by Harlow Layne
Ryan ran a hand through his short blond hair. “You need to remember that Luke’s not Decker or Matt, or anyone else. You shouldn’t take out your past on him or any future man in your life. I know that I don’t know him, but if you’re messing things up, it’s probably because of Decker.”
“You’re probably right, but the way I feel about him is so profound for how long we’ve known each other.”
“It sounds like you’ve got to know him pretty well. Do you want to tell me how you almost messed it up?”
“I got jealous,” I cried out, flustered with myself. “Me.” I covered my face with my hands. “You know me and that I don’t get jealous, but when Luke told me that Lindsey Sinclair started talking to him on set, I lost my mind.”
“Lindsey Sinclair?” he asked, sitting straighter in his chair.
“Yeah, the Lindsey Sinclair that you think is so fucking hot. If Luke could have her then why the hell would he want me?”
Ryan sat in silence his mouth slightly hanging open.
Even Ryan, who’d known me for sixteen years couldn’t come up with a reason as to why Luke would want me over her.
“So, you got jealous and then what happened?”
I went on to tell Ryan everything from how I had first messed up to how I stopped answering Luke’s phone calls.
“Sounds like you went off the deep end.”
Looking down, I nodded. “I was a mess and I’m really sorry that I wouldn’t talk to you or anyone else.”
“And now you’re going to go visit him? Do you plan to tell him how you feel?”
Letting out a frustrated sigh, I answered. “I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I’ve only been in his proximity the one weekend, so I figured I’d see how I feel when I see him again and try to figure out what page Luke is on.”
“You really think he could be the one?”
“I think he could be the one for me, but I might not be the one for him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. You deserve to be happy and he’d be lucky to have you.”
“You think?” I asked. Insecurities were going to eat away at me if I didn’t get myself under control.
“I know.” Ryan answered with a reassuring smile.
7
My flight landed at LaGuardia over an hour late. I was in a panic once we touched down to check my messages to see if there were anything from Luke or Mason.
Mason didn’t have a cell phone, but his grandparents let him use theirs to keep in contact with me when he was staying with them.
Luke was supposed to let me know if he was going to meet me at the airport or if I’d have to catch a cab. In all honesty, I wanted him to meet me because I was as excited as I was nervous about being in New York City.
Turning my phone on, I waited impatiently for it to boot up as I exited the plane and made my way to baggage claim. I knew I should’ve tried to pack everything in my carryon, but I wanted to be prepared for whatever might come my way. Once the little apple disappeared on my phone, it immediately started to ping with several missed texts. All of them were from Luke putting my mind at ease.
02:15 p.m. Luke: You should be here soon and I’m on my way to meet you at the airport.
03:05 p.m. Luke: Your flight is delayed which you obviously know. I’m waiting inside by the entrance.
03:59 p.m. Luke: Text me when you get here.
04:36 p.m. Alex: I’m here and headed to baggage claim. See you soon!
When I saw Luke leaning against the wall at baggage claim, I didn’t think twice about rushing over to him and giving him a big hug.
“Happy Birthday!” I whisper-yelled as I tipped my head up to meet his eyes.
“Thank you.” Luke smiled before kissing me on the cheek. “Let’s get your bag and get out of here. What color is your suitcase?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ll know when you see it.”
Obviously being greeted at the airport was the way to go because once we turned around it seemed to only take a few minutes for my suitcase to show up on the conveyer belt.
Luke laughed, “Yeah, I see what you mean. Not very many hot pink suitcases with a big ‘A’ on the side of them.”
“Nope, it makes it easy to spot. I’m sorry you’ve been here for so long waiting for me and on your birthday.” I went in to grab the handle of my suitcase.
“Don’t even think about it,” Luke said while stepping in front of me and easily lifting my luggage as if it was as light as a feather. I knew it wasn’t since I’d had to pay because it was over the limit for the airline.
“Thank you for everything, Luke. I’m really glad I’m here and in case I don’t tell you before I leave - I had a really great time with you this weekend.”
Luke stared down at me with an odd look on his face. “You may have just jinxed us. What if we get into a huge fight while you’re here? You’ll be sorry you said that.”
I highly doubted that we were going to get into any fights and I asked him as we made our way out of the airport and slipped into a town car that was waiting for us. “Do you often get into fights with your friends?”
“Rarely. I’m a pretty easy-going guy, or at least I think so,” Luke answered.
“I think so too.” Looking around the town car as we sat in the back and the driver sped off toward the city, I was surprised we hadn’t taken a cab. “You hired a car to pick me up?”
“Nothing but the best for you on your first visit to New York City.” He winked and then leaned back in the seat like this was a normal occurrence for him, and it probably was. The only time I had someone drive me around was when it was one of my friends and that wasn’t very often because I easily got car sick. Something I wouldn’t think of now, in the hopes that I wouldn’t feel ill in front of Luke. It might be nice to be driven around if you were assured that you weren’t going to puke on yourself or passengers.
“I feel kind of bad that you had to plan everything, but I wouldn’t have known what to do or where to go. I’m so excited to see you though!” I clapped my hands and jumped around in my seat causing Luke to throw his head back and laugh.
