| Hybrid 15 Chapter 3 |
"I didn't think the movie was that bad," Luke remarked with a smile as he stared down at Jeremy draped bonelessly over the arm of the couch, snoring softly. Leslie chuckled as she looked at her little brother. "It's been a long day for him with the game and all." "Should I carry him to bed or something?" "Oh no! Jeremy would be mortified if he knew that you had to carry him. He idolizes you, you know," she added before standing to step over Luke's long legs which looked cramped between the sofa and coffee table. She gave her brother’s shoulder a hard shake. "Come on Jer," she said loudly. "Let's get you in bed." Jeremy slowly rose off of the sofa like the living dead and walked silently from the room. "I won't be a minute," she told Luke. "Jeremy will just fall into bed with his clothes on if I don't get out his sweats for him." By the time Leslie returned from making sure that her brother was at least attempting to shrug out of his clothes, Luke was ejecting the video tape from the VCR and replacing it in the plastic carton. "Well, he managed to get his shirt and shoes off at any rate," she told him as she took a seat on the couch. "Didn't stay around for the grand unveiling I take it?" "Jeremy's at that awkward stage where he wants to be treated as a man, but his body won't always go along for the ride," she said in way of an answer. "I try to give him his space. It isn't always easy living in such a small apartment, but we make do." "Jeremy said something about your dad going to conventions?" The tone of his voice rose slightly making his statement into a question as he sat down next to Les again. "Dad has a baseball card business over in Cincinnati and he travels around during the summer to card shows, buying, selling and trading. Jeremy's old enough now to be of some help to him and Dad did ask him along, but he wanted to play baseball again this summer so he came to stay with me." "It can't be too easy on you having a young boy to look after." Luke gently took her hand into his, lightly caressing her fingers while they talked. She looked down at their joined hands because of the pleasant tingle his touch was creating. She felt like a school girl afraid that her parents would walk in at any minute. "Actually, I like having him here. We live just far enough apart that visits aren't always easy so, in the summer, we get to know each other again. He likes to help out down at the store too and I think that it all works out rather nicely. Dad has the freedom to make the connections he needs and Jeremy still gets to play ball." "What about you?" he asked quietly. "What do you get out of it?" Les blinked several times as she pondered his question. "I don't know that I get anything out of it except being a part of Jeremy's life." "And that's important to you?" "Well, of course it is. He’s my brother and family is very important to me. I'd love to see Dad more often, but, with his business and mine, we only have the holidays." She looked at him curiously, then realized where his unusual questions originated from. "Don't you have any family?" Luke shook his head as he looked down at the ring that Les wore on her right hand. "It was just my dad and me." Lifting her hand to draw her attention to her ring. "From a sweetheart?" he asked, then lightly rubbed his thumb over the round cut stone with smaller baguettes that framed it. When she started to shake her head, Luke held up his free hand to stop her. "No, don't tell me." He pressed the ring more firmly between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing the top and bottom of the small circle simultaneously. "It was your mother's," he said almost absently. "She asked your father to give it to you...” He hesitated when he realized the path that he had taken. “Just before she died," he added softly. Leslie swallowed past the lump that suddenly formed in her throat at the memory. "Dad gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday." She smiled, blinking several times to avoid shedding tears, then asked breathlessly, "How did you know?" Luke shrugged uneasily. He had no idea when he started to finger the ring that it had so many emotions attached to it, but he felt each one as they came to him. It had been her mother's engagement ring and her last thought had been of her little girl. Leslie's father had told her the story behind it when he had given it to her and they both had wept. It was strange how the powers that he had played with as a teenager suddenly made him feel like an interloper. "It's just something that I do," he said lamely. "You mean, like reading minds?" He gave a soft laugh. "Let's hope not." Settling their joined hands down onto his leg, he tried to explain. "I remember reading somewhere that people as well as things have an energy to them. I just happen to be one of those people that