Jack eyed Lucy suspiciously from across the table.
She stirred her spoon blissfully around her coffee, paying no attention to how the sugar had dissolved minutes ago.
"You alright?" asked Jack slowly. "Still feel sick?"
"Hm?" She looked up as if she were a child who had been in the middle of daydreaming. She had forgotten to continue her act of illness for the past few days -- it was why she told Jack she had not met him for dinner. "No, I'm feeling better."
"Oh. Okay. Somethin's weird with you." Jack's face was semi-serious and he rotated his head so that he could only see her out of the corner of his eyes. "You're actin' funny."
Lucy straightened up in her chair at Tibby's restaurant. Her undeniably "chipper" mood was detectable; there was no doubt about that. She knew exactly why, of course, but she was not going to spill the beans that easily to Jack. She simply put on an oblivious smile and replied, "It's just a good day is all."
Jack looked outside at the sheets of rain pouring buckets from the gray sky. In fact, it had not stopped raining since the storm that sent Lucy and Spot inside in the first place. Jack shook his head and took a sip of coffee.
"Alright, I'll take yer word for it. It's only been miserable weather fer the past week but I can see how it's a good day…"
Lucy was at first put off by his comment. His tone was rather cutting. But when she looked at him in response, he simply smiled innocently, and that was her cue that he was just teasing. Her heart settled knowing her secret was still safe between herself and Spot, and she decided to make herself somewhat more cynical now, like a real New Yorker.
"I mean you're right, the weather's been a hassle," she balanced. "But I guess I haven't done enough walkin' around to really notice. I've only been from my room to work to here in the last week anyway…"
"Yeah, try sellin' papes in the rain an' then you can wipe that starry-eyed look off yer face." Jack bitterly bit into his roll.
"You alright now?" asked Lucy, noting his aggression towards an innocent breakfast food was slightly out of character for him.
Jack's lips spread flatly into his cheeks and he shrugged. "Just some newsie stuff. Brooklyn mostly."
Lucy perked up inside but she kept herself in check. This was the exact time she knew she had to start putting on an act. She replied in a clueless tone, "Oh?" and then played it up with dramatic repetition, "Oh. Brooklyn. I see…"
Jack nodded at her indication that they were on the same page. "Exactly. No real problems. Brooklyn just rubs me the wrong way sometimes."
Lucy continued her façade by nodding understandingly. "If ya don't mind me asking," said Lucy, unable to help herself, "what happened?"
Jack shook his head to express irritation and to show that something was really causing him a certain level of stress. "Just…you probably wouldn't understand since you ain't a newsie, but there's just some things Brooklyn does sometimes that piss the hell outta me. Mostly it's his cocky attitude that bothers me. He acts like he's got the most important job in the world and he don't need any help from anyone else. Just a son of a bitch sometimes is all. And he's been actin' even more cocky than usual since last time we talked. There's some issues we'se been discussin' and he ain't willin' to compromise nothin'."
Lucy looked down for she was unable to look at Jack face-on anymore. She pressed her lips together and gripped the handle of her coffee mug. Just before bringing the hot liquid to her lips she said absently, looking to the side, "I see…"
Jack shook his head. "Sorry, I'll stop. That's boring shit to get into. Tell me 'bout ya job, I wanna know all about the progress you made and the latest ways Molly's made you feel stupid."
Lucy choked on her coffee. "She's nevah made me feel stupid, what're you talkin' about?"
"Really? Nevah?"
"What're you gettin' at?"
"Ripped dress interview. Loiterin' like a stray outside the shop. Ya told us all 'bout it and acted all cool with it, like it was just a little detail in your story, but I could tell you felt stupid 'bout that stuff. You add it in as an afterthought to make the story bettah, but it's obvious when you get embarrassed. It's funny, you can't hide anythin', I pick up on it so easily," laughed Jack. He leaned back in his chair and yawned, stretching his arms backward, his head falling back as well.
Lucy remained still and felt a bitter sting in her stomach. Her face had paused in the middle of a fading smile with the last words Jack spoke. Her fingers were frozen, curled around the handle of her mug. Jack came out of his stretch and broke off another piece of his roll. Lucy's nerves in her stomach relaxed, and instead she could only hear her pulse thumping in her ears, which was not any better.
