One Wild Night



After seeing the news online, Lucy dialed Harry's line. Although the problem of the Millers wasn't her business anymore now that she had told Tom to let Anita go, she knew that that Barry was still monitoring the Millers and would know about whatever it was that was going on.

"Hey, LuLu! Is everything alright?" Harry asked, surprised to be receiving a call from her.

Although he had planned not to receive any more calls the moment he stepped into his apartment since he wanted to spend the evening only interacting with his family, but Lucy was family too.

"Yeah. Did you see the news concerning Anita's brothers-in-law?" Lucy asked curiously.

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. Let's meet in my office in the morning and I will give you the details," Harry promised.

"Does that mean you have heard from Barry?"

"Yes. I believe with this case we can handle everything. Don't worry and go to bed Lucy. Everything is okay," Harry assured her before hanging up.

If Harry said everything was okay, then everything was fine, Lucy decided as she returned to the bathroom to dry her hair which was still damp.

She had gotten out of the bathtub immediately she saw the news and had only wrapped a towel around herself before dialing Harry's line because she felt it would be indecent to call him while naked.

After blow drying her hair, she returned to the bedroom and dressed in only an oversized tshirt before crawling under her duvet.

The bed felt strange. It was funny that her own bed now felt strange simply because she had spent the last couple of weeks in Tom's bed. With him.

He had not been gone for up to four hours yet she missed him already. Even though they weren't exactly on the best of terms, she missed his presence. Lucy sighed as she shook her head to block out the thoughts.

She reached for one of the romance novels arranged on her nightstand and adjusted her pillows as she settled down to read.

One would think that by the number of romance novels she had read in her life she would be an expert in handling her relationship, but here she was with no clue on how to make her relationship work.

She was a sucker for happy endings in novels and even in the life of other people, but when it came to herself, she was scared shitless. Too scared to make that happy ending move because she wasn't wired to focus solely on those romantic moments.

It was just the same way she was excited about Sonia's pregnancy. As long as it wasn't hers, she was happy since Sonia was happy. It was something Sonia wanted. And because Sonia wanted it, she would welcome the changes that came with it.

She would probably be able to live with being responsible for another human being. A human being you would most likely have no control over. A human being who could turn out to become a psychopathic stalker or the pitiful victim of such a stalker.

Lucy shuddered at the thought and took a deep breath as she got off the bed. She picked up a pillow and her duvet and headed for the living room with her novel.

As much as she wanted to distract herself and relax it seemed like her mind had plans of its own and nothing was working.

Since her mind was being very active, she could as well put it to work by thinking of pleasant things instead of focusing on worrisome thoughts.

She wondered if Sonia had been able to tell Evelyn about her pregnancy and what the reaction was. In a way she wished she was there to join in the celebrations, but she would rather spend the night here on the couch in her apartment than sleep in that bedroom without Tom.

How would the next couple of days be without Tom? She would have to drive to work herself. Since Tom appeared in her life as her driver she had never had to drive herself to work, and the only time she had been away from him was during work hours.

Lucy sighed when her stomach rumbled, and she realized that she was yet to eat. She was hungry and there was nothing to eat.

She thought of going out to get something, and then she smiled when a memory of one of her first interactions with Tom came back to her (chapter 26).

So much had happened between them in such a short time, and so much had changed too, now instead of Tom, the people in the next apartment were Mia and Jeff, Lucy thought with a nostalgic sigh as she decided to order a box of pepperoni pizza instead.

She picked up her novel again and willed herself to concentrate on it until her pizza arrived.

As she opened the box of pizza another memory hit her. The last time she had eaten pizza, it had been right here in her living room with Tom (Chapter 55) and that had been the night he told her he didn't have sex with her as she had thought.

Lucy sighed as she chewed on the pizza dispassionately as though it was a chore. Okay. It was obvious that in the short time she had been with Tom, he had affected her life a lot more than she had thought possible.

Maybe moving back to her apartment wasn't such a bad thing. She needed to learn to live without Tom. Yes, she needed to learn how to enjoy her life without thinking of him every single time or making everything about him.

She was going to think of him as much as she could tonight, and then tomorrow she wouldn't. Until he got back, she was just going to put him at the back of her mind. She couldn't afford to miss him this way. How was she ever going to cope if she had to give up on him later? Lucy asked herself before she finally dozed off.

Away from there, Harry and Jamal were having a good laugh over winning Aaron and Candace who had paired up against them in most of the games they had been playing together since dinner.

After a while, Candace looked at Harry with a slightly raised brow, "When do you plan to tell us about your meeting with her?" Candace asked, and Jamal looked up curiously.

"With who? The lawyer lady?" Jamal asked, and they all turned to him.

"It's adult discussion. You've had enough fun for tonight, Jam. It's time for you to go to bed. The adults need to talk," Candace said as she rose not giving Jamal the time to argue.

"I thought this was family time. Shouldn't I be part of the family discussions?" Jamal asked, and Harry chuckled.

"Young boys need to go to bed early so they can grow tall. Don't you want to be as tall as your mom and uncle?" Aaron asked Jamal.

