6. Lux

SIX

LUX

I gave up trying to go back to sleep… or sleep at all.

The banging around in the kitchen meant Ace was in there trying to make breakfast, or maybe it was Parker. It was definitely someone who wanted breakfast but didn't know how to cook. Tanner never bothered, plus there was no way he'd be out of bed yet.

I'd get out there and nothing would be done and I'd end up making it anyway, so whoever it was could wait another fifteen minutes.

I threw back the covers, ignored my phone on the nightstand, and padded through to the shower. I didn't bother waiting for it to warm up before I stepped under the water. A blast of cold might help my brain fire up enough to make a decision, any kind of decision about what I should do with the number burning a hole in my cell.

Never had I ever spent an entire night debating on whether to text a girl or not.

Never in my life.

But she wasn't just a girl .

If she was just a girl, I'd have texted her before she'd gotten home. If she was just a girl, I'd have walked her home and kissed her goodnight, or better yet, invited myself in.

If she was just a girl…

The rumble of my stomach snatched me back to reality, followed by a loud crash, and an even louder clunk and clamor of pans. I switched off the shower before some real damage was done, and got dressed.

As soon as he spotted me, Ace stopped pouring out glasses of juice and held his hand up. "Wait, don't move."

I skidded to a halt. Ten seconds later I still hadn't moved, nor did I understand why I was still standing there.

The familiar opening bars of Hail to the Chief trumpeted out from the speakers around our huge living room. It was one of the reasons the four of us decided to take this place – the state of the art, surround sound media system, which provided the perfect combination of atmosphere and immersive experience for when we fired up the PlayStation. Personally, I preferred it for movie nights; I swear to God it's like you're actually in Top Gun .

It was the first time the United States Presidential anthem had ever been played in here, however.

The idiot in the kitchen was grinning so wide that he could audition for the next Joker.

"It's not that funny."

"It really is."

I leaned over the kitchen island and switched it off, leaving the apartment blissfully silent once more. "Your face says otherwise. Are you sure it's not broken? At least you don't sound like your tongue's too big for your mouth anymore."

Ace gingerly ran a finger down the length of his nose .

To put it kindly, he looked like shit. Thick, purple lines fanned along his orbital bone, as though he'd forgotten to remove the black anti-glare paint most of us swiped across our cheeks before a game.

It wasn't the first black eye/broken nose he'd ever had, but it was probably the first he'd had that was not caused by a misthrow to the face, or an errant bat flying through the air. Or anything baseball related.

"Nah, think it's just bruised." Even though his eyes had aggressively swollen, you could still see the amusement sparkling in them. "Looks cool though, right?"

I didn't think it looked cool. It looked fucking painful.

"You should have iced it."

He gave a half-hearted shrug. "I did. I put arnica on it too which is why it's so black. I need it to heal quickly because I've got my award ceremony to attend."

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about. "That's not for another six weeks, and you haven't been nominated."

"But I will be. There's no way I'm not getting the Cy Young this year." He held up a set of finger guns and blew over the top of them.

"Just tell everyone you've had a nose job," I grinned, "or a face lift. They'll believe it, too. No one can be as handsome as you without help, right?"

I think he rolled his eyes, but it was hard to tell. "How's your shoulder?"

Ace finished topping up the glasses and pushed one over to me. The tartness of the orange had me wincing through each gulp, but I downed it anyway.

"Sore, but nothing a massage won't fix." I squeezed along the muscles which had taken a battering when I'd hit the ground, but I'd had worse.

"Morning."

I spun around on the stool to find Parker and Tanner walking through from their bedrooms at either ends of the apartment, both of them rubbing their eyes. While they appeared in better shape than Ace, Tanner was definitely limping, and one of Parker's cheeks was redder than usual, including a small graze from when he'd hit the ground.

"Hey, how are you two feeling?"

"Sore."

"This is why I never played football," grumbled Tanner. "D'you think this is how they feel all the time? I might have a new respect for them."

"Yeah, but they wear pads to get sacked every week. We got tossed to the ground like sacks of potatoes."

"Ace definitely got French fried," Parker declared as he stood in front of him and peered at his face like he had a medical degree. He didn't. "Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, but on a scale of one to the time Reeves was tossing the ball around and I caught it with my jaw, it's a six."

I winced at the memory. That had been a bad week. Ace had been eating through a straw for a week, though he'd been so high on morphine that we'd managed to convince him he was Batman. I think Tanner might have actually pissed himself from laughing so hard.

