Just a Little Insecurity

by Tracie Puckett

  “Yes,” I said. “He said he was with you.”

  She closed her eyes and a single tear streamed down her cheek.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching over and taking her hand. “I’m sure it’s nothing—”

  “Thanks Julie, but I think we both know what all this really means—”

  “Give him the benefit of the doubt,” I said, echoing Luke’s advice. “Maybe he’s just—”

  “A liar, a cheater, a worthless piece of—”

  “Ladies,” Luke’s voice interrupted Kara’s next insult. We both turned to see him approaching our table at the back of the library.

  With a quick kiss to the top of my head, he took the seat between us and eyed Kara.

  “Did I interrupt something?”

  Kara wiped her tears and looked away, avoiding Luke’s stare.

  “Hey,” he nearly whispered as he leaned closer to my friend. His protective side took over as he draped his arm around her shoulder. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

  “Matt,” she said, now struggling to restrain her tears. She buried her face in his chest as he pulled her closer. “He’s… and I’m… and we’re….”

  His eyes widened and he turned to me.

  “Julie,” he said. “Did you do this?”

  “Did I do what?”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “What did I say?” I asked. “Why do you assume that I said something?”

  “Kara,” he said, pulling her back to look her straight in the eyes. He lifted her chin and wiped away her tears. “You have nothing to worry about—”

  “I wouldn’t say that—”

  “Julie,” he said, looking at me from the corner of his eye. After a long glare, he turned back to Kara. “Matt cares about you. Whatever you think is going on, whatever Julie’s told you… put it aside, okay?” She nodded and he wiped away another tear. “It’s never smart to make assumptions without knowing all the facts.”

  “Interesting,” I said, matching his critical tone. “Is that a message for Kara, or for me?”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, now turning completely to look at me.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, rolling my eyes. “How ‘bout the lies you’ve been telling? Would it be wrong for me to assume something without knowing all the facts?”

  “Lies?”

  “I watched you leave the flower shop, Luke,” I said. “I called you, and you blatantly lied to me about where you were, what you were doing, and you haven’t even bothered returning my call like you said you would.”

  “Seriously, Julie?” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t turn this around—”

  “Turn what around?” I asked. He nodded at Kara as if I should’ve known what he meant. “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry I said anything, but she asked. I wasn’t going to lie to her.” He rolled his eyes and geared up to say something rude, but I didn’t give him the chance. “And while you’ve given me the great honor of earning a minute of your valuable time, I’d like to take the opportunity to tell you that you’re a real jerk for lying to me—”

  “I was on duty. I was on my way to the station to talk to Charlie.”

  “Then you could’ve just said that—”

  “No,” he said, completely ignoring Kara at this point. “I told you that I was swinging by the station—”

  “You said you were at the station—”

  “I don’t have time for this,” he said, pushing himself up.

  “Of course not!”

  I wasn’t surprised. Luke never seemed to have time anymore… not for me, anyway. He’d once had an obligation to me, to Charlie. Back then, he didn’t have a choice but to spend time with me. And now, if he didn’t have to, it almost seemed as if he didn’t want to.

  “I’ve gotta get back to the station,” he said. “I’ll see you—”

  “Wait,” I said, watching him turn back. “Luke, you owe me an apology.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t, Julie. I’m not going to apologize for your insecurities. I have nothing to hide from you. And if you can’t trust me… well, that’s your problem. Not mine.”

  “Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “Way to be an ass—”

  “Listen,” he said, taking a step closer. “I came by because Matt told me I could find you here. He said you’ve been hitting the books a lot lately—”

  “And you would’ve known that if you’d cared to pick up the phone once in a while—”

  “Julie,” he said. “I was going to ask you to come to dinner tomorrow night. But… offer reneged. I don’t have room in my life for your teenage drama.”

  “Luke,” I said, watching him turn and walk away. “Luke—”

  “Goodbye, Julie.”

  I looked back to Kara and she dropped her shoulders.

  “Looks like I’m not the only one getting cheated, huh?”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him—”

  “He’s a man—”

  “Yeah,” I said, wanting to get to the bottom of his—and Matt’s—strange behavior. Both of them were acting out of sorts. And their backwardness was really starting to take a toll on the people who loved them… the people who cared most about them.

  “Julie,” Kara said, looking as though she’d just come up with an answer to solve all of our problems. “Whaddya say to a little private investigating?”

  “Private investigating?” I asked. “Like… spying?”

  “You want to know what Luke’s up to, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And Matt’s clearly not himself.”

  “Clearly,” I repeated, lowering my brows. “You want to spy on them?”

  “They’re not being honest with us,” she said. “And we deserve the truth.”

  “So, we’re going to spy?” I asked again, still unsure of how I felt about her idea. But if it meant finding out what they were up to….

  “You in?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’m in.”

  Chapter Four

  Friday, February 22

  If someone would’ve told me five months ago that I’d be sitting behind bushes with binoculars, a camera, and a cell phone in hand, I might’ve just passed on the opportunity to job shadow down at the station. If I would’ve put my twenty hours in somewhere else—anywhere else—the remnants of the job wouldn’t have haunted me all these months later.

  But I chose to take Charlie’s offer.

  And I got stuck shadowing an arrogant, egotistical, pig-headed—did I mention beautiful?—officer, one who managed to make my life a living hell more often than not. And because I loved that man with every fiber of my being, I needed to know where he stood.

  So, there I was, on my hands and knees, spying from the bushes on the south side of town.

  But I wasn’t looking for Luke; I was trailing Matt.

