Light Beam

Chapter 26: Nobody Else Would Do My Laundry

The first place I went was somewhere I didn't expect I'd want to be. I knew who I was looking for and I knew it was his shift. Of the very few things I knew about Creepy Luke, this one was somehow the only one he'd voluntarily offered up the first time we'd met.

He was talking to an old couple with that sweet smile that reminded me that he didn't like me anymore.

I had to get his attention but going up to him would be too awkward. So I used my newly acquired skill on him. Just him. A flash that was disruptive enough to feel like something but not something you'd understand if you weren't looking for it.

He shakily stepped back from the couple and almost tripped on another waiter but caught himself just in time. His eyes snapped up to me and I saw disbelief there. He said something to another waiter and walked up to me, unsure.

I all felt so surreal. The genuine emotions in his eyes, the way he was actually smiling. At me. His eyes watering from the after effects of what I'd used on him and the way he stood. In the moment it felt right. I cupped his cheeks and leaned in for a kiss. Hoping he'd connect our lips. I wanted to spontaneous and impulsive and kiss him but I didn't know if he wanted that.

Just as I was beginning to lose hope I felt his lips on mine. I'd missed his gentle, sloppy kisses. He wasn't better at it but it made me feel so much better.

It felt like the perfect moment. His hands held my waist, his lips worked their awful magic and I think that for a moment there I was actually happy?

I pulled away and looked at his giddy happiness for a moment before I saw it transform into a nice big hug.

"I'm so glad you're okay," he said, holding me.

"Can we talk?"

"Yeah, absolutely." He pulled away and nodded.

He took me to the back of the cafe from the kitchen.

"Lenny, I'm so sorry I couldn't do anything," he said once we were alone.

"You're not a Super, there's nothing you could have done." I shrugged, "I didn't think you'd want to see me, you know, after I let Dark crush your fingers."

"They're healing." He said, a little less happy now.

"Well, at least we'll have matching scars." I gestured to my hand.

"What happened to you?"

"Punched a wall." I nodded.

"Sounds like the kind of thing Dark would do."

"He did. He broke me out of there." The heaviness returned. This impossible weight that I didn't know how to deal with.

"Oh, wow."

"Yeah. Uh--they're letting me be Light Beam again." I didn't feel happy or excited or proud of myself. I was just relieved.

"Oh, wow!"

"Dark's the price for that. He's been taken in, he's being charged with--with everything." My throat cracked at the thought. The fact that somewhere deep down I knew that this was essentially the end of his life. They'd never let him go. Not after all the shit he'd done.

Luke hugged me again, "I'm sorry."

"You don't have to be. He did break your fingers."

"Yeah but I am sorry. He's an asshole but he did pay my hospital bill. And you care about him."

"I basically put him there."

"Are you going to break him out?"

"Light Beam doesn't break people out of Super jail."