"Hey, Lane," he says, hand on the doork.n.o.b.

"Yeah?"

"I'll need a few years."

"For what?"

"For the whole married-couple thing."

My heart lodges in my throat, stops me from breathing.

"Wait for me, okay?"

I nod, unable to speak.

He smiles. "I love you, Lois Lane."

I get home a half hour before Luke does, and when he enters our apartment covered in construction dust and dirt, I frown. "How was your day?"

"It was okay," he tells me. "I'm going to jump in the shower real quick."

He returns to the living room five minutes later, shirtless and in running shorts.

"You going for a run?"

He shakes his head, flops onto the floor between the couch and the coffee table, rolls his neck from side to side.

I sit behind him, ma.s.sage his shoulders, and he moans in appreciation. "Tough day?" I ask, kissing his cheek.

"I don't think I realized how hard our dads work until today."

"Did you hate it?"

"As weird as it sounds, I really enjoyed it. I mean, I'd worked for him before, but it was different today. I was in the mix, you know? It's good, hard, honest work. And when you think about it, we're building a house for a family, and they're going to live and make memories in there. It'll mean so much to them. It's... rewarding."

"So... you like working?"

He grasps one of my hands, stops me from working on his shoulders, and turns to me. "I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

"About what?"

"Well..." He moves to sit on the couch next to me and shifts my legs until they're on top of his. He ma.s.sages my knee, says, "This project is going to be done in a couple of weeks. After that, they're building a new house from the bottom up, and I think I really want to be part of that. See it through to the end. Dad said he could use the extra hands, and I could work around your rehab and our therapy, and it's not like we couldn't use the money."

"I'll get a job."

"Babe." He laughs once, waits until I'm looking at him. "You're not listening to me."

"I am. But this isn't 1950, Luke. I'm not just here to make you lunch and send you off to work to provide for me."

He sighs, his gaze distant. "I don't see the problem with that, Lane. That's how things were with my mom and dad, and it worked for them. The point is I want to work. And I want to take care of you. I don't want you getting a job until you're fully healed, and even then you don't have to. You can go to community college, build up some credits, or not... I mean, you can do whatever you want. You can sit around and knit all day. I don't care. I just want you to do whatever is going to make you happy."

"And this job," I ask, loving him more with every second, "this job is going to make you happy?"

"I think so."

"What about UNC?"

"UNC is months away; we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Chapter Forty-One.

LOIS.

We did cross that bridge. Lucas deferred for another semester. He was in the middle of building a house, and he wanted to see it to the end, so he did. I got my old job back, working at the movie theater, day shifts only. It was pretty quiet during the day, so I spent most of the time flipping through course catalogs trying to find something that interested me. It's been six months, and I still don't know what to do with my life.

My injuries have fully healed, but like the docs said, I still have a slight limp. That's never going to change. Neither will my undying love for the boy sitting opposite me at the kitchen table, watching me, his eyes worried.

"Why didn't Vivian give it to me?" I ask, looking down at the envelope addressed to Lois Sanders from an inmate at North Carolina Department of Correction.

Lucas says, "She wanted me to decide whether or not to give it to you."

I look down at the letter, back at him. Tell me what to do, Lucas.

"Do you want a minute?"

"No!" I say quickly.

"Okay," he says, just as fast. Then he sighs. "You want to go down to the lake? Dad just got a couple of jet skis."

"Jet skis?"

"One of his clients is moving overseas, sold them to Dad real cheap." He starts bouncing in his seat. "They're all down there playing."

"And you want to play?"

He nods, his smile wide, the letter now forgotten. "So bad."

"Okay, let's go play."

"Good," he says, standing up. "I got you something." He takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom, where he points to a bag sitting in the middle of the bed.

I rush to see what's inside, and when I do, my heart drops. "Luke." I lift the bikini. "What is this?"

"It's what you're wearing today."

I shake my head. "I can't wear this."

"Why?"

"I'll scare everyone with my scars."