"How come I need to do a lot of things to grow tall?" Jamal head, wrinkling his nose distastefully.

"Maybe because nothing good comes easy," Harry pointed out.

"Is being short bad? What if I don't want to grow as tall as you? Can I stay a bit longer?" Jamal asked, and Candace shook her head.

"I want you to grow really tall and handsome…."

"Me too. Besides, Lucy likes tall guys. Can't you see how tall Tom is?" Aaron asked with a grin, and Jamal rose grudgingly at the mention of Lucy's name.

"I guess I'm tired," he said, and the adults hid their smiles.

"I will sleep in grandpa's bed," Jamal told them as he headed for the room, and then he stopped and turned.

"I guess no one is going to read me any bed time stories tonight?" He asked pitifully.

"Why not? Let's go," Aaron said as he rose from his seat to go with Jamal.

"Dad, you shouldn't be moving about without your wheelchair," Harry said as he rose to push the wheelchair forward.

"I'm fine. I need to stretch my legs a bit. I'm only going to walk to my bedroom, don't worry about me. You can start without me. I will catch up," Aaron assured Harry and Candace before leading Jamal away, eager to spend some time alone with his grandson.

"So?" Candace asked Harry who was still looking down the hallway in the direction Aaron and Jamal had followed.

"It was interesting," Harry said as he lowered himself back on the couch.

"I didn't wait all day just to hear that," Candace said with a scowl and Harry grinned.

"Well, there were tears. Tears of reconciliation," Harry said, and Candace raised a brow.

"She cried? Is she capable of tears?" Candace asked in disbelief and Harry chuckled.

"I did the crying. I felt so emotional meeting her," Harry said, and Candace rolled her eyes.

"Don't tell me she bought your act?" Candace asked, and Harry shrugged as he took out his phone to play the recording to her.

When she was halfway through it, Aaron joined them, "Is Jamal asleep?" Candace asked curiously.

"Yeah. What were you listening to?" Aaron asked cocking his head to the phone.

"The conversation between me and Sara," Harry explained as he urged Candace to resume listening.

By the time it ended, Aaron shook his head sadly while Candace merely stared at the phone and sighed.

"We are still meeting with the fake me tomorrow, right?" Candace asked, and Harry gave her a nod.

"Yes. By morning Sara will wake up to find out she is trending all over social media and she will have to explain how she has a twenty-eight years old son. Before noon she should be hearing from her long lost daughter. You will leave with me to the office in the morning. Jamal can stay back at home with dad," Harry said, while Aaron listened without saying anything.

"Alright. Let's do that," Candace said with a yawn.

"I'm exhausted. I should go to bed now," Candace said as she leaned towards Aaron and kissed his cheek.

"What about your date with the other girl? I thought that was today too?" Aaron asked Harry as Candace rose to leave, and she paused to hear Harry's response.

"Well, she sort of knew I was interested in Jade, and that Jade felt the same way about me."

"She did?" Candace asked, surprised, since she had been sort of irritated by Aurora's insensitive behavior when they met.

"Yeah. And she noticed you didn't like her much. She said you kept scowling at her when she talked about getting married to me," Harry said with a grin, and Aaron chuckled.

"Why were you scowling at her? Didn't you like her?" Aaron asked, and Candace shrugged.

"I have no problem with her, it's just that my loyalty lies with Jade. Jade seemed to like the Harry guy and I didn't like that her friend was going on and on about him without noticing that Jade wasn't comfortable. Now that I know she did all of that deliberately, I will be more friendly towards her if we cross paths again," Candace assured them.

"I'm off to bed. Goodnight," Candace said before walking away, leaving Aaron and Harry alone.

"I guess you can go out with Jade now?" Aaron asked with interest, and Harry grinned.

"We are going on our first date tomorrow," Harry confided, and Aaron's eyes twinkled.

"Good! That's so good!" Aaron said with approval, and Harry chuckled.

"You didn't say anything about my meeting with Sara," Harry pointed out, and Aaron shook his head.

"I'm really not interested in her. Now that I have your sister and Jamal with me, I want to spend my time making up for lost time with your sister and Jamal. I'm not interested in wasting any time thinking or talking about Sara. You are free to do whatever you think you need to do," Aaron said, and Harry nodded.

"Alright. We should go to bed too. I have so much I need to do tomorrow," Harry said, and they both retired to their bedrooms for the night.

Once Harry lay on his bed, his mind drifted over all that had happened that day and he sighed.

He was satisfied with all that had happened. His meeting with Sara had been good, the same as his meeting with Aurora and Aurora's hookup with Philip. Anita had made a public confession and apologized to Tom and Lucy. Rebekah Miller had managed to dig her own pit by giving them exactly what they needed to punish her.

It had been one very long and interesting day. A day well spent. Tomorrow however was going to be better, because he had it all planned out already. Especially his dinner date with Jade.

Jade Hank was going to officially become his girlfriend in less than twenty-four hours. He couldn't wait to show up at Tom's doorsteps to pick her up for their date, Harry thought with a wide smile and sighed in contentment as he drifted off to sleep.