can pick up images from the things that I touch." "Does it work on people to?" She hoped it did anyway. She wanted very much for him to kiss her, but she didn't know how to tell him that. Luke leaned toward her as he lightly touched her cheek, tracing the curve of her jaw from the tip of her ear barely visible beneath the fall of her hair, to the soft mound of her bottom lip, then back again. "It never has before," he whispered, slipping his arm around her shoulders to draw her closer to him. Les felt her breath dragging reluctantly from her breast. He held her in his arms only inches away, yet she could feel the energy that he had spoken about leaping between them. She had no idea that it was possible to feel so strongly drawn to another human being. She felt as if she would die soon if he didn't kiss her. She wanted to touch him the way that he had touched her, to memorize all the curves and planes of his face, but she was afraid. Afraid of him, of herself increasing feelings and of her need to be a part of him. His lips brushed hers only lightly, like a butterfly toying with the petals of a flower, and Les felt her breathing stop all together. His mouth caressed hers lightly once more and Les felt herself absorbed into him. Her hands reached up to cup his face to keep from losing the feel of him against her and Luke responded by taking full possession of her mouth. She slipped her fingers into his hair like grabbing for a lifeline, something real to hold onto while her senses spun out of control. She was drowning in the sensation of his touch, feeling each caress like an ocean wave crashing against the shores and being just as helpless to stop it. It was wonderful and frightening at the same time. As Luke pulled away, he gazed at her face as he gently touched a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. Her hair was like satin, her cheek like silk and he wanted to go on discovering each lovely new texture. "You lied to me," Les whispered breathlessly, then licked her lips to hold onto the feel of his mouth on hers. "You told me that you couldn't read minds." Luke smiled as he looked into the azure depths of her eyes. "I'm glad to know that I was wrong," he whispered playfully. "About a great number of things," he added thoughtfully, then took both of her hands into his. "It's getting late." Les nodded. She wanted to tell him that the night was still young and that the sunrise was spectacular from her bedroom window, but that just wasn't a step that she was ready to take. Instead, she followed him to the door with her hand tucked neatly in his and asked if he would like to come over for Sunday brunch with her and Jeremy. "I have a better idea. I'm suppose to meet some friends of mine at the ball park tomorrow to play some softball. Why don't we pack a picnic lunch and make a day of it?" She smiled up at him as he wrapped his arms around her once more. It felt surprisingly good to be asked to join in on his plans when he could have easily turned her down because of a prior commitment. Maybe there was more to Luke Jenkins than all of those silly rumors led her to believe. "It sounds like fun," she told him and received a chaste kiss in farewell. <*> Leslie reflected on the preceding week as she sat in the stands, munching on her hotdog and waiting for her brother's baseball game to begin. Things at the store couldn't be better with her sales up over ten percent from the week before. The '63 Fleer set that her father had gotten for her was the reason behind that. Instead of mailing the set to her as was the normal practice for her father, he had surprised both her and Jeremy by coming into town himself. But, as great as it was to have her father in town, it was Luke that made her step a little lighter and kept a secretive smile on her face. Spending part of her day with him had become a daily ritual. No matter what came up, they always managed to get some time to themselves. It didn’t matter if they were going through his collection of baseball cards which he hadn't looked at in years, or arguing about the upcoming World Series and which teams were more likely to be playing, or placing a friendly wager on a baseball game and then yelling at the umpires on television when they made a bad call, or simply talking. They had forged an instant bond and were quickly becoming inseparable. There was nothing exceptional in the things they did. It was just like an average day spent with her friends, but there was something different in her time with Luke. It had a magical quality that she was almost afraid to mention in case it would disappear in the telling. It was a certain look that she would catch in his eyes when they met each other and in the way that he held her hand and even in the kiss that he took a few minutes before the game for luck. Each moment had a magic of its own. "Are you