She cleared her throat and took a final sip of her coffee. She picked up her umbrella from the floor and got up from the table. "Well, I should be on my way to work…Off to let Molly embarrass me again," she added comically.
"Ha-ha, that's the spirit! I'll see ya later then."
Lucy forced a nervous laugh, "Right, see ya…"
She closed her eyes as she rushed towards the door until she felt the refreshing taste of the air outside.
"This might be my favorite smell," said David. "I don't know if that's too feminine or not…"
Lucy snorted a quick laugh. But she happened to agree about the smell in the air after it had stopped raining. The two of them stood leaning over the fire escape outside the Jacobs's apartment after having eaten dinner. Summer rainstorms are so peaceful and serene, it hardly seemed necessary that either of them engage in heavy conversation. The silence was not awkward or uncomfortable either.
"I think the air'd smell better if we weren't in the city, though," added David after several moments.
"You think so?"
"Oh yeah. You don't get all the smoke and debris around when you're in the country."
"That's funny, my father used to say the same thing."
"Really?" David sounded quite pleased at the comparison.
"Yeah, he'd sit in front of the open window sometimes just staring at the rain and also when it was over. Me and Jack thought he was crazy."
David laughed lightly.
"I see where he's coming from, though. The rain's pretty when you really look at it."
David sighed contently. He pushed himself from the iron ledge and leaned his back casually against the brick of the building.
Lucy toyed with the ends of her hair that danced lightly in a cool breeze. She looked down, looked at the chestnut brown strands curled into a natural, easy wave, and the mental images of Spot being drawn to them, looking at them as he looked at her temptingly, looking at them as if he could dive right in. And he desired her by the mere touch and feel of those light curls because of the way the rain had made them look and smell, like an aphrodisiac.
Lucy had closed her eyes seeing that afternoon in her mind in fast, beating flashes of memory like the beating of a pulse. She wrapped her hair around her finger and wondered what it was about them that made Spot respond in such a way. She gave up wondering a moment later to simply enjoy it, and if she breathed in the scent of her hair and the rain, she could breathe him in as well.
It was fresh -- the rain. But it was cold in a way. Rain always brought cooler air once it was over, drying her curls out and allowing them to straighten more naturally.
Spot was a different kind of scent, though. He was more like a toxin the way he invaded her mind and made her crazy, so much so that she would forget any problem that ever existed when she breathed him in in person. In person, she could let the toxin overtake her, be it healthy for her or not. She could breathe, see, touch, taste, and let it invigorate her.
But when she could not breathe him in in person she settled for this air, the rain, for the scent of it was just as sweet.
"Think it'll rain again soon?" asked Lucy into the open air.
"Maybe." David looked at her though she gazed out over the fire escape facing away from him. "Hope so."
Lucy dropped the hair from her hand and sighed. "Me too."
Jack wore the same agitated expression on his face as he had from breakfast when he walked Lucy home from dinner late that evening. It had gotten neither worse nor better, but Lucy could tell he was not thrilled to be concerned with whatever was on his mind.
"Still glad you stayed?" asked Lucy suddenly.
"What?" Jack knitted his eyebrows at the question.
"You were about to leave for Santa Fe after the strike. Do you regret not goin'? God, you've wanted Santa Fe since I think I was born…"
"No…" He lifted his black hat and placed it atop his head and it would seem that if he could not get to Santa Fe, the hat was the closest thing he could manage. "Can't really leave all 'a this."
"Even all that…shit…with the newsies?"
"Shit with Brooklyn," he corrected quickly.
Lucy nodded. "Right. I'm sure he can't be that bad, can he?"
Jack stopped. "Think I can't handle Brooklyn, Luce?"
She immediately stopped and threw her hands up in defense, feeling nervous, that somehow the conversation would shift and her dirty little secret would come spilling out. But Jack smiled slyly, noting his sarcastic demeanor, and they continued walking. Inside her apartment, Lucy lit a match and Jack made a beeline for the bed.
"A-ha, this is it," he said as he picked up a corner of the blanket.
Lucy looked behind her shoulder and made a puzzled face. "What…?"
"Esther said this might be why you was feelin' sick. The blanket's pretty thin, she said you might wanna get a different one, 'specially if it's been rainin'."
