all american | lance tucker

ch. 25 • thanksgiving

Cara's P.O.V

I was pissed. Lance had really left in the middle of the night without telling me, and hadn't answered any of my calls all morning. I had to drive Aria to Adele's house (Lance was heading over there later for a surprise thanksgiving his sister had sprung on him) and had barely gotten home before I was throwing up. I had caught the flu from Ciara, who was just getting over it. And it was bad. I felt so weak I could barely stand, and all the kids wanted to do was play and jump around me. I was miserable.
At around 12, I was laying on the couch with the kids, watching TV and hoping that they were distracted enough to where I could nap when all of a sudden Lance burst into the house, slamming the door behind him.
"Hey guys!" He shouted, waking me up just as I had started to drift off to sleep. Ciara jumped off me at full speed, running to go say hi. I ignored him, closing my eyes and trying to shut out the noise of Lance tickling Ciara. When I opened my eyes, Lance was standing over me, just staring at me.
"Oh shit, I didn't know if you were alive for a second." He joked, sitting down next to me and feeling my forehead. "You're burning up." He said, concerned.
"Yeah. Happy fucking thanksgiving." I muttered, closing my eyes again.
"Do you want me to call your sister?" He asked, readjusting my blanket so that it was covering my feet.
"No. She's in Brooklyn for thanksgiving with Steve. Plus, I don't want to see anyone today. Why can't I just stay with you?" I whined. He shook his head.
"I have to go to my sister's. I would, but I can't." He sighed.
"Can't you just cancel?" I complained.
"It's thanksgiving, Care. My dad and my brother are in town."
"Lance. I have a fever and I'm puking. I can't take care of three kids on my own."
"I can take them with me." He then thought for a second. "Ugh, I don't trust you alone." He said to himself.
"Well then get me my phone." I snapped. He always had to be so difficult.
"Why?" He asked suspiciously.
"Because if you're not going to stay with me, I'm going to call someone else to." I said frustratedly. He handed me the phone.
"Who?"
"If you can sneak somewhere and not tell me where you're going in the middle of the night, I don't have to tell you who I'm bringing over."
"Touché." He sighed, sitting down next to me and pulling my feet into his lap. "You remember Marissa Copley?"
"Yeah. I trained with her for four years."
"She's married, now. That was a real nice surprise." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. It was already long enough to slick back.
I bet he was using my shampoo.
"You were at her house last night?" I understood now.
Ha ha for him.
"Yeah. Didn't tell me. I saw them on her fridge." He chuckled. "She did tell me something pretty interesting." He grinned wickedly.
"And that is?" I really wasn't in the mood to deal with Lance right now. Especially when he was being his usual self.
"She told me that you guys used to make out at parties." He said, pleased with himself for knowing this information. I rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, and I've seen you try and kiss yourself at parties. Alcohol does things to people."
"And you didn't tell me about it?" He pretended to act shocked. I rolled over, facing away from him.
"Go away, Lance." I groaned, kicking him with my foot. He held onto my foot.
"You know, I don't even like thanksgiving." He mentioned, leaning back against the couch. Huh, well he sure liked eating.
"Why?"
"Because I've spent the majority of my thanksgivings either alone for eating cereal out of the box because we were living in a two bedroom apartment on the south side of Brooklyn and could barely afford dish soap." He sighed. He was referring to when he used to live with all of his siblings, and had to move all around the country when he was in his teens.
"Where the hell were your parents?" Lance never really talked about this kind of thing. It was a tough subject for him.
"Back in LA, probably sleeping on their silk sheets forgetting that they had four kids." He shrugged. "You know, I was only fifteen. Rowan was eighteen, Adele was thirteen, and Rose was seven. That's only a year older than Aria." He looked out the window, his jaw set hard. "I think it really fucked her up specifically. We were terrible acting parents. That kid probably spent more time in front of a TV than she did sleeping at night. Well, you see how she turned out. Fucking hates me."
"How could your parents kick out their own kids?" I never understood that. Seven years old. The fuck?
"Well, to give them some credit, my brother did cocaine in the kitchen while we were eating, I was a teenage alcoholic, and Adele brought guys home. At thirteen. We were a shit bunch of kids. I think my parents were just pushed over the edge. Rose just got bumped along for the ride."
"You were a teenage alcoholic?" I hadn't known this. Like I said, he never talked about it.
"Yeah. Basically the same person as I am but fifteen with six fake IDs. I looked a lot older than I was. I used to get in so much trouble for drinking." He smiled fondly at the memory. Interesting. "So, they kicked us out. And that is why my dad fucking pisses me off so much." He patted my legs, getting up. "I have to get ready to go to Adele's. Tell Roman not to eat anything out of the fridge." And with that, he walked out of the room.
Sometimes, I wondered if Lance was psychic.
Later that day, after Lance was gone and Roman had gotten there, when I was "asleep" against his chest, I couldn't stop thinking about Lance's story. How much it made sense. All the trust issues, bad decisions, drugs, alcohol. It made so much sense now.
I had met Lance when he was freshly eighteen. He was really young, and he wasn't even living in New York yet. He was still living with a friend in Wisconsin. He was also living with Rose. Him and Rowan had split ways after a fight over something (that he had also never told me about) and with that, had also split the girls. Adele was with Rowan in New York. He was a pretty chill person when he was younger, really nice but also with that hint of sexual domination that now defined his personality. That's what made me so attracted to him back then. I sighed. I really shouldn't be thinking about Lance when I was taking a nap with my boyfriend.
"Roman?" I mumbled, pressing the top of my head against his chin. He gasped slightly as I woke him, and it took him a second to respond.
"Hmm?" He sighed, adjusting his arm so that he was comfortable.
"What is your family like?" I had never met any of his family besides Reeve. I knew his parents were in Staten Island, and they had three boys, Roman, Asa, and Reeve.
"Uhh, my dad is an engineer and my mom owns the company with me. Asa is a carpenter, and Reeve is studying to be a lawyer." He shrugged. "I think you'd have to meet them to truly understand the chaos of my family."
"I would like to meet them someday." We had never discussed meeting families, but I knew he was going to Staten Island soon to spend a couple days at his parents' house.
"You're welcome to come with me when I go there." He offered, twisting strands of my hair around his fingers.
"Really?" I was a little excited. I wondered if Asa, the middle brother, was anything like his siblings. If so, god help their parents. Reeve and Roman were enough on their own, let alone another one.
"Why not? My mom's been itching to meet you anyway." He sighed. "Just as a forewarning, it gets pretty wild when all of the boys are together, so you can't hold me responsible for anything I do or say."
"You talk to your mom about me?" I asked softly. This was a surprise to me.
"All the time. Although, she doesn't know that we were apart for a month, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention it to her."
"Wasn't planning on it. What day are you leaving?" I knew there was going to be a fight when I brought this up to Lance.
Well, it didn't matter. I was going whether he liked it or not.
"Two days from now. We'd be there for four days, so you'd have to pass that by Lance."
"Meh. Even if he says no, I'm still going."