going to finish that hotdog or just hold it for the flies?" Leslie's dad, Charlie, asked with a smile. She looked up at her father, almost surprised to see him sitting next to her at Jeremy's game, then down again at her hotdog where two large flies buzzed around to get a taste. "Oh," she muttered distractedly, then waved the pests away. "I guess my mind was wandering." “Your mom use to do that,” he informed her, not at all surprised to see her blank look. His little girl had finally fallen in love. "Luke's a good man," Charlie told her as he watched his son throw a few warm-up pitches. "Do you think so?" She looked up at him as a ripple of pleasure radiated from her heart. Her father's opinion meant a lot to her and the fact that he liked Luke was important. Her father gave her a smile that she remembered so often from her childhood. It spoke of love and mutual respect and pride that she was his daughter. "You could do a lot worse," he told her and gently patted her knee before turning back to the game. Luke had invite Les, Jeremy and Charlie over for an impromptu barbecue the day before and she had felt that her heart would burst simply from looking at the three men that she had grown to love getting along so well. She didn't try to pretend that she hadn't fallen hard for Luke and her father had prodded her with a number of questions about him, but he had seemed satisfied with her answers. His approval was simply the crowning touch to a marvelous week. "That's my boy!" At her dad’s rousing cheer, Les jerked her attention to the game that was already underway. Jeremy had already struck out the first batter and was barreling into the second. The ball was hit hard to the third baseman, but he fielded it easily and got the out at first. Leslie cheered along with her dad as the Crammer Cutters took an early lead and, by the end of the eighth inning, they were ahead by three runs. She was on the edge of her seat as the opposing team's best hitter stepped up to the plate. There was a runner on first and second and two outs. Jeremy had given up one home run to the boy all ready and she could see from the way that her brother fiddled with his glove that he was worried about facing the boy again. If the boy hit a home run, it would only tie the game, but, if Jeremy struck him out, it would be the second win in the best out of five series for the Cutters. Jeremy would be a star. Leslie could feel the tension of the crowd grip at her as Jeremy threw a strike first, then two balls. "Please don't walk him. Please don't walk him," she muttered repeatedly, feeling only a moments relief when a second strike was called. As Jeremy wound up for his final pitch, it was as if everything went into slow motion. The ball was struck with blinding speed that whizzed past Jeremy's head to make him drop to the ground, but the second baseman was close behind. When he caught the ball, he made an easy toss to the shortstop covering the bag and the game was won. Les and her father were both on their feet, screaming at the top of their lungs as they hugged each other, then turned simultaneously to the field. The team was gathered around the pitcher's mound as they usually did at the end of the game, but it wasn't cheers that brought them together. Les froze when she realized that the team was circling Jeremy who was still prostrate on the ground. Seeing Luke racing out onto the field finally spurred Les into action. Following quickly behind her father, they fought their way through the crowd, first in the stands, then through the team players to reach Jeremy's side. His thin body looked even smaller, dwarfed by Luke's who was kneeling next to him. She saw Charlie drop to Jeremy's side, whispering words of encouragement for him to wake up and the entire scene began to take a surreal life for her. At fifteen, she had slipped into the delivery room at the hospital when Jeremy was born without anyone taking notice of her. The doctor and nurses were attending to her newborn brother and her father wept quietly at her mother's side. She was dead. She couldn’t shake the cold, harsh memory and, when she looked back on that particular day, she wouldn't remember how she had gotten to the hospital or how long she had waited for any news about her little brother. A vague memory of Luke at her side and her father's stiff back as he stared out of the waiting room toward the emergency were the only things that registered with her. She felt so helpless. She couldn't do anything for Jeremy or for Charlie or even herself. She simply sat motionless in the hard, molded plastic chair with an emptiness inside. When the doctor came to speak to her father, Leslie looked up to the ordinary, round-faced clock that was mounted on the waiting room wall. She wondered if that would be the one thing that she remembered if her life were to take another