"Hmmm. It looks worse."

Tanner slid out the stool next to me, scrubbing a hand down his face and yawning wide. "Strangest fucking night of my life."

"Tell me about it. The whole goddamn day was strange."

Parker flicked on the coffee machine. "Do you think we have to tell Lowe?"

It was a question I'd been going over all night – you know, in between all the thinking about Radley.

Technically, as head of communications for the Lions, Lowe needed to know about anything which could have an impact on the team. Four of its players getting involved in a… um… ‘disagreement' – for want of a better word – with the Secret Service certainly fell into that category, but then we have to go into why we'd had a ‘disagreement'. And the less said about that, the better.

Around four a.m. I'd come to the conclusion that no, we didn't, but that could have been sleep deprivation talking.

I shook my head, slowly. "That dickhead said he'd keep our names out of it, and as much as I hate him with every fiber of my being, I trust him, weirdly."

"Good. Let's keep it need-to-know." Tanner pointed at Ace as he reached for the juice, "And tell Payton not to blab."

"She's not going to blab. I haven't even told her."

The eyes of Parker, Tanner, and me all shot over to where Ace was still holding the bottle of fresh orange juice, all wearing the exact same expression of ‘yeah, bullshit'.

"Okay, fine, I told her," he swirled a finger around his face, "but it's not like I can hide this."

That was very true. He couldn't hide it, because two-thirds of his face was purple. If he walked into the street, people would point more than usual. "You're going to need to stay inside for the next month."

"Yeah, like that's going to happen," he scoffed.

"Dude, if anyone sees you…" Parker pressed on, "you need to keep a low profile."

Ace tried to roll his eyes again, tried , but failed. "Fuck that. I'm not staying in this apartment for a month."

"Either that, or you put out a statement saying you had a nose job."

"Or a facelift."

"If Shepherd gets a whiff of this, he'll be on the first flight to D.C. to ream out whoever's in charge of Secret Service for breaking his players. If we don't get to the World Series next year, he'll definitely blame them."

"Isn't Lux's new girlfriend's mom in charge of the Secret Service?" The laughter died on Parker's lips when I punched him in the arm. "Ouch, fuck."

"Stop being a dickhead," I glared at him. "Now, where are we up to on the vacation situation? Can we rent an island? Ace can hide on an island."

Parker rubbed his arm dramatically, and let out a big huff. "What about Costa Rica?"

"I thought we were going to Cabo?"

"Costa Rica has good surfing, and we can always blame his face on a surfboard accident."

"But I can't surf," Ace said with a frown.

"Then it's a perfect alibi."

I liked this idea, I liked it a lot. The sooner we were out of the city in fresh ocean air, the better. For Ace's face, and for me… to help me clear my head with other things . "When are we going again?"

"As soon as fucking possible."

The four of us peered down at the island as one of the three phones laying there buzzed. Tanner picked it up and groaned loudly.

"Oh fuuuuck! I forgot my sister! She's supposed to be staying here." He looked up at Ace, then over to Parker, and back to Ace.

"Um, yeah, Tan, she can't."

Tanner's eyes widened in panic. His twin sister, Holiday, was five minutes older than him and the brains of their operation, therefore, he could never say no to her, and they both knew it. I'd witnessed it on more than one occasion, and as someone who lived with Tanner and his inability to do the most basic things – like clean up after himself – it was impressive.

"How am I supposed to stop her? She said she'd be here in two hours to drop her things off."

"Make something up."

His head dropped to the counter. "Like what? She'll know I'm lying."

"Check her into the Four Seasons, tell her our place is being fumigated. She'll never come over if she thinks we've got bugs."

"I don't know if she'll buy it." Tanner scratched his head, which set the rest of us off rapidly scratching. Maybe we did have bugs.

My stomach rumbled again, which brought to my attention that while we'd all been standing here talking about bugs and vacations, no one had done anything about breakfast – except Parker – he'd switched the coffee machine on.

"Why's she here again?

"She's on Fallon on Monday."

"Why?"

One of Tanner's shoulders lifted in an I-don't-know-the-salient-details-and-don't-care -shrug. "Dunno. Why does anyone go on Fallon?"

"Okay, what do you know? "

"I know this… she's here for a few months. She's renting a place in the village, but she doesn't get the keys for a week. That's why she was staying here."

