I wasn't even looking (when I found you)

VIII. Kiera & Lukas

This chapter is kinda both of their POVs because I didn’t feel like writing two chapters of the same conversation to change, like, 5 things. 

Lukas wasn’t sure how he managed this, but he was laying on the couch, Kiera snuggled up in his arms with her head resting on his chest. 

She was tracing patterns on his chest, waiting for him to ask her a question. He almost didn’t want to. He didn’t want to disturb the peace that wrapped around them like a warm blanket. However, his curiousity got the best of him, and he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about her sooner?” He asked softly. 

She gave him a small, helpless shrug. “I don’t know. I guess…when I found out about her, the fight had already happened and everyone was mad at each other and at you and I felt like I couldn’t. And then when everything got better, I…I was just scared, I think. Scared of how you would react. Scared that you would get mad or want nothing to do with her.” She murmured, playing with the fabric of his shirt gently as she let out a small sigh. “And then there were the constant dreams, and I wanted to call so bad every time they occurred, and I would get so close to dialing the number Hugo sent me and then I would never-” 

“Yeah, me too.” He admitted. “After I turned 23, the dreams became…really frequent. Always about that night. I would wake up and…and I would call Hugo. It wasn’t until a few weeks before the race that I actually finally took the number from him, but I never…I never called you. I chickened out.” 

“Have the…have the dreams-” Kiera began, and Lukas nodded. 

“Since I found you again? Yeah, the dreams have stopped for me too.” He agreed, subconsciously playing with her hair. She had nice, soft hair. He liked her hair a lot. It was a nice color too, bright and colorful. It reminded him of sunshine, and it smelled like some kind of citrusy fruit. Orange? Lemon? He wasn’t sure, but it smelled good. 

“Lee Lee was always the reason why I would wake up from the dreams. Her and Wes would camp out in the living room a lot, and whenever she couldn’t sleep because of Wes’ snoring, she would come in and wake me up, wanting me to cuddle with her. But I managed to finish the dream a few times. I would…I would always wake up in tears.” She murmured. “I’m sorry. I…I shouldn’t have run away that night. I shouldn’t have pinned the blame on you. I shouldn’t have caused the fight between you and Hayley.” 

“Kiera, that fight wasn’t your fault. That was years of pent up anger and hatred that finally came out.” He assured her, hugging her tighter and burying his face in her neck. “I promise, you’re not the cause of that fight.” 

Kiera closed her eyes, enjoying how close he was to her. She nodded slowly, understanding what he was saying, and trying to accept the fact that it wasn’t her fault. “I stayed away because I thought it was my fault. We could’ve fixed things so much sooner. You could’ve met our angel if I hadn’t blamed myself for so long.” 

“I know. But you didn’t know at the time. You couldn’t have known. The only people who knew me and Hayley even had a history were Ali, Hugo, Lo, Madi, and Cha. We were all friends when we were kids. But other than that,” He shook his head. “No one knew. And we wanted it that way for a long time. But it didn’t end well, hiding that.” She nodded slowly. “So Hannah’s your mom?”

“Adoptive. Parker, he… my dad had an affair shortly before he died. That’s where Parker came from.” Kiera admitted softly. It had taken her a couple years to wrap her head around this idea. She had never pictured her dad as the cheating type. He had been an older guy, and she had been a result of one of her mom’s random hook-ups, but her dad loved her, and she almost wondered if he had loved her mom too. However, her dad had cheated, and Kiera had known since she was a kid. 

She was nine when her dad died. He had lots of friends, and there were crowds of people in every area of the funeral home. Kiera recognized every single one of them, except for the woman. She had been clinging to her mom, her arms wrapped around her legs tightly, when the woman walked in. She was young, with pretty blonde hair and hazel eyes. She wore a long black dress, and from the front, you couldn’t tell, but when the woman turned around, you could instantly tell she was pregnant. Kiera glanced up at her mom, and saw that she was glaring at her. “Mama?” She murmured. “Do you know her?” 