He shrugs. "Don't wear it for everyone, babe. Wear it for me." And I know it's not about the bikini, or the scars, or the fact that people will see them. It's about my confidence, about how he wants me to see myself the way he does. The way you look at me, Lucas...

He loves me, wants me, emotional and physical scars and all.

I put on the bikini.

He tells me I'm beautiful.

I believe him.

Luke was right. Everyone is at the lake. His dad, my dad and Misty, all the kids. The only ones missing are Lucy and Cameron. Lachlan's the first one to notice the scars when we get to the lake. He covers his mouth, his eyes wide. Luke tells him it's rude to stare, and he runs off to Leo, whispers something in his ear. Luke says, motioning to an unused jet ski, "You want to go for a ride?"

I worry my lip.

"I won't let anything happen to you," he says, offering his hand. So I take it, follow him to the end of the dock where we had our first date, and he helps me on, gets on after me. I hold his waist tight as he starts the motor. "Do you know what you're doing?" I ask.

He says, "This ain't my first rodeo."

"When have you done this before?"

He turns to me, smirks, "Dude, I totally vacay in Malibu, like, every summer, bruh."

I laugh into his back, and a moment later we're moving, and I'm screaming and the wind and the noise and the speed and the b.u.mps and the waves and the twists and the turns and "I think I'm going to puke!"

"s.h.i.t!" He slows the jet ski but it just makes it worse, and so I tell him to go faster. He does. "Close your eyes," he yells. So I do. And it's different like this. All I feel is the sun on my flesh and the wind in my face and Lucas's skin against mine. I rest my cheek on his back, hold him tighter. "You okay?" he shouts.

"Perfect." Sensations are so much better in the dark.

Luke gets us safely back to the dock where Logan's waiting for his turn. As soon as our feet hit the ground, Luke says, "You're, like, totally the worst pa.s.senger I've ever had, bruh."

I push him into the lake.

Logan asks, "Did you puke?"

"Almost."

Logan hops on the jet ski, waits for Luke to climb back on the dock before starting the engine. Luke says, "I don't like Mean Laney."

I reach up, swing my arm around his neck and pull his face to mine. I kiss his mouth, taste the lake water on his lips. Then I kiss down his neck, to his collarbone. "Don't get me hard in front of my brothers," he begs.

I push my b.r.e.a.s.t.s into his chest.

He moans. "Naughty Laney."

"Laney! Laney!" Lachlan calls, his little feet thudding up the dock toward me, Leo following behind him. Luke uses my body to shield his excitement. "Look!" Lachlan shouts, stopping in front of me. He points to a jagged line drawn on in purple marker, right down the middle of his abdomen. "I'm like you."

"Sorry," Leo says, "He wanted to."

I squat in front of Lachlan, run my finger across the line. "What's this?"

He smiles wide. "They cut my shpeen out! Like you!"

I pout. "Did it hurt?"

He nods, motions for me to come closer. Then he cups his hands around his mouth, whispers in my ear, "But I'm better now. Like you."

As the sun begins to set, Dad and Logan build a fire while Tom and Leo go back to the house to get food supplies. I lie across Lucas in a lounge chair, look up at the sky. "I hope we're having hot dogs," Lachlan says, and I glance over at him searching the ground for more sticks to join the eleventy-three he already has in his hands. "Are hot dogs really made of dogs?"

Luke chuckles beneath me. "You've been eating hot dogs all these years, and you think they're made of actual dog?"

Lachlan giggles. "Dogs are the shiznit, yo."

Luke shakes his head. "You need to quit hanging out with Logan."

"You work all the time and Leo's always studying, and the twins are... the twins, so Logan's all I got."

Logan shouts, "What's wrong with me?"

Misty joins in. "Pee in a cup lately?"

"Burn!" I yell, and Luke stifles his laugh on my arm.

Tom and Leo return with bags of groceries and a giant cooler. "Beers and wine for Laney and older. Soda for everyone else."

"Oh man!" Logan complains.

"I just want a cup, please and thank you," Lachlan says, standing in front of his father, hands out, neck craned.

"We got cans of soda."

"I want a cup."

"Why?"

"I want to pee in it."