Ace reached for a banana, sniffed it, then put it down. "What's she in the city for?"

"Her new movie."

"What's it about?"

"Dunno."

"Who else is in it?"

"Dunno."

"Who's directing it?"

This time, Tanner took his time to answer, and grinned around at the three of us while he sipped his juice, until his eyes landed on Parker. "Martin Scorsese."

"What?!" Parker's coffee mug was slammed onto the counter. "How are you only just telling me this now?"

"I only just found out."

If Tanner had lapels, Parker would have grabbed them. Instead, he fisted the front of his shirt. "I have to meet him, Tan. You have to get me on set. Oh man, this is so cool."

"This is pretty big deal for her, right?"

"Yeah," he replied, unclenching Parker's fists and flicking him on the forehead.

Tanner's twin sister, Holiday, had recently become an actress. Or rather, she'd been an actress for a long time, but recently been launched into the Hollywood stratosphere.

She'd had a small but vital role in a movie which had swept last year's Oscars. It was one of those movies which always served to teach you some kind of moral lesson, so steeped in worthiness that you felt like a better person just from watching it… but inevitably fell asleep in .

Holiday had given us a link to view it here; we'd all settled in one night before Opening Day. I know I'd fallen asleep after Tanner had, but I'm not sure how long Parker and Ace had lasted.

Safe to say, we had to look up the ending on Wikipedia.

But this new movie… yeah. I didn't think we'd be falling asleep. For one, Parker wouldn't let us, based on his near obsession with Scorsese movies. We'd seen all of them.

But Scorsese or not, it didn't help with the current situation.

"She can't come here, Tan. She's going to ask questions. Get her into the Four Seasons."

"Okay," he groaned, banging his head on the counter again. "Fuck."

I slapped him on the shoulder. "I know the girl who runs the spa there, I can get her in treatments all day. She'll be so relaxed by tonight she won't question it."

"Huh, that's not a bad idea. Check me in, too."

"And me. I want to go," whined Ace.

"Dude, you're not going anywhere or seeing anyone. For the next week, you go out in the dark and that's it."

"Fuck off."

"Dude, you'll scare little kids." Parker ruffled his hair, opened the fridge, and started removing items. "You're the new bogeyman."

"It's possible no one will recognize him."

As well as making coffee for each of us, Parker laid out eggs, milk, flour, mixing bowls, and a fruit plate I'd prepared yesterday when we had our groceries delivered. But that was his limit.

When he was done, he rounded the island and nudged me. "Move then. "

I peered over my coffee at him. "What?"

"Move. I've laid everything out for you. It's breakfast time."

I slowly sipped my coffee. "One day you're going to have to learn how to make pancakes."

"But today is not the day."

I eased off the stool with a groan and a shake of my head; Parker took my spot the second my butt lifted off. Cracking the eggs into the bowl, I was whipping them up when I realized the kitchen was silent, and looked up to find the three of them staring at me. "What?"

"Are we going to talk about it?"

I poured out a cup of milk to mix with the eggs, adding Ace's rejected banana, plus cinnamon and nutmeg, because otherwise I'd have to make a separate batch for Parker, which I couldn't be fucked to do. "Talk about what?"

"Did you text her yet?"

"I did not. " The flour got mixed in next. "And… I don't know if I'm going to either."

All three of them leaned across the island like they'd rehearsed it, with Ace acting as spokesperson. "Why?"

I put the bowl down, and grabbed the skillet to get it heating up. "Your face for one. Tanner's limp, my shoulder, Parker's cheek. This isn't a girl I picked up after a game."

"Whatddya mean?"

"She comes with armed guards," I reasoned.

"She's still hot," Ace argued.

"She's a student."

"She's over eighteen," Parker added.

"She's still a student," I repeated, quickly following up with, "and a Phillies fan," before Tanner could add his argument, but then a shrill whistle pierced the air.

"Everyone, stop talking." Ace slashed a hand through the air, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Lux, where's your cell?"

"In my room," I whispered back, wondering why the fuck we were whispering.

Ace snatched Tanner's cell still in his hand, along with the other two from the island, including the one charging, and carried them over to the weird trunk we kept by the TV on the other side of the room. I think it contained blankets, but damn if I ever opened it.

"What are you doing?"

Ace closed the trunk and added the heavy stack of coffee table books on top, the ones our decorator said made the apartment look less bachelor-y.