tragically altering change. When her mother died, the one thing that stuck with her was that the pediatrician who had delivered her brother had worn the ugliest purple and green track shoes that she had ever seen. It was an inane memory, but one that haunted her with its clarity. The sound of sobbing tore at her heart and she turned to see her father standing next to her with tears streaming down his face. Her stomach rolled over violently as a single second drug out into eternity. "He's going to be all right," he whispered brokenly and Les sprung into his arms as her own relieved tears tracked down her face. Charlie ushered her in to see Jeremy for a moment before the nurses had the chance to return. He stood off to the side while Les lightly rubbed her brother’s chest and whispered in his ear. He looked so pale against the stark white of the hospital sheets, but he took comfort in the slow rise and fall of his tiny chest. His baby was going to be okay. He covered his eyes with his hand, unable to stop the flow of tears as he quietly sobbed. He had thought the worst when the doctor had pulled him aside and he didn’t think he could handle it. It had been the worst moment of his life. He’s going to be okay, he thought, trying to push the nightmare aside. He struggled to contain himself, sniffing and drying his cheeks roughly with his hand. His children needed him to be strong. By the time the nurse finally discovered them, Charlie felt reasonably in control once more. When they were ushered out so that the orderlies could take Jeremy to a room, Charlie approached Luke in the hallway. "Will you see that my little girl gets home safely?" "You know I will, Mr. Collins," Luke replied. Charlie shook his hand. "Thank you for staying with us, Coach Jenkins." He smiled at the formality of their words before turning to his daughter. "You go on home, sweetheart. I'm going to stay with your brother until he wakes up." Leslie nodded and tried to force her mind onto some of the minute things that needed to be done. "I'll bring back a change of clothes for you and fix up a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee...." "Don't be going to all that trouble, baby girl." He smiled warmly down at her. "I doubt that I'll be hungry, but if I am, I'll just get something out of the cafeteria here. You go on home and I'll stop by in the morning when Jeremy wakes up." She nodded mutely and gave her father a final hug before Luke escorted her to her apartment. Once there, Les immediately began straightening the mess that they had left behind that morning when they had gotten in a hurry to reach the ball field. She tossed an armful of shirts, pants and shoes into a closet, then moved into the kitchen to tackle a sink load of dishes. Luke's hands met hers in the sink as she sloshed around the water to make suds of the dish soap, then he reached over to turn off the tap. "The dishes can wait," he whispered softly as he began massaging her shoulders. Les looked down into the half-full sink of suds. She knew why Luke had stopped her. She was doing everything she could not to give into her thoughts. "All I could think about was the day that he was born," she whispered, hardly recognizing the sound of her own voice. "My aunt told me that my mother had died, but that was all right because I had a new baby brother." Luke's fingers tightened on her shoulder at the heartless way that she had been told about her mother's death, but he remained silent. "I remember looking at him through the glass in the maternity ward and I...I hated him so much." Her voice broke as she recalled the intensity of the emotion and lack of understanding that had caused it. "I hated him for being alive when my mother was dead and I wished that he was...dead too." Luke turned her quickly into his embrace, cradling her head against his shoulder as the hard-fought sobs wracked her body. She trembled uncontrollably. She gulped in air as she clung to him for support. The guilt from the past tormenting her when she was at her lowest. She knew that blaming Jeremy for their mother’s death had been a normal reaction at the time. Once that initial pain was gone, she was hopelessly devoted to her baby brother. "I had no idea how much it would hurt to lose him," she cried into his shoulder as she clutched at the back of his shirt. "I didn't know how much...I loved him until I thought...until I thought that he was gone." He couldn't offer her any words of comfort as his own tears joined hers. He had never been so scared in his life then when he realized that Jeremy wasn't moving. He needed to do something, anything, but found that the only thing that he could give was to be there for Leslie and Charlie. They had both become encased in their own private cocoons as they waited for the worst at the hospital. Thank God the worst hadn't happened. He knew