Still laughing, he said, “I’m happy to see you too. You have no idea.”
“Oh.” I gave him a side hug with a worried look I couldn’t hide. “How’s the set been since you’ve been back? We’ve barely gotten to talk with how busy we’ve both been.”
Luke looked over at me, his eyes flickered with sadness. “Back to the way it was before. Lindsey barely talks to me now. It's like everyone thinks I have the plague.”
“Well, you were pretty sick. I’m just glad that you’re all better and we can have fun while I’m in town.”
“I would’ve made sure you had fun no matter how sick I was, I can promise you that.” Luke smiled wickedly for a moment before his smile slid off his face. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about before we get to the hotel and are seen together.”
That didn’t sound ominous or anything. I gave him my best fake smile. “Okay.”
“You probably already know this, but when we’re out together in public, we need to keep a safe distance otherwise the paparazzi will be relentless trying to take our picture. They’re always trying to get the money shot and any woman I’m pictured with is automatically my girlfriend.”
My heart sank as my hopes for what Luke and I could’ve been were dashed with his words. He didn’t want me to be seen as his girlfriend.
“I understand. I know how the media likes to portray things even if they aren’t true. Don’t worry I’ll try to stay an appropriate distance away from you, but can you…” I bit on my lip worried about getting separated in a big city as we tried to play off that we didn’t know each other.
Luke placed his hand on my shoulder. “Can I what? You can ask me anything, Alex.”
Wringing my hands, I answered. “I’m worried about getting separated and lost. The amount of people on the streets is astounding.”
“Hey,” Luke gently
said, his warm voice soothed me. Wrapping his hand around mine, Luke gave it a short squeeze. “I won’t let us get separated. We don’t have to walk everywhere if you don’t want to, we can use this car for the entire time. It’s up to you what you want your first New York experience to be.”
Giving his hand a squeeze back, I replied with a grateful smile. “That makes me feel a lot better.”
“Did you grab anything to eat for lunch or are you hungry?”
“What do you have planned?”
“I thought that you’d probably like to go to the hotel and get cleaned up before we went out to eat. I have a reservation for 7:30 and then I thought I’d show you Times Square at night. I didn’t have a lot planned for tonight because I wasn’t sure how tired you’d be, and I wanted to see what you wanted to do. I did get information for some places I thought you might want to see. I’ll give them to you and let you decide what we do for the rest of the weekend.”
“Sounds good to me. If you could tell me how I should dress, then that would be a big help. Hopefully I brought clothes good enough for where you have planned. If you can’t tell,” I indicated the simple pair of shorts and t-shirt I had on. “My style is not…”
Looking me over, Luke said. “Your style is you. Embrace it. Did you bring a dress? It doesn’t have to be fancy.”
“There might be a dress or two in my arsenal for the weekend. I brought way too much for the little amount of time I’ll be here, but I wanted to be prepared. It happened to me once and ever since I always way over pack for any trip I take. I don’t want to embarrass you if my clothes aren’t nice enough.”
Shaking his head, Luke laughed before pulling the end of his shirt up. For a moment, my brain short circuited hoping that he would lift it a little higher and I would get to see the six pack that I knew he was rocking underneath that shirt.
The sound of Luke clearing his throat, brought my gaze up to his. When I saw the knowing look on his face, I couldn’t help but blush.
“I’m sorry. What were you saying?” Instead of meeting his eyes, I watched his Adam’s apple bob while he softly laughed from beside me.
“I wanted you to take a good look at the shirt I’m wearing. This is what I normally wear. Do I have some fancy clothes? Yes, but I don’t like to wear them.”
I let my eyes wander as I took in his attire. “Guys can get away with wearing a t-shirt and jeans while women are supposed to be all glammed up. I’m so not the glam girl. Are you going to wear that to dinner tonight?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Luke answered. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but I’ll probably wear a button-down shirt with jeans.”
Pursing my lips, I thought about the two dresses I’d brought. One I had already owned, but the other I bought online after talking to Anna about what to wear. She’d helped me look online and find what I hoped to be the perfect dress.
“Whatever you wear will be fine. Don’t worry about it. It’s just me and you going out for my birthday.”
Laughter burst out of me with no chance of holding it inside. “It’s not just me and you. There’s a possibility that hundreds or even thousands of people could see what I wear tonight. You’re the one that mentioned the paparazzi. For me that’s a lot of pressure.”
“Forget the paparazzi and enjoy New York. If you let them, they can ruin the simplest of things. Does it bother you that we might get our picture taken together?”
What? Wasn’t it only about ten minutes before when he asked that we keep our distance because the media would assume that I was his girlfriend and now he was asking if it would bother me if there was a picture of us together?
“No.” My forehead scrunched up, confused. “I don’t mind being photographed with you. What I don’t want is the world to criticize what I wear when I’m with you.”
Even though Anna had helped me pick out an amazing dress, I knew that if there were pictures of us together there would be people out there who would say negative things about how I looked and no, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. I’d already had enough negative media attention because of Matt and I didn’t want more.
