Free Trying to Score by Toni Aleo Page B

paying for it. Even with Fallon saying that she wouldn’t be there the next day when he showed up, he went back, and more than shit she was gone. He would forever hold that look she gave him right before he walked out as the last memory he had of her. He spent weeks trying to find her and then was told she went home. He figured there was no point in chasing after her, she didn’t want him.
    So he turned to drugs and alcohol.
    “Why do I feel like you’re thinking too hard?” Lucas looked over, seeing that Levi was staring at him, his Kindle in his lap.
    “Because I am,” Lucas chuckled as he looked out towards the front of the bus. All the guys sat with their laptops, eReaders, and books, while Lucas just sat there. Sometimes he brought his DS but it was hard to play a game when sometimes he had to read what he needed to do. Lucas hated asking Levi to read his games to him, so mostly Lucas just people watched and looked out the window or slept on bus rides.
    “Want to talk about it?”
    Lucas shrugged his shoulders. He knew Levi was sick of hearing about Fallon, but he was the only one he could talk about Fallon to. Lucas’ mom still missed Fallon — she had been convinced that Fallon was going to be her daughter one day — and having to tell his mom why Fallon left him was probably the second hardest thing he had to do.
    The first being the day he buried his dad.
    Lucas slowly shook his head. “I am so fucked up.”
    “Huh?” Levi asked looking over at him.
    “I was an alcoholic turned pill popper all because I couldn’t cope with losing my dad or my condition. I then decide that instead of fixing the problem when Fallon left me that I was going to do more, and I almost lost everything.”
    Levi nodded his head, shutting off his Kindle as he turned slightly to look at Lucas. “But look at you now, you’ve been sober for four years, you are in a good place in your life…”
    “I’m lonely.”
    “I’m here and your mom is, and you can have any female you want.”
    “I want her.”
    Nothing was said as the two men looked each other in the eyes. Levi looked away first, shaking his head and biting down on his lip as he looked everywhere but at Lucas. “Dude, I don’t see it happening. Let it go.”
    “I need her, she made me feel normal. I didn’t need the booze when I was with her.”
    “You don’t need it now,” Levi pointed out.
    “I don’t need it but I want it. With Fallon I didn’t need or want it. I was happy, she made me happy.”
    “You haven’t really tried since Fallon, Lucas. No one is ever good enough.”
    “Yeah, because when you have had perfection, how do you get past that?” Lucas asked with a grin.
    Levi rolled his eyes as he took a deep breath in. “You act like you guys were perfect. You guys weren’t.”
    “Who is? No matter what though, we loved each other.”
    “I know dude, but I just don’t understand why you’re so caught up on her still,” Levi emphasized. “It's been so long.”
    “Because I still love her,” Lucas said simply, like it was already known.
    “Oh come on!” Levi yelled, causing a lot of the guys to turn and looked at them. Lucas rolled his eyes before leaning his head back into the chair. “You cannot still love her! You haven’t even seen her.”
    “I do,” Lucas said. “Why don’t you want me with her?”
    “It isn’t that I don’t want you with her, I just think it’s unrealistic. You…you fucked up dude. I don’t think she is over that.”
    Lucas weighed his words for a minute before nodded his head. “She might not be, but I learned from my mistake and I would never do that again.”
    “I don’t know dude, I think you’re grasping at something that isn’t there.”
    Lucas nodded slowly. “We’ll see.”
    The party Fallon was throwing was in the couple of weeks, and Lucas already had a suit picked out. He would go, he would see her, and he would get her back. The statement from earlier when he called was just her not