“Shut up, Kiera.” Her mother warned, but Kiera was a curious kid. She wanted to know who this girl was, and what she was doing at her dad’s funeral.

“But mama-” Kiera began again, and her mother turned her glare on her. 

“Kiera, what did I say!?” She snapped at her, smacking her in the head. “God, you stupid girl. Can’t you ever listen?” Kiera stopped asking questions after that. She stopped asking about the woman. She stopped asking about the baby. She stopped asking about her dad. Most nights, she didn’t even talk to her mom. Eventually, she wasn’t even her mom anymore. Simply a shell, a fragment of who she used to be. 

“Hannah had seen me at my dad’s funeral.” She finally continued, shaking herself out of the memory. “She was pregnant at the time, and my mom was mad. I asked questions, I got slapped. Hannah saw it happened. She couldn’t do anything while my mom was still alive, but once my mom died… She spent almost five years looking for me. She finally saw my face in an article about Hayley and Eugene. She found me and contacted me and,” Kiera shrugged, smiling a little.” The rest is history. She’s dating Scott and Cora’s dad right now. Hayley loves both of them a lot.” 

“That’s great.” He smiled softly, playing with her hair again. “I’m glad she found you. You, and Hayley. You both need someone like that in your lives.” 

She nodded. “And, it’s nice to not be an only child anymore. Now I have Parker and Cora and Scott. We do family dinners together and stuff every week, and Elij- Dad gets mad when we don’t show up. It’s sweet though.” 

“That sounds… really nice.” Lukas whispered, not knowing what that felt like. As a kid, his parents had never cared about him, or his sister, Persephone. They didn’t have family dinners, they didn’t show up to anything that either of the kids had going on, and most of the time, they ignored the fact that they even had kids. Him and Seph learned to fend for themselves, until Lukas ran away. He was 17 then, and ran away with Hugo and Alvin, his two best friends, his brothers. Alvin’s sister, Madeline, found them two weeks later, when they tried to sneak into her college dorm room to find money. But she didn’t send them back. Instead, she let them stay. The four of them saved enough money for them to all buy a small apartment, and that’s were they stayed until the boys all got called for racing. Sure, Hugo and Alvin and Madi and Logan’s sister Charlotte were like his family, but it wasn’t a replacement for a bad childhood. 

“You should come sometime.” She suggested softly, looking up at him. “I mean, you already know mama, and dad, and Scott, and Cora, and Evie, and Dec, and you’ve already met Parker. How scary could it be?” 

“I don’t know, Kiera. I mean, that doesn’t feel like we’re moving too fast for you?”

She laughed, gently brushing hair from his face. “Darling, we have a child together. Nothing about this is going to be traditional or slow. But if you’re not ready, that’s okay. We can wait a little bit before doing anything like that.” 

He nodded slowly, letting out a soft breath. “We can wait a little bit.” He repeated, although she wasn’t sure if she was repeating it to her or himself. Maybe both. “Thank you.” She heard him murmur after a few moments. “For letting me see Hayley. For giving me a chance. For being so welcoming, so… so…” You.

“I should be the one thanking you for the chance, since I’m the one who ran away and then hid the fact that you had a child from you, but,” She gave him a soft, loving smile. “Of course.”

He buried his face in her hair, and could feel as she let out a soft yawn. “Tired?” He murmured, and she nodded sleepily. “Let’s get you to bed. You need some sleep.” He helped her up and got her to her room, and somehow convinced to her to summon enough energy to get herself changed into some pajamas. Then, he laid her down in bed and wiped off all her make-up and everything from the day, and as he got ready to leave, she grabbed his hand, half asleep. 

“Stay.” She pleaded in her sleep-enduced daze, and who was he to tell her know. He laid down beside her and let her snuggle up in his arms. He didn’t know how he ended up here, but it didn’t matter. As long as he had her, he was happy.