He was back in the kitchen before he spoke again.

"What if they tapped our phones? They shouldn't hear you deciding on whether or not you want to date the First Daughter."

Tanner's brows shot up. "You think they tapped our phones?"

I wasn't going to add that the thought had briefly occurred to me during my midnight to six a.m. tossing and turning, because now it was voiced aloud, it sounded stupid… but also very possible.

"Maybe. But I don't think we should risk it. We don't need them hearing us decide whether or not you're going to date Radley Andrews."

"We're all deciding?"

Parker picked up a slice of pineapple and threw it in his mouth. "Yup. We all got beaten up. We're all in this. "

"Can we stop saying we got beaten up?" grumbled Tanner. "If they are listening, we shouldn't give them the satisfaction."

"Yeah, because they didn't."

I turned back to the stove, flipping the final four pancakes onto the stack I'd been building while my roommates made decisions about my love life.

Parker held his plate out. "Why don't you want to date her?"

"I never said that."

"What do you want then?"

I put the pancakes down and leaned back against the counter, scrubbing a hand down my face. What I wanted was the thing I'd been battling all night.

"When I saw her in the book store, she was hot. Cute… no… hot. Smoking. I saw her in the bar, and… yeah, she was hot. I did what we always do… got my game on, got her number, but my thoughts never went past hooking up. Right? That's never been what we go for." I looked around at the guys, all nodding, except for Ace and pointed at him. "Not you, anymore."

He grinned an annoying grin. Come to think about it, he had been kind of annoying since he fell in love. Smug was the word for it.

"Anyway, I can't have a hook up with the President's daughter."

"Doesn't have to be a hook up," said the only one of us with a girlfriend. "You liked her."

I nodded slowly. I had liked her. I liked that she was kind of snarky. I liked that I found her in the bookstore. I liked the way she was climbing up the shelves when she knew she shouldn't have been, and the fire I'd seen in her eyes when she snapped at me. I liked the way she'd asserted herself over the Secret Service douche, because it was a total contrast to the way she'd been standing at the bar, her hands tying up in knots.

"I heard that's she's been having a hard time with the guys."

My palms flattened on the island, and I leaned forward to Ace. "What?"

"Payton's bestie is one of her professors. She said the frat boys are making things hard. Something about photos." He snapped his fingers as something clicked in his brain. "Hey, that must have been why she was so popular in the bar last night, and why her security was so intense."

"I bet they're always intense. Did you see the big guy?"

I frowned at Parker. "He wasn't that big."

"He was Captain America."

"You mean Special Agent America." Ace snorted a laugh before he could stop himself, his hands flying up to hold his nose. "Ouch, fuck."

Yeah, that had to hurt.

But I was already thinking about any guy getting near to her, uninvited access like those two dickheads in the bar. I was very familiar with how invasive people could be, like you were public property, someone they owned just because they knew your name.

The line between public and private was fine. Most of the time I ignored it, managed to keep my temper in check when I wanted to smash a phone or two. But thinking about her going through what I did woke the caveman I was becoming familiar with.

Though on second thought, he was more like a dragon wanting to burn everything to the ground and take out anyone in her way .

It was unsettling to say the least.

Ace pushed off his stool and disappeared down the hallway leading to mine and Tanner's bedrooms. When he returned, he was holding my phone out to me. "Text her."

"I don't know what to say."

"Say ‘hi'."

Parker rolled his eyes at Tanner. "No wonder you're single."

"You're single too!" he snapped back. "No wonder Scout's boyfriend got there first."

Ace's whistle deafened us again; my hands were too late to cover my ears.

"Stop doing that! Jesus."

"Keep it brief, ask her what she's doing," pressed Ace.

I took my cell from him and turned it over in my hand, sliding the metal and glass between my fingers as I tried to figure out what to write. For someone who never normally had an issue with the English language, I was blanking.

For fifteen minutes I typed out words and deleted them. For fifteen minutes I ignored three sets of eyes on me and the exasperated huffs and tuts until I found a sentence which might work… though I had yet to decide what I wanted it to do.

"What do you think of this?"

I placed my phone on the island, and the three of them leaned in to read it.

"Yeah," Ace nodded, followed by the other two. "Perfect.

"Yeah?"

"Send it."

I hit the button before I could I have second thoughts. Here goes nothing.

Lux: So I guess you really didn't need saving then…