Lila's Thunder: The Almeida Brothers, Book One (19 page)

“You know that p
lanes have always made me woozy,” Lila beamed, turning in her seat and giving him a challenging gaze. “I’m clearly distracted by my fear and it’s affecting my ability to focus.”

“Is that what you’re telling yourself?”
  Chase squinted an eye at her. “You suck at tic-tac-toe.  You have
always
sucked at tic-tac-toe.  This is not brand new information.”

“I am
great
at tic-tac-toe.  As I recall I used to kick your ass back in the day.”

Chase laughed heartily, “Back in what day?
  The ones you’ve concocted in your head?  Even when I tried to let you win back then you still managed to lose.  It was pitiful.”

“Bull
shit,”
Lila said, a little too loudly.

When the flight attendant shushed them Lila faced forward in her seat and didn’t make another peep until the safety briefing was over.

To her left, Chase had his eyes jammed shut, fighting not to laugh.

---

An hour into a flight, and after a few dozen more tic-tac-toe losses, Lila had finally thrown in the towel and crowned Chase the king.  They had spent most of the flight reminiscing about the old days when they spent every second together, the many memories they’d made, and laughs they’d shared.  It had been so long since it had just been her and him that Lila had almost let herself completely forget why she’d fought to be in his life for as long as she had.  He was her friend. 

She didn’t know how she’d let herself forget how kind and forgiving of a person he was, but sitting there next to him, reveling in the fact that he wasn’t even holding her terrib
le accusations against her, solidified that she would never put him through something like that again.  She would never hurt him, again.

After coming down from a fit of giggles reminiscing with Chase Lila slowly sobered up, stealing a handful of trail mix from the bag on his tray table and tossing it into her mouth.
  When it was halfway eaten she summoned all the courage she had.

“So are we ever going to address the elephant in the room or are you going to leave that to me?”

“I think you mean the elephant on the plane,” Chase corrected, clearly trying to distract her with cheesy jokes.

But Lila wasn’t having it.
“Common.  I’m serious.”

He closed his eyes for several long moments, taking a big, heaving breath, as if he were exhausted.
 “Apart of me was hoping we wouldn’t have to discuss it, at all.”

“Not discuss it, at all?
  Which part, exactly?”

“The part where you show me a picture of you and Jack
having sex springs to mind,” he said with closed eyes.

Lila swallowed hard.
“What about the part where you disappeared for three days? Or the part where you almost took Jack’s head clear off?”

“He started it, Lila.”

“He was scared to death.  He had no idea where you were.  He thought you were dead. There wasn’t a thing anyone else could say that would convince him otherwise.  Chase he was
crying. 
Jack!”  Lila beamed. “Crying!  He loves you and you scared the shit out of him.  So, yeah, he tried to kill you…”

He gave her a look.

“Who wouldn’t?” she asked, with a shake of her head.

“I already told you.
  I’m not going to hang around and watch while you two play house.  So I decided to go play house with Ashley, instead.  What’s the problem?”

Lila’s eyebrows scrunched together.
  Though many things about Chase were still the same-- the way they so easily understood each other’s dry humor, how conversation just flowed, and even some of the faces he made-- a lot of things about him were totally different.  He wasn’t willing to lie down and let her dominate the conversation, anymore.  He didn’t bite his tongue to appease her anymore, either.  If he felt something he now had the courage to say it to her face… And to deal with the aftermath.  He was a little harder, a little rougher now than he had been a few months ago.  His interior now was now in much deeper harmony with his exterior.  Tough, confident, virle… almost macho. She wasn’t sure if she was happy with that or not.

“Well… you could have called
someone.”

“Who?”
  Chase beamed. “The woman I love, who’s fucking my brother? Or how ‘bout my brother, who’s fucking the woman I love?”

Lila was stunned.
  “Chase--”

“I’m done talking about this,” he said, throwing his hand up. T
he distress in his eyes nearly ate the green orbs alive.

Apparently she’d been wrong.
  Chase wasn’t quite as quick to forgive as she’d previously thought.  The worst part was that she couldn’t even blame him. Lila was still thrown off by his words.  In fact, she was always thrown off when any man used the word love in reference to her, but that went double for Chase. The sound of the word on his lips was something entirely different from the way it had ever sounded coming from any other man. 

She realized she’d made a mistake for bringing up Jack, at all. What the hell had she been thinking?
  It was such a sensitive subject and she’d somehow decided that Row 10 on a Boeing 777 was the ideal place to explore it. Despite what had transpired a few days ago they’d managed to get along for the entire flight and now that was shot to shit. She breathed heavily through pursed lips, feeling trapped and faced forward in her seat.

---

A jolt from the plane landing shook Lila out of a deep sleep, and as she curled up under a sweatshirt she didn’t remember bringing, she was suddenly hit with the realization that it was Chase’s.  The XL Dalton sweatshirt covered her like a quilt, and was damn comfortable.  A smile crossed her face, and she looked to her left to see Chase in a white t-shirt with his muscular arms crossed over his chest, shivering gently in his sleep.  Why the hell were planes so cold?

Lila sat up, yawning. A
s softly as she could, she draped the sweater across his shoulders.

But not softly enough.

Chase’s eyes fluttered open and he smiled at her.  “So this is what it takes to wake up next to you?”

Lila had to look away
with a shake of her head.  Letting him see the grin on her face would only encourage him.

“Good to know,” h
e added with a cheshire grin.

