Chapter Three

He didn't show up on the train for almost a week after our first encounter. I felt rather proud of myself, though, for mustering up the courage to talk to him once. Olivia was simply ecstatic when I told her.
"See? I told you that you weren't a good for nothing! Seizing the moment, just like your clearly wiser sister told you to do."
I scoffed at her and then decided to laugh. I didn't want to burst her bubble by telling her just because I talked to Luke on the train, it didn't make me any more talented than I already wasn't.
I fell asleep that night in hopes that I would have dreams of Luke, but instead I dreamt of Cedric. The fully teenage Cedric who sat on my bed in my old bedroom that had been engulfed by the fire. He told me a new story, and so in my dream, I fell asleep.
So the next day, when I got on the train to go to work, I saw Luke again, sitting by himself. I figured that since we were now on speaking terms, it would be socially acceptable and much less awkward if I sat down next to him.
"Hi, Luke," I said.
"Oh, hello, Cait," he said.
"You haven't been on the train for a while," I said. "long time no see, hm?"
"Yeah," he said. "I've been really busy with work and couldn't go down to London for a while."
“Busy with work?” I asked. “What do you do?”
"Oh, um..." he said, sounding awkward for the first time. "I work for this company. This factory. We make, er, motorcycle engines. I'm sort of the... Regulator. I make sure everything works all right and runs smoothly.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s interesting, I suppose.” He was just a normal guy, I assumed.
“Yeah,” he said, not looking me in the eyes. “Really important job. And it got a bit carried away. I love going down to London and meeting new people, but my job is my priority. It gets lonely sometimes, but I just have to keep reminding myself how important it is, and it keeps me going.”
“Yes, because motorcycle engines are of utmost importance,” I said, smirking.
“Hey, don’t diss motorcycles,” he said. “I usually ride one, but I don’t like to take it in and out of the city. It is almost always either in London or in Watford.”
“Watford? I live there. Why do you go there?”
“Oh… erm… one of the branches of my company is there.”
“I’ve never heard of a motorcycle company in Watford.”
“We’re very discreet,” he said a little to quickly. “We don’t like to publicize ourselves too much.”
“That doesn’t make very much sense, does it?”
“No,” he said, a smile slowly returning on his face. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
The train slowly came to a halt, and we exited together.
“If you’ve got nothing specific to do in London today,” I started, “you should come by my restaurant. Here’s the address,” I took out a pen from my purse and wrote it on his forearm. “We don’t get a lot of customers, so it’s nice and quiet at least.”
“Quiet,” he said, laughing slightly. “I haven’t had that for a long time. I might stop by.”
“All right,” I said much too cheerily. I cleared my throat and tried to calm down. “I’ll see you around, then.”
At work, I was in a good mood. My boss and the chef looked at me suspiciously. I really didn't pay too much attention to them, though. I was just anticipating the arrival at Luke, hoping that he’d get here soon and that he wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to leave.
But even as the clock struck eight o’clock, and closing time was in an hour, he still didn’t show up. My boss and the chef could tell and were slightly amused by the slight decline of my good mood since the beginning of work.
But at around eight fifteen, he finally showed up. Thankfully he was alone. I half expected him to show up with one of his friends that wear scandalously revealing clothing.
“Nice place,” he said, coming up to me.
I shrugged. “They pay me. Oh, you might want to order something, or you might be kicked out.”
He scoffed. “Right, because this place is so crowded with paying customers, you wouldn’t want to waste the space on someone who wasn’t paying.”
I put my hands on my hips before handing him a menu. “Just order something.”
He sighed, but flipped the menu open. He glanced at it for a moment, and then closed it again. “Can I just get a piece of chocolate cake?”
I smirked. “Right. I should’ve known. Sure thing, I’ll go let the chef know.”
I went back into the kitchen, told the chef to make some chocolate cake, and went back outside to Lucas.
He kicked a chair from under the table making it scoot out. “Sit down, you silly girl. You’ve obviously been working very hard.”
I looked back to see if my boss was looking, and when I realized that he had left over half an hour ago, I sat down.
“This place is nice and quiet,” he said. “I kind of like it. I’ve been in noisy crowds too much lately.”
“This place isn’t bad,” I said. “I mean, it’s better than nothing. It does get horribly boring sometimes, though.”
“Sometimes? This place is so bland.”
The little ding from the kitchen indicated that the cake was ready. I got up, went to fetch it, and gave the slice to Lucas before sitting down again.
“Not bad,” he said, his mouth full of cake. “But just like this place, a little bland.” He swallowed it and took another bite.
“It might be bland,” I started, looking at the crumbs of chocolate that fell onto the table, knowing I would have to clean it up later, “but at least it’s something.”
“Oh, enough with the ‘at least it’s something’ business. I’m all for being grateful for what you have, but you’ve got to want something. Live a little, Caitykins.”
I laughed. “Live a little. My sister is always telling me things like that. ‘Seize the moment’, she says.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah. Step-sister, really. Became so when my mum remarried.”
“So your parents split up?”
“No. No, actually, my dad died when I was five. Along with my twin brother, Cedric.”
“Oh, I see.” The atmosphere was only awkward for a moment, though, before Luke quickly broke it (thankfully). “So sister, huh? Care to set me up?”
I shook my head and laughed. “She’s with someone, unfortunately for you. His name’s Billy. They’ve been together for two years now. Crazy, when you think about it, they’re only in high school.”
“Well, that’s extremely good for her,” Lucas said, finishing up his chocolate cake, licking the last bits of chocolate frosting off of the fork.
“Yeah, I’m happy for her and all…”
“But?”
“What but?”
“I don’t know, it seemed as if you were going to continue on with a ‘but’…”
“Well… but…”
“Does she spend so much time with this Billy person that she’s not with you enough?”
“Oh, no, that’s not the case at all,” I said. “We spend loads of time together, we love hanging out with each other.”
“Ah. So you’re jealous of her, then?”
“Jealous? I don’t like Billy that much.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. You’re not jealous of the fact that she’s got Billy, you’re jealous of the fact that she’s got… well, someone.”
I raised one eyebrow. “Are you indicating that I want someone in my life?”
“Do you?”
I paused. I thought about it for a moment. “No, I’m perfectly content.”
“Content, but happy?”
I paused again. “How much excitement could I possibly get from life anyway? I mean, maybe someone else’s life, sure, plenty of excitement. But not mine.”
“You’d be surprised.”
I scoffed at him. “Yeah, like my sister says. I’ll be surprised. There’s nothing in my life, and I’m not good at anything, and I have no ambition to go seek anything out.”
Luke stood up, turned around, and began to leave just before saying, “Then I suppose you’ll just have to wait for something exciting to come to you.”