that the tears would ebb and that she would find a new appreciation for the little brother, just as he knew that the tears were important to healing her old scars. It still didn't seem like enough, but he was glad that he could hold her and let the healing begin. <*> Luke woke slowly at the feel of someone shaking his shoulder. As he tried to sit up, he felt something holding him down, but his brain was still fuzzy from sleep and it took several seconds before he recognized the crown of Leslie's head resting peacefully against his chest. When had this happened? he wondered. "I thought I'd find you here." Charlie smiled down at the wild haired man. Leslie's father! Luke jumped slightly, then the memories of the day before rushed back to him. Jeremy's accident. The long day at the hospital. He rubbed at his eyes with his fingers in an attempt to get them to focus with so little sleep. He had talked with Les for hours afterwards, then she had fallen asleep in his arms while they sat on the couch. Luke let his arms drop protectively around her shoulders once more. "How's Jeremy?" he asked as he looked up at Charlie. "He's already been up and had breakfast an hour ago,” he said, then held up two small white bags. "I brought something home for us. I hope you like biscuits and gravy." Les moaned plaintively at the sound of voices, then sat bolt upright on the couch, wide awake. "Jeremy!" "He's all right, baby girl," Charlie quickly assured her. "I just left him at the hospital and he's already complaining about being bored." Charlie's lighthearted smile did more to reassure her than his words and Les let her head drop into her hands. Her head was pounding with every beat of her heart and her eyes burned. "I hope that's not how you always wake up," Luke teased as he gently pulled his leg out from behind her on the couch, rubbing at his thigh to work out the tingle of numbness. Les looked over at him and blinked. Hearing her father singing to himself in her kitchen while he prepared breakfast wasn't exactly the way that she had pictured waking up in Luke's arms for the first time. Neither was sleeping on the couch, for that matter. But she had never seen a man look more delicious in the morning. "How are you feeling?" Luke asked as he tucked a strand of ebony hair behind her ear. "Fine," she whispered and gave him a warm smile as she reached out to touch his hand. "Good morning." "The doctor said that we'll probably be able to bring Jeremy home tomorrow," Charlie called from the kitchen. "He said that his eye looked like it wasn't damaged too badly." “His eye?” Les vaguely remembered a bulge of white gauze over the right side of Jeremy's face, but she had been so relieved that he was alive that it was all she could think about. She was never told what the doctor had said when he had come to the waiting room. "What's wrong with Jeremy’s eyes?" Les asked as she jumped off of the sofa and went into the kitchen with her father. "Nothing serious sweetheart," he told her as he dumped a Styrofoam cup full of lumpy gravy over a biscuit. "That baseball caught him right on the edge of his eye socket and a small splinter of bone went into his eye, but they were able to get it out." Leslie sputtered at the news, a hundred questions going through her mind at once. "But how...when did they...what happened to..." Finally, she settled on, "Will he be able to see?" Charlie looked up at her with a blank expression from all of her half-sentences until she came out with one that he could understand. "I told you Les," he put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "He's fine. They did the surgery last night and he only has one tiny stitch next to the cornea. The doctor told me that it was actually a good thing that he was unconscious because, if he had been awake, his eye would have rolled around and the splinter might have been driven much deeper. As it is, nothing vital was even damaged." Les held a hand over her heart as she tried to steady her breathing. She had been in such a daze that the details, even such a major one, had escaped her notice. "I'm afraid that knocks you star pitcher out for the rest of the season,” she remarked to Luke when she saw him hovering in the doorway. She needed to get a grip on herself and baseball was the one thing that she knew that she could talk about without her emotions running rampant. Luke stepped into the kitchen to receive the plate of biscuits and gravy that Charlie held out to him while Les began fixing another plate. Luke slid open a drawer next to the sink and pulled out enough silverware for all of them. "I can't say that it won't hurt our chances, but Tommy Baskim is a fair pitcher...." With that said, the conversation turned once again to the topic of baseball and the three of them settled down to a family breakfast. <*> Jeremy was released from the hospital