you should try your hand at spoken word again.”

He groaned and let his head fall back against the sofa. “Come on, Ivy.”

She disentangled herself from his arm. “Why not? You’re talented.”

“It’s a waste of time.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “There’s no money in it, for one. And I…I don’t have any interest.”

“I can’t believe that. When you recited your poetry, it always turned me on,” she said.

He raised a brow. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yes.” She leaned in. “Do you think you could still do it?” she asked, a coaxing, seductive tone to her voice.

His gaze became speculative. “I could try, but…”

“You should try. Recite some of the old lines or try something new. Come on. I know just the place.” She jumped up from the couch.

“Wait a minute, I didn’t say—”

She ignored his protests, hurrying toward the rear of the condo. “Let me blow dry my hair and then I’ll be ready.”

Less than an hour later they sat in Ivy’s car in the parking lot of The Underground. She’d pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail. To her ensemble she’d added a tailored jacket and Tacori diamond-surrounded amethyst earrings with the matching bracelets. Lucas had paired his jeans with a long-sleeved white shirt that highlighted the rich brown color of his skin.

“What is this place?” Lucas asked.

“It’s an underground club—hence the name. It’s not popular enough to be mainstream, but it has a loyal customer base. They offer good exposure for local bands. Mostly indie rock and socially-conscious hip-hop. Each night there’s a different theme. Trent’s frat brother owns it.”

“Looks like a place for twenty-somethings. I’m too old to be hanging out with these young kids.”

Ivy laughed. “It’s for us older folks, too. Trust me, everyone is welcome. Trent’s band plays here every so often, but tonight is spoken word.” The end of the last sentence ended on a hopeful upswing.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Ivy. It’s been a long time.”

“You can be anyone you want to be here. No one cares,” Ivy said.

“I’m an old thirty-something. I don’t do that kind of thing anymore.”

“Are you saying you no longer have it in you?”

“Maybe.”

She fell quiet. Disappointed, but not wanting him to participate if he had no interest, Ivy sighed heavily. “Let’s go then.”

“Wait a minute.” Lucas placed his hand on the steering wheel to stop her. He sat for a minute, the light from the neon sign illuminating his face in the dark car. “Okay, let’s do it.”

“Yay!” She clapped rapidly.

He grinned at her. “Now I see where Katie gets that clapping thing she does.”

“I only do it when I’m excited.”

“I see. Come on before I change my mind.”

They walked up to the front door hand in hand, reminiscent of the times they’d done the same that summer in Atlanta. Inside, Lucas added his name to the list of spoken word performers. After he finished, Ivy texted her brother Trent, who was there with his best friend. He texted back and they found them at a well-placed table in the middle of the club with an excellent view of the stage.

A young woman wearing glasses and her hair pulled back in what looked, from Lucas’s vantage point, to be a bun, sat next to Trenton.

“This is Alannah,” Trenton said, by way of introduction.

Alannah was a cute girl, but not the kind of woman Lucas expected Trenton would hang out with. Not that he knew Trenton well at all, but they didn’t strike him as the kind of people who would naturally gravitate to each other. She’d probably draw more attention to herself if she styled her hair in a different way and dressed more appropriately for her size. Her jacket practically swallowed her body, as if she was hiding under it.

She almost seemed to want to disappear into the background, despite the fact that Trenton had his arm draped on the back of her chair. Over the course of the evening, a few women approached him, and when they did, Alannah stared more steadily at the stage. At one point, she excused herself from the table and a waitress came over. Trenton ordered her a Coke and lime.

“You don’t think she’ll want a real drink?” Lucas asked.

“She always has two drinks tops. She can barely manage that. Then she drinks Coke with lime for the rest of the night.”

“You know her well,” Lucas observed.

“They know each other well,” Ivy chimed in. “They’ve been best friends for about twenty years. They’re like an old married couple.”

“She’s practically my sister,” Trenton said. “Gotta protect her from the riff raff. I look out for both of my sisters.” He looked pointedly at Lucas. “Chase off the bad ones.” He definitely wasn’t subtle.

“You’re not happy with me, I take it?” Lucas asked.

“I’m a little skeptical about your intentions.” He glanced at his sister, who gave him a look that clearly said
Shut up
. He ignored her.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Lucas reassured him.

“You’re right, I don’t, as long as Ivy and Katie are happy. Anything less than happy, we have a problem.”

Lucas appreciated Trenton’s forthrightness. In fact, based on everything he’d seen so far, Ivy and Katie didn’t lack positive male figures in their lives. He counted that as a plus.

About twenty minutes later, the MC called Lucas’s name. He rose slowly from the chair and Ivy grasped his hand in hers. He looked down at her. “Knock ’em dead,” she said.

“I intend to.”

Lucas considered his workshops and panels around the country a kind of performance, so he wasn’t nervous about being in the spotlight. He loved the rush of excitement he felt in front of an audience.

But this was a different type of performance, and much more personal.

After getting up on stage, he gripped the mic in one hand and leaned over it, bringing his mouth so close to the instrument his lips almost touched its shiny, silver surface. He lowered his voice to a warm bass. “Hello, my name is Lucas. I’d like to dedicate this poem to my princess. No, my queen. It’s simply called,
I Can’t Sleep
.”