Later that day, after Roman had left and Lance was back with the kids, I told him about the trip. And to my surprise, he didn't react at all like I thought he was going to.
"That's fine. The kids can spend a few days at Adele's. I'm heading to the beach for a couple days with some friends anyways, so it works out." He said. He was making dinner, his back to me so that he couldn't see the shock on my face. He never agreed with me about anything.
"What friends are you going to the beach with?" I was actually curious. I had a feeling by 'friends' he meant girls, but I wondered if he was actually going to tell me.
"Just an old flame. Or three." He mentioned casually. I smirked.
"Girlfriend?" I didn't think he did that. He scoffed.
"Hell no. Just some girls I know. No biggie. Meeting the parents. That's pretty big." Way to switch the attention to me.
"Yeah, I guess. Although, for some reason I'm not really worried about it." I shrugged. "Have you ever really met the parents?"
"Yeah. I met Cassidy's. And yours, but that was different because I never went over for dinner with your dad or anything. I got in a fistfight with him at the Olympics. That's pretty much it."
"What was it like meeting Cassidy's parents?" I met Jack's parents when I was a kid, seeing as we grew up together, so that didn't really count. Despite dating Jackson for over a year, his parents lived all the way in California, so I had never met them. And Louis, Lance's dad, was a whole different story. So technically, this was my first time really meeting someone's parents.
"It was scary. She grew up rich, and her parents were super proper and well-behaved, which my family never was, so I really had no idea how to act. Plus, they didn't like me to begin with, so dinner was kind of awkward."
"I wish we would've done the 'meet the parents' dinner. I really loved your mom." Lance had been 22 when his mom had died, so I had gotten the chance to meet her.
"Yeah, I miss her." He said quietly. "Now all that's left is that old sack of shit I have to call dad." He muttered.
"Do you think you two will ever get along?" Lance and his dad had butted heads for as long as he had been alive, and sometimes it seemed as if it was going to be that way forever.
"Well, he knows what I'm asking from. A simple 'sorry' and this would be done through, but he can't swallow his pride enough to realize that he was a shit father when I was growing up." He said simply. I refrained from mentioning that I had never really made up with my dad, and he had died before I could do anything.
"I hope our kids don't think we're shit parents when they get older. Hopefully we'll get better by the time they start remembering things."
"I don't think we're that bad." He waved it off. "Anyways, they're gonna hate us no matter what. That's just what it's like to be a parent." He explained.
Sometimes, I wished I was as sure of everything as he was.