Lucy forced a smile and her jaws locked tight together. "Maybe…"
Jack dropped the blanket and shrugged. "I dunno. That's just what she said. I'll see ya later."
"See ya." Lucy noticed another nervous habit she had always possessed: along with her feet stepping on top of each other, her thumb and index finger would rub together anxiously, scratching the skin with nail and leaving red marks. She did this until she knew Jack was out of the entire building and practically down the street.
She looked down at her bed but had to look away quickly. She made her way towards her dresser and opened the drawer. Once it was open, she stopped and looked back at the bed. It just sat there, messy and unkempt, the sheets still tight but the blanket loose and carefree and untidy. She turned and confronted the bed, crossing her arms over her chest. Calm Lucy hovered above her head and said, It's not like you had sex in it.
"But there was definitely some foolin' around goin' on," she argued.
True. But you don't have to feel that guilty…
"Right."
…Yet.
Lucy scoffed and grabbed a hairpin from her dresser. She twisted her long hair around her finger into a ponytail and pinned it loosely so that it was away from her shoulders, wishing it still had a few waves in it. But it was not raining anymore, and the dry air made it straight. As she began unbuttoning the top of her dress, she paused again, for a noise so inaudible that she thought she imagined it resounded in her room. Looking around the room and seeing nothing, she dismissed it and started to unbutton the second button.
Then she heard the noise again. She whirled around and started walking a circle around her room, hoping she was imagining it and it was not a rat lurking around inside. She got down on her hands and knees and lifted her blankets from the floor to check underneath the bed. Nothing.
A third, louder thump resounded and her eyes flew to her window. It was closed, the black evening sky creating a portrait on her wall. She got up, heaved it open and looked down.
"Finally. You goin' deaf?"
Lucy felt a smile slowly work its way onto her face. She folded her arms onto the windowsill and rested her weight on them. "Throwin' rocks at my window. Are you serious?"
Spot's form was practically invisible in the dark. He hesitated but replied, "Fine. I'll leave then."
"No!" reacted Lucy instinctively. "I mean…What're you doin' here? I thought we were gettin' together Saturday night."
"Yeah."
"…So…what d'you…want?" she asked delicately, put on the spot, trying not to sound uninviting. But even if Lucy was in bed, sick and crippled at three o'clock in the morning without having slept for a week, she would have invited Spot inside.
He paused but said slowly, "Seriously…?"
Lucy laughed. "Alright, I s'pose you can come on up."
She shut the window and already felt herself shaking. She was smiling uncontrollably and she moved the way her nerves twitched about in her stomach: fast and unpredictable. She slammed the open dresser drawer closed and lit a kerosene lamp. And though she knew it was quite useless, she hastily smoothed out the blanket on her bed.
She exhaled and brushed some loose hair from her eyes. As she opened the door to walk out and meet him, he was already out there, leaning against the doorframe with his hands resting comfortably between his suspenders and his pants. Lucy felt her heart jump right up to her throat and she grabbed her chest.
"Think it'd be someone else?" joked Spot, smiling crookedly.
Lucy shook her head quickly. "No, no, you just startled me is all."
As she answered, Spot remained looking into her eyes and he gripped her arm, pushing her slightly backwards, closing the door behind him. All of this, while she stuttered away, and still, his eyes, his silvery blue eyes gazing powerfully into hers, pulling her in again.
"So…how was your day…" she struggled for normal conversation. "Anything new goin' on? Over the bridge…"
Spot's eyes rose to her hair as she asked these questions, and his hands gently grabbed her ponytail. He tugged it lightly so that her face tilted up towards his, silencing her.
"Stop," he said lowly, looking at her, even though she already had. His face now a few inches from hers, he pecked her on the lips softly. "My day was fine."
Lucy squeaked out in a weak response that gave proof to how she had completely melted, "Okay."
He pecked her again and in one fluid motion, took the pin out of her hair and her light brown locks fell to the middle of her back. He caught some of it, holding his hands at the nape of her neck. His thumbs gently brushed her cheeks and he kissed her.
Lucy felt herself turn to putty. She was in bliss. His hands, securely holding her face to his, had a strong hold on her, and as his lips were against hers, she thought to herself, about those hands, What's the use in holding on so tight? Lord knows I'm not goin' anywhere.
A/N: I totally just noticed how all the leading men in Lucy's life are present in this chapter...interesting...