Chapter 50
Liz had been wrong. Within minutes of settling into the bed, she was asleep. The trip had been more exhausting than she had realized.
The next morning, she woke to the sound of something ringing shrilly in her ear. She groaned, but didn’t open her eyes, not yet ready to leave the peacefulness of sleep. Instead, she snuggled deeper into her pillow, smiling as she inhaled its musky scent. As she slowly gained more consciousness, wondering how a dingy hotel pillow could smell so good, she felt something tighten around her as the pillow shifted. The ringing still hadn’t stopped, but had moved slightly farther from her ear.
She tightened her grip around her pillow, then froze when she realized that what she had been laying on was not actually a pillow, but a person. Her eyes flew open and she saw that she was laying on a man’s chest. Disoriented, for a moment she thought it was Jason, but the scent was all wrong. She slowly lifted her head, distracted by the drone of the alarm in her ear, and looked to see who she had been laying on.
~*~
Lucky was woken by a soft buzzing sound, off in the distance. He knew it was his watch alarm, but it sounded so far away, and he was so comfortable, he didn’t want to expel any energy to turn it off. Instead, he shifted and tightened his grip on whatever it was that he had been hugging in his sleep. Deep down, he knew the alarm meant it was time to get up, but he wasn’t ready to do that quite yet. It seemed like he had only fallen asleep moments ago, not hours.
As he began to settle into sleep once more, he felt a sudden coldness on his chest, as though something had been removed. Startled and slightly annoyed at losing whatever had been keeping him warm, he opened his eyes. Elizabeth was staring back at him, frozen in shock.
“What....?” he mumbled, not quite awake enough to process what he was seeing.
“Um....how....?” she responded, equally groggy. Lucky moved his hand slightly, bringing the watch closer to her ear, which snapped her from her fog. She gasped and pulled away from him, her face turning red.
Lucky sat up quickly, rubbing his eyes, hoping that when he opened them again, he would be seeing something different.
“What was that?” she asked, looking around the room for Lulu. She finally spotted her, curled up on a chair. “Why is she....?”
Lucky turned off his watch alarm, then followed her gaze. He got out of the bed and walked over to the chair. “Lulu! Wake up!”
The little girl shifted in the chair and opened her eyes. “It’s morning already?”
“Yes, it is, and do you want to tell us why you’re sleeping on a chair?” he asked, his mind wandering back to how good it had felt to be holding Liz, even if he hadn’t known that’s what he was doing at the time.
Lulu sat up and yawned. “You two kept kicking me in your sleep, so I finally just got out of bed and came over here.”
Lucky glanced guiltily at Liz, who blushed and looked down at her lap. She ran a hand through her tangled hair, wondering if it looked as bad as she thought. He caught himself noticing how beautiful she was, even in the morning, and quickly shook his head, looking back at his sister. “Um, sorry about that. I hope you’re not all bruised.”
Lulu giggled and got out of the chair. “I think I got out in time.” She hurried to the bathroom, leaving them alone in the room.
Lucky turned back to Liz and cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Um, we kicked her, I guess.”
“Yeah, I heard,” she said, pushing herself off the bed. She grabbed her purse and headed for the vanity area, switching on the light over the sink. Lucky picked up his shirt and pulled it over his head, then ran his fingers through his hair a couple of times. He sighed and grabbed the room key.
“I’m going to see if they have any coffee,” he shouted on his way to the door. “Be right back.”
Liz just grumbled in response as she brushed her hair. Once she heard the door close, she turned to make sure he was really gone, then knocked on the bathroom door. “Okay, missy, tell me the truth. Did your father put you up to that?”
“Up to what?” Lulu called out.
“Sleeping in that chair.”
“No, I told you, I left because you guys kept kicking me. It was like you didn’t want me in the bed, because as soon as I got out, you both sort of clamped onto each other.”
Liz blushed, happy that there was a door between them so Lulu wouldn’t see. “Um, sorry about that,” was all she could think of in response.
Lulu giggled and opened the door. “So do you believe me yet?”
“Believe what?” Liz asked, concentrating on applying her makeup so she wouldn’t have to look at her.
“That my brother loves you....and you love him back.”
Liz stopped what she was doing and spun around to face the little girl. “He does not...I don’t.....stop saying that!”
Lulu just giggled again and went over to her bag to find a change of clothes. Liz sighed and turned back to the mirror, thankful that Lucky hadn’t been there to hear that.
A few minutes later, he returned, grumbling about the motel not having any coffee.
“Forget about it, we can get coffee at the store,” Liz said, slinging her purse over her shoulder. She figured the best way to forget what had happened that morning was to completely ignore it, and pretend it never happened.
“Oh, right, the store,” he said, still somewhat dazed by everything. “We were going to buy clothes. Okay, I guess we can check out, then.” He grabbed Lulu’s bag for her and headed out of the room. After tossing it in the car, he hurried to the office to return the key and settle the bill.
~*~
“Elizabeth, just pick something and buy it!” Lucky shouted from outside the fitting room. They had been in the store for over an hour, and he had found something to wear within the first ten minutes. The rest of the time had been spent waiting for her to try on what seemed like everything in the store.
“I’m trying! It’s not that easy to find jeans that fit in K-Mart!” she answered, her annoyance showing through. K-Mart had been the only clothing store they could find near Lulu’s camp, so they had no choice but to get their clothes there. Liz had been having a terrible time finding a decent-fitting pair of jeans, which is why they were still there after an hour of shopping.
A few minutes later, she came out and dropped a stack of jeans on the return table. “Okay, I found a pair, let’s go.” They carried their clothes to the check-out, bought them, then headed for the bathrooms to change.
Lucky was done changing first, so he waited outside the ladies room impatiently, glancing at his watch. It was noon, so they still had time to grab lunch before Lulu could check in to the camp.
His thoughts were interrupted by a soft chuckle. He turned to see Liz grinning at him. “I can just see the headlines now: ‘Blue-Light Special: Rock Star Lucky Shops At Local Big K!’ Oh, now there’s a tabloid I would pay money for!”
Lucky frowned and looked her over, ready to toss back an equally scathing comment, but instead found that she looked really good.
“What?” she asked, looking down at her clothes when she saw him frown. “The jeans don’t fit, I knew it!”
He shook his head. “No, they fit perfectly,” he muttered, then caught himself. “Um, I mean, they’re fine. Come on, let’s get out of here. If I hear ‘attention K-Mart shoppers’ one more time, I’m going to go crazy!”
Laughing at his discomfort, she followed him out of the store, making sure Lulu was still with them. “What’s the matter, you can’t hang out with the blue-collar crowd anymore? Admit it, you’re just mad that there wasn’t a GAP here.”
Lucky rolled his eyes as they climbed into the car. “When are you going to give up that stupid idea you have that I’m some spoiled rich person? You’re acting like I used to with Nikolas.”
Liz shrugged, but didn’t answer him. She knew she tended to go a little overboard with her insults of him, but that day she felt like she needed to do something to compensate for what had happened earlier. She was determined to prove Lulu wrong, to show her that she didn’t love Lucky, it just wasn’t possible!