“Sadly, there’s always going to be people out there who are going to say negative things about you. You can’t take it to heart because they don’t know you. They only see what’s on the outside and while the exterior may be beautiful, it’s your interior that really shines.”
There was no holding back the tears that welled in my eyes after what Luke had said to me. He was giving me so many mixed signals - from telling me we needed to keep our distance, to stating that he thought I was beautiful. I knew that sometime during the weekend I was going to have to open up to him about my feelings and lay it all out on the line. I only hoped I got up the nerve to say what I needed to say.
8
Less than an hour later I was leaving the beautiful room Luke had arranged for me as we headed downstairs to the waiting town car. When I had walked into my room, there was no way for me to hide my shock. It was more than I could have imagined.
The walls were a warm yellow that made the room feel cozy and homey with large windows that overlooked the Hudson. The bed was covered in a gorgeous sea-green quilt that I couldn’t wait to wrap myself up in. All the furniture was a warm light-brown that was modern, but still made the space feel inviting.
It was the view of the water and the Statue of Liberty that took my breath away as I gazed out my window from the thirty-fifth floor. Lady Liberty was standing tall off in the distance, while boats zipped by without a care in the world.
Calling it a room was an understatement. What I stayed in for the weekend was a suite that was almost the size of my house back in Fairlane. It was safe to say that until that point in my life the hotel that Luke had lived in for months was the nicest hotel I’d ever stayed in.
Placing his hand on the small of my back, Luke guided me out to the car until we hit a crowd and he put distance between us. His face held a secret smile that drove me mad wondering what he was thinking.
Turning in his seat, Luke looked me over with appreciation. “You look beautiful. Thank you for being here to celebrate with me.”
One tan leg crossed over the other, making my already short dress ride up higher on my thigh. It was revealing, but worth it with the way Luke couldn’t take his eyes off me. I’d never owned a mini dress, but Anna was right. It fit me in all the right places, and with one of my new bras the sexy V-neck showed just enough cleavage. The gold dress was sparkly with crystal beading making me feel more girly and sexy. I only had one nice pair of heels and they were the ones that Matt had bought for me to wear with my Halloween costume. I didn’t want to wear them with Luke, but there was no way that I could afford to buy another pair.
Smoothing out my dress the best that I could in the back of the car, I couldn’t help but thank Luke again for setting up my trip to New York.
“You don’t need to thank me. I like doing things for my friends and it’s for my own selfish reasons.”
“I guess it’s hard for me because if my ex-husband ever did anything nice for me, he expected something in return and rarely was it something I wanted to give. Accepting gifts or good deeds isn’t easy for me even when I know that your intentions are good.” Shaking my head, my shoulders fell. “I’m sorry. It’s something I need to work on. For a long time, I didn’t realize how much I’d changed until there was so very little left of me.”
“I promise you that I’ll never expect anything of you because I gave you a gift, made you dinner, or a trip. Only give me what you want and if I ever make you feel uncomfortable, then talk to me like you just did, and I’ll understand. We all have baggage, and some is just a little harder to see than others.”
“You would be running for the hills if you could see all of my baggage,” I stated with a bitter laugh.
By the time we pulled up to the restaurant I was starving. I hadn’t eaten much since my breakfast with Mason and as I took in the high ceilings, huge windows, hanging
pendant lights and all the chairs and booths upholstered in a deep blue velvet, I became nervous. It was elegant and romantic; by far it was the fanciest restaurant I’d ever laid eyes on let alone been in. I wanted to pig out, not eat the amazing food that looked like art at I saw on the tables nearby. At least it looked like I’d have no problem finding something I wanted to eat. If anything, it was going to be hard to choose only one.
After Luke gave our name to the hostess, we were escorted to a secluded table by the far back corner. Luke waited and then pushed my chair in for me once I sat. There was a simple ease to his effort that made it apparent that Luke wasn’t doing it for brownie points or because he thought that was what he should do. No, Luke Sandström seemed to be one of the few gentlemen left on the planet.
“Would you like some wine or a cocktail?” Luke asked as I looked over the menu. It was fine dining at its best. I almost choked on the prices when I realized that our dinner would be well over four hundred dollars.
“No, thank you,” I choked out. Looking back at my menu, I tried to hide that I was looking for the cheapest food they had to offer.
“Alex,” Luke called gently. “Are you okay? Do you not like the restaurant?”
“The restaurant is spectacular.”
“But?” Somehow, he knew there was more I wanted to say. I obviously wasn’t good at hiding my thoughts or feelings tonight.
“This place is out of my league. I could never afford to eat here, and I feel like whatever I eat will be a waste of money.”
Tilting his head to the side, Luke sat his menu down. “Does nothing appeal to you? If that’s the case, we can go elsewhere.”
“Everything looks lovely, but the prices are astronomical. We could feed a small village for the price of what our dinner will cost.” I didn’t mention how much I hated when he insisted he pay for dinner tonight. “Do you eat here often?”
Until now, Luke seemed laid back and not the type who would shell out over five hundred dollars for a meal. Luke already seemed out of my league with his good looks and movie star status, but with everything else we had in common and how easily I found talking to him, it made me feel better about our differences. Now I wasn’t so sure.