She looked back at him, “We just landed.
  Captain says we’ll be at the gate in less than five minutes.”  Her eyes took in his sleepy face. “What hotel are you staying at?”

“Whatever hotel you’re staying at.”

“I don’t think so, Chase.”

“Don’t go getting all guidance
counselor on me.  Whatever fucked up shit we have going on between us doesn’t matter right now.  What matters is that there’s some god damn lunatic photography school drop-out who’s following you everywhere you go.  You’re in a strange city you’ve never been before while this is happening.  Do you really think I’m going to let you out of my sight for a second?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Well, you don’t have to.  We can just make it a little vacation.  We’ve never had one of those before.  Just you and me.”

Lila thought about it,
then laughed.  “No.  I guess we haven’t.”  She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, grinning.

“So which Hyatt are you staying at?”

She grinned at him from the corner of her eye.  “How did you know I was staying at the Hyatt?”

“I know you.”

“You didn’t seem to know me so well a few seconds ago.”

“You love the Hyatt.  It’s the only hotel you ever stay at because they give you free water and toothpaste.  I only asked where you were staying to be polite.”  He licked his lips.  “
You continue to underestime just how well I know you.”

The words sounded so simple, but held so much meaning.  Lila couldn’t respond.

Chase’s eyes searched hers. “It’ll be good.”  He reassured, “We’ll have fun.”

“Fun,” s
he repeated.

Lila wasn’t even sure she remembered the meaning of the word.

---

Lila was halfway through her interview with Dr. Allan M. Brandt, Dean of Students at The Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and she could tell that he loved her.
  She’d spewed all of the perfect bullshit answers, given him her best bullshit smile, and was succeeding in pulling off an all-around bullshit interview.

“Well, Lila, I’ve been following your work with the kids at Dalton for quite a while.
  I imagine if you’re offered this position it would be tough for you to leave them.”

This t
ime Lila didn’t have to pretend. “Tough doesn’t even begin to graze the surface, Dr. Brandt.”

“So tell me, if you are offered the position of teaching our Childhood Trauma course, what tools have the children at Dalton given
you
that you feel would help you excel in teaching this class?”

“Well…”
  Lila’s eyes widened.  What a broad fucking question if she’d ever heard one.  “Listen, Dr. …”

Dr. Brandt’s eyes widened in interest at her sudden change in tone.

“I’m going to give it to you 110% right now, okay?”  Lila unbuttoned the middle button of her suit and sat forward. “I’m sure you have fifteen more people just like me, just as educated and just as qualified, who are going to come in and interview for this exact same position, and you’re asking me to regale you with the horrors stories that my children have told me in order to gain leverage in your mind as someone who is worthy of this position, but I refuse to exploit them that way.  They’re way too good for that… and in a lot of ways they’re way too good for me.”

Dr. Brandt had leaned back in his chair, now looking riveted with a mix of surprise in there, as well.

Lila rolled her eyes towards the ceiling.“My sister killed herself when we were both terribly, terribly young.  I wasn’t prepared for that kind of pain in my life, and it still affects me to this very day. The real reason that I’m so close to those kids at Dalton is because… I need to know that if one of them decides to end it all today at least I know that I took the time to throw a few roadblocks in their way.  That might make me seem like a really caring individual, but it doesn’t.  It makes me a selfish individual who is using all of these kids as a way to fix what she so gigantically broke all those years ago with her baby sister.”

Dr. Brandt nodded.

“It’s easy to pretend that I am the shining martyr that saves these kids from themselves and welcome them with open arms but the real truth is that I’m not saving anybody.  Chase, one of mine, his parents died in a car crash.  They drove drunk. Porsche-- exploded.”  Lila made an explosive sound and threw her hands into claws for emphasis. “Just like that.  GONE.”  Her eyes widened.  “Fucked him up pretty good, but you know what?… You’ll never meet a better guy, a more forgiving guy, a more giving guy.  He’s only eighteen but he’s the real person who should be teaching this class because, out of the two of us—I’m sorry, the
three of us
—he’s the only one with any real balls.  The only one with the strength to face forward instead of constantly looking back.  I was there for him for a while because his
asshole
brother was too busy dealing with his own grief to even notice he was alive and, hey, what do you know, here’s another person shaken with so much darkness and sadness that he was
drowning
in it that I could be a rock for.  But, there I go again, Dr.  You see?”  Lila pointed to her temple. “I call myself
his
rock, but that’s bullshit.  If I was really his rock I would have let him go a long time ago.  I would have let them
all
go, but I can’t do that.”

Dr. Brandt’s face was stri
cken. “And why not?”

Lila sighed.
“Because pain doesn’t work that way.  Greif doesn’t work that way.  Trauma sure as
shit
doesn’t work that way. It’s complex, it’s fucked up, and it’s a rough fucking ride in a way I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of how to even
begin
explaining during a ten week college semester to bunch of entitled brats who think they know better than me.”  Lila took a deep breath. “I can’t save your kids, Dr. Brandt.”

“Well, you’re right. M
ost of the students here are entitled brats.  What most of them need is a good sock in the jaw, not a good saving.”

But Li
la wasn’t even listening to him. “He always tells me that I saved his life but he’s so, so wrong. It’s…”  Lila looked up at the Dean.

He was leaning forward on his desk, eyebrows furrowed.

“He saved me.”  Lila finished, blinking in shock when a tear tumbled out of her eye and down her cheek.  She immediately covered it with her hand and looked down into her lap, attempting to hide her face. “Sorry,” she gasped in chagrin.