the next day and he stared at his face in the mirror at Leslie’s apartment while their father ran to the drug store to fill his prescriptions. "If I get the camera, will you take a picture of my eye for me?" Jeremy asked as he tried to catch a glimpse beneath the edge of the bandage, pulling at it without actually pulling it off. "You're not going to make me look at that thing again," Les told him firmly. Jeremy thought that the patch over his eye was "cool", but the eye itself was "awesome". He had been anxious to show his injury to anyone that would look and, being the caring sister that she was, Les had obliged him, but only once. Jeremy's eye was blood red and slightly swollen, which wasn't bad in itself, but the tiny black thread that was affixed to his eye nearly had Les doubled over the trash can to lose her lunch. "Dad will be back in a few minutes and Luke should be here pretty soon. He said that he was going to pick up a couple of video games for you before coming over." Les had expected the news of Luke's eminent arrival, with or without video games, to be met with a smile, but Jeremy's face suddenly took on a deflated expression. "Les," he started hesitantly. "Do you like selling baseball cards?" She wasn't sure if she was more surprised by his question or the sullen air of his voice. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it," she told him honestly. "Why do you ask?" "Well," he fidgeted, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans as he dropped his head. "Do you...do you think that Luke will still like me if I don't play baseball anymore?" Les thought that she did a fair job at keeping the shocked expression off of her face. Jeremy practically lived for baseball. He always said that he was going to grow up to be a famous pitcher some day. It was all he ever talked about, all he had ever wanted to be, but now he was thinking about quitting and she was pretty sure that she knew why. "Come here and sit down," Les told him as she took a seat on the sofa. Reluctantly, Jeremy joined her, sitting at the opposite end and keeping his head averted. "Jer, you're almost fourteen now and I know that you're smart for your age, so I'm going to talk to you like an adult,” she began as she searched for the best way to answer his fears. “Anyone who had just gone through what happened to you would be having the same doubts that you are having. It’s only natural. I didn't realize that you understood just how serious this accident could have been." Les paused for a moment as she thought about an incident that had happened to her, then, deciding that it was appropriate, she told her brother about it. "I just hate stories that start like this, but I don't know any other way to tell you." She gave him an encouraging smile. "When I was a little girl, well, you know that I played baseball for two seasons and I really wasn't much to write home about. But, when I was practicing for my third season, I broke my arm." She gave him a shrug to show him how little it had meant to her. "I was disappointed that I didn't get to play, but I got my cast off just in time to play the last couple of games. I didn't even make it through the first inning when I broke my arm again and I knew then that I had had enough. Baseball just wasn't that important to me." Jeremy shot her a shocked look. "Let me rephrase that," Les quickly amended. "Playing baseball wasn't that important. I still loved to watch it and collect the cards, but playing was out. No one would blame you if you decided to do the same, but you're not me. You've always loved playing even at the cost of broken bones. And you're good. Really good. I wouldn't be surprised if one day I had customers asking me for the new Jeremy Collins rookie card." He let out a burst of air as he smiled shyly. "So...are you telling me not to quit?" "That's not what I'm saying at all," she denied. "There's nothing that you can do about this season. You're already out, but that doesn't mean that you won't want to play again next year. What I'm trying to tell you is that you have time to think about it. You don't have to make your decision right now, but it is your decision to make. I know that Dad would love to have you trotting after him from one convention to another. But, whatever you decide, it won't change the way that I feel about you, or how Dad feels or even Luke. Do you see what I'm trying to tell you?" Jeremy nodded cautiously. "I think so. I should just leave it alone and see how I feel about it later?" He waited for her nod. "But should I say something to Coach now?" Les gave him a smile. "I think that Luke would be honored to have you trust him enough to talk to him about it. You can always change your mind later, if you want to." Jeremy gave a forlorn sigh. "Being an adult is hard work." |
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