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Lucy goes on a date and Mac goes on a hunt.

/

"All the leaves are brown, and the sky is gray. I've been out for a walk on a winters day."

California Dreamin by The Mamas and the Papas

/

Lucy opened the door to her bedroom, her friend Carla followed her, and they threw their books on the bed. As Lucy changed out of her school uniform Carla's eyes settled on the dresser where the latest picture of Lucy and Mac from last summer was, they had been on his bike again. She sat behind him because he never let her ride alone again after she fell when they were kids, she either rode bitch or she didn't ride at all.

Carla made a beeline for the dresser like her ass was on fire, picked up the picture and openly gaped; it made Lucy's blood boil. This was nothing new but it irked her every time because she couldn't tell anyone how she felt about him. Girls here and girls in Cainville all drooled over him, sometimes right in front of her, and they had no idea what it did to her or how mad it made her.

"Holy shit Lucy, he just keeps getting better looking every year," The girl turned to her, "Can I come with you next summer, I wanna ride that...bike." She giggled.

No, you can't fucking come with me.

Lucy was remembering the way it felt to put her arms around him on the bike the day that picture was taken, how hard his body was; the way he shuddered just a little bit at her touch and how they both pretended it didn't happen. She wanted to tell someone that he'd almost kissed her and that she wanted him to. There was no one to tell who would understand, certainly not Carla or any of the other girls she knew here. How could she ever bring it up to anyone?

"Earth to Lucy..." Carla snapped her fingers in her face, "All I'm saying is I'd love to visit Utah."

"I don't think so Carla, there's no place to get your nails done there," Lucy said as she changed into jeans and a t-shirt.

"There isn't?" She said with a shock in her voice, "How can that be?"

"Oh god you're ridiculous," Lucy rolled her eyes at this spoiled girl, "You wouldn't make it a day there."

"Says you," Carla answered and Lucy huffed.

"Trust me, you'd take one look at all the red canyon dirt and run for your life."

"I think Brad likes you, Lucy, you should go for it," Carla said trying to change the subject after Lucy called her out on being such a princess.

"Meh," She replied, "I guess." She shrugged.

Carla's eyes grew wide, "You guess? This is the president of the junior class we're talking about here, the tight end of the football team and trust me, it's a tight end, I've spent enough time looking at it."

Lucy rolled her eyes, she hadn't even looked once.

"Hey," Carla said softly, "Do you not like boys? It's totally cool if..."

"I like boys," One boy.

"So go out with him."

Lucy shrugged, she wasn't really into it, or him. After a while, Carla gave up on it and allowed Lucy to fix her hair and makeup in peace.

"Come on Melody is waiting, we'll miss the movie if we don't go now." Carla reminded her and they left in Carla's sports car, Lucy calling out "Goodbye" to her mother at the door and Sheila telling her to remember her curfew.

Lucy spent the rest of the night trapped first at the movies and then at the diner later with two girls who could not understand that if she liked boys, why was Brad not on her radar. It was a fun night mostly, she liked spending time with her friends, there was a time when she didn't have many friends, but she was getting braver. She was friendly with girls in Utah in the summertime, like Mac had wanted her to do all those years ago when he ditched her to go run the streets with his friends. In a way he had forced her out of her shell, she didn't know whether to thank him or slap him for it.

Carla and Melody were fun most of the time, but damn they were on her case all night about Brad.

/

Brad was a football player that made it very clear that he wanted to take Lucy out. It seemed like he was in every class with her and he stared at her all the time. The boy seemed to appear at her locker often and in the same hallway as her too. Sometimes he walked with her to class, and they talked some, he was ok, a little boring, not overly smart. She couldn't see herself discussing books with him or music or anything really. But it was obvious to everyone that he was interested.

He was very good looking and all the girls wanted to date him, fell over themselves practically for his attention; but he had set his eyes on Lucy. She really didn't see the appeal of him at all, when she looked at him she didn't feel a thing. No butterflies in the stomach and no incessant heat all over her body like in the hallway with Mac.

That feeling had been foreign to her when it happened with Mac that day, but not unwelcome. Now she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Lucy had avoided Brad successfully for two months but finally, he won her over and she agreed to a movie date even though she had no attraction to him. It was pleasant enough, like going to the movies with a friend, even though the boy clearly wanted more. He just wasn't her type she thought to herself, that's all. Then a small voice deep inside her asked; Just what is your type, or who.

He slipped his arm around her during the movie and all she wanted to do was go home and text Mac.

Brad kissed her goodnight awkwardly almost missing her lips completely and that was just fine with her. She thought about Mac almost kissing her the past summer, it had not been awkward, it had been fire. There was no fire here, no anticipation, no desire at all.

Brad asked for another date and she agreed mostly to keep her friends satisfied; they were all dating and she wasn't and the pressure was on to have a steady boyfriend, which she definitely did not want.

She didn't tell Mac about Brad during any of their phone calls and he didn't tell her anything about his love life either. That subject was now, don't ask, don't tell with them. Now there were things they didn't tell each other and each sensed there was something off between them now.

When Brad put his arm around her she felt nothing, nothing like the heart-pounding desire she felt just standing in the hallway with Mac. And when Mac put his arm around her or she sat on the back of the dirt bike with him, well that was something else entirely, it was lightning.

She couldn't stop thinking about what almost happened.

After her second date, Lucy called Mac intending to tell him about Brad, about how unsuccessful it had been and ask it had been all in her head about the almost kiss or if he felt something too. She had to know for sure, no more dicking around. He didn't answer and she looked over at the picture of them from the summer. Why did she have to feel this way? This fucked up attraction? Or was it love? With no experience to base any of it on she didn't know. But next summer she vowed to find out for sure. She had to know why when she daydreamed it was always about him and why no other boy could measure up in her eyes.

/

That night Lucy ran to the phone from the bathroom thinking it was Mac calling but when she saw Brad's number she put the phone down in disappointment and plopped down on the bed. She could kick her own ass for this, Brad was a nice guy but she just wasn't into him. And she knew you were supposed to feel something. Watching her parents wonderful marriage unfold had taught her that and she would never settle for less. If Mac was the one, there would be no getting around it. She felt so many things when she was with him, and if he was the one she wasn't letting anything keep them apart.

She reached over to the phone and tried calling him again, he was the one she really wanted to talk to, but he still didn't answer.

/

The good thing about having his drivers license, well, he knew there were a few good things about that, but Mac liked the fact that he didn't have to depend on his friends and their dumb ass's to the things he wanted to do. He could go out all alone, the way he preferred it, where he had total control of everything and he discovered the joys of picking up hitchhikers. And it was joyful, for him.

It was not lost on him that he was so similar to others that went before him, he had read enough about them to know this was typical. Hitchhikers were easy targets and prostitutes, usually, they were women all alone and it was so simple. Lucy had once told him he had a dark charm about him, that there was something behind his eyes that made you want to follow him anywhere and he used that.

Getting an unsuspecting girl to get into the car with him was like a game, and he enjoyed that part.

They were few and far between, most girls knew better but he had picked up two, far from home between the year he got his driver's license and the year that Lucy turned sixteen. One was brunette like Lucy and he drove her all the way to where she was going, lest she meet up with someone like him and never get there, but the other had red hair.

The redhead was never found. That girl spent three hours in hell, in the clutches of the monster with the blue eyes. He buried her broken and bloody body out in the desert where no one would ever find it and as he wiped his hands on his pants he decided this was much better than working in tandem with his friends. He was not the Leopold and Loeb type, more of a solitary madman, but he had known that all along.

/

"California Dreamin, on such a winters day."