“Woohoo!” Cheers and claps encouraged him.

“Bring it on, baby!” someone yelled.

The lights lowered and a spotlight trained on him, casting the audience into shadowy obscurity. His eyes met Ivy’s and he felt the old Lucas coming back. She gave him the thumbs up sign and a smile of encouragement.

Completely unrehearsed, the words and poetic cadence came to him. Extemporaneous and inspired by the woman he’d never stopped loving. He lowered his voice even more before he let the words flow past his lips.

I can’t sleep

And it’s your fault.

I think about you night and day.

I absolutely love the way

Your laughter cheers me when I’m down,

The way your smile spreads sunshine all around,

To everyone, anyone,

Lucky enough to be in your presence,

To bask in your light.

I can’t sleep.

Because I’m watching as
you
sleep,

Curled in my arms

Your soft skin brushing mine,

Your hair trailing across my chest

Spreading sensation, elation, and satiation to my dark,

Empty soul.

I can’t sleep.

I know how lucky I am. And if I close my eyes,

I might wake up and realize,

Everything that seems real

Will be false, a sham, a dream.

Baby, I can’t sleep!

Your passion-filled moans echo in my ear,

Phantom caresses ripple across my skin

As I recall

Your sweet body

Yielding to me again and again.

And we stand at the door,

And we say our good-byes,

But I long to slide back

Between those big, pretty thighs.

Your love is so sweet.

Damn.

I don’t want to leave

And baby…
sweet baby
,

I can…not…sleep.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” a woman yelled.

The crowd’s applause filled his ears. Lucas took a bow and exited the stage. When he approached the table, Ivy came to her feet. They moved toward each other at the same time, the rest of the world blocked out. He ignored the hands slapping him on the back and didn’t even see Trenton and Alannah anymore. He only had eyes for Ivy, and no one else existed except the two of them. He lifted her off the floor in a tight squeeze.

“I meant every word I said, princess,” he said, his voice thick. He never wanted to let her go. Never wanted to come down off this high.

“I love you,” Ivy whispered in his ear. “And you are so getting laid again.”

He laughed into her neck and then planted a kiss on her soft lips.

Chapter Twenty-six

“What are you smiling about?”

Ivy looked up from her reports to see Cynthia standing in her office. She hadn’t even heard her open the door and come in.

“Who me?” she asked.

“Yes, you. There’s no one else in here.” Cynthia placed more reports on her desk.

“Oh, I guess I’m just happy to be alive.”

Cynthia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really? Or is it because Katie’s father just left after being here for a couple of weeks?”

After the time he spent with her and Katie, Lucas had left for an engagement in New York. That trip had lasted a few days. Then he’d flown to Virginia for a business conference for influential men in media. Then it was back to Atlanta for a workshop, then down to Miami for a series of lectures on sex and the single woman.

But then he’d returned during the week of Christmas.

“Maybe,” Ivy said. She bit her lip to keep from grinning outright.

Per tradition, Katie had traveled to Texas with Constance to spend the holidays with her great-grandparents. Cyrus Senior’s death had taken place around this time of year and ever since her husband’s death, Constance avoided the holidays in Seattle. She preferred to go to Texas and see her parents who were getting on in age and didn’t travel as much as they used to.

Ivy and Lucas had flown down to join them for the twenty-third through the twenty-sixth, but otherwise they’d spent their days in Seattle. Lucas spoiled her the whole time. Not so much with material things, but with affection and thoughtfulness. He took her on dates and surprised her from time to time.

“I like to keep you on your toes,” he’d said. She’d loved all the trouble he went through to make each date special.

One night he called her at work and told her when she came home that she would need to get dressed up. She arrived to finding him looking sharp in a tux, and he’d laid out the outfit he thought she should wear. They ended up at the Seattle Symphony. He’d bought tickets to the performance of Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
and hadn’t said a word. She’d been surprised and happy, and she’d held onto his arm the entire night, enthralled by the sounds of the stringed instruments—the cello, the viola, and the violin.

There were also the more intimate times, when they were all alone and he catered to her. As recently as Saturday night, after a bout of explosive sex, they’d rolled out of bed and he’d offered to fix her a snack. She’d sat on the counter in a pair of white panties and his white undershirt and Lucas had been shirtless. His dark brown skin had gleamed under the lights, and his muscles had rippled with each movement as he worked on one of his princess sandwiches.

He worked diligently at the task, frowning so hard she had to hide a smile at his expense. She knew he wanted to make it perfect for her. He couldn’t have been more concerned about quality if he were the pastry chef at a fine dining restaurant preparing the pièce de résistance to an elegant meal. A delicate chocolate soufflé perhaps, or a towering croquembouche.

He watched the stove like a hawk and made sure the bread didn’t toast a shade browner than she liked. Then he flipped it over, chocolate oozing over the sides. When he finally finished, he cut off the edges and presented the sandwich on a plate. It had been delicious, of course. For some reason, the sandwich tasted better when he made it.

They’d chatted and then he’d said something funny, which made her laugh, hard. She’d covered her mouth and he’d pulled away her hand.

“Why do you do that?” he’d asked.