  Kara and I agreed that it would look far too suspicious if Matt caught her spying on him, and the same for me with Luke. So we were doing each other a service; I’d spy on her boyfriend, she’d spy on mine.

  I’d followed Matt out of the house twenty minutes ago. He said he was on his way to the bistro, but he left home going the opposite direction of his supposed destination. It was on Frankfort Street that he stopped off at a convenience store, so I ducked behind a building and waited for him to come out. When he resurfaced, he carried a brown paper bag against his chest. With his sunglasses shading his eyes, his collar popped on his jacket, and his sneakers sloshing through yesterday’s snow, he continued down the street.

  He finally turned into the old historic district and I hung back a block. He disappeared into Lonnie and Grace’s flower shop… but he never came out. After twenty minutes, I ducked behind a bush and watched the door intently.

  Another half-hour went by and nothing else happened. He never came back.

  I pulled my phone forward and sent him a text:

  Me

  Hey. Stopped by the bistro. Noticed you’re not
here. Where’d you go?

  I waited and waited for a response, but he never answered my question. I felt terrible lying to my cousin… but he was lying to me. And no… two wrongs didn’t make a right, but I had to get to the bottom of this.

  “Miss Julie,” a voice said behind me, and Detective Bruno squatted next to me. “Who’re we spying on?”

  I threw him a sideways glance. “Don’t judge me,” I said, pointing a finger at him. “You poke your nose in people’s business every day—”

  “For the community,” he said. “For the law. For justice. I have a valid excuse; what’s your excuse?”

  “I think Matt’s cheating on Kara,” I said, and the words slid off my lips before I could stop them. It was only when I said it out loud that I realized how harsh the accusation sounded.

  But he didn’t argue. Unlike Charlie and Luke, Detective Bruno didn’t jump immediately to Matt’s defense. He simply nodded and settled in next to me.

  “You have any evidence?”

  “Would I be sitting behind this bush if I did?”

  “Alright,” he said, peeking out behind the plant. “He’s in the flower shop?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I’ve seen him there quite a bit lately,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Come to think of it, he was in the last three or four times I stopped by.”

  “Why?” I asked. I didn’t exactly expect him to answer, but it was assuring to know that he might have some insight. “What business does he have there?”

  “Why not stop in and ask?”

  “He’s not talking—”

  “Talk to Grace,” he said. “She’s bound to know something—”

  “I can’t,” I said. “It can’t get back to him that I’m poking around.”

  “Well,” he said, shrugging. “You don’t have many options here, Julie.”

  “What would....” I shook my head and started over. “What would you do… if you were me?”

  “If I were you,” he repeated, almost sounding as if he was glad he wasn’t. “If I were you and I suspected there was another girl—let me make it clear that I don’t think that—then I’d start with that beautiful young lady Grace hired to work the evening shifts,” Bruno said. “You could stop in. Ask her what she knows. But it’s too far-fetched. You’ve got to give your cousin some credit, Julie. He adores Kara.”

  I nodded and remembered the way Luke had leaned on the counter, talking (and flirting, maybe?), laughing and smiling. And then when I saw who he was caught up in conversation with….

  Anyway, like Bruno said, she was beautiful… whoever she was. And the last thing I wanted was to engage with her in any way (no matter how much I needed the truth).

  “What do you… do you know anything about… who is she?” I asked, looking down at my hands.

  “Are you asking for Kara, or are you asking for Julie?”

  I bit my lip but didn’t say anything.

  He looked into my eyes, holding my stare intently. His eyes moved quickly to my mouth, to my hands, and then he met my stare once again. He was studying me, searching for something… reading my thoughts, it seemed.

  “Luke loves you, Julie.”

  “I never said he didn’t—”

  “But you’re questioning it. Just like you questioned his motives in the beginning.”

  “Let’s agree that Luke is hard to read, okay? He makes it nearly impossible to know what’s going on in his head—”

  “He’s a Reibeck; it comes with the territory—”

  “Is she a Reibeck?” I asked. “The girl in the store? Is she family?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “She’s new in town, as far as I know. She stopped by the shop one day needing a job, and Grace took pity on her—”

  “Do you trust Luke?” I asked, knowing he’d never lie to me. “I mean… take the Detective and Officer titles out of the equation. As a person—as your nephew—do you trust him?”

  Bruno closed his eyes for a second and dropped his head.

  “Listen, Julie,” he said softly. “Whether I trust him or not, it’s not going to change the fact that you don’t. I could tell you a million stories, give you a hundred reasons to believe he’s an honorable man, but if you’re hell-bent on believing otherwise, nothing I can say will change your mind.”

  “You don’t think I trust Luke?”

  “Look at you,” he said, brushing a twig out of my hair. “You’re sitting in a pile of day-old snow and ice, hunched behind a bush, and spying on your cousin. You have Kara parked on the street outside the station waiting on Luke to get back from patrol—don’t deny it; I’ve had eyes on her all afternoon. You’re both clearly questioning the strength of your relationships. And with all the love and respect in the world, Julie, you’re both clearly unstable. Mature women don’t stoop to this level—”

  “But—”

  “Just think about it, okay?” he continued. “Luke’s already frustrated that you’ve brought Kara in on your suspicions about Matt. How would he feel if he found out you had the same suspicions about him?”

  My stomach hollowed.

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “No ma’am,” he said. “If your relationship is doomed to crash and burn, I’m not going to be the one behind the wheel.”

  I let out a slow breath and nodded.

  “We should probably go, huh?”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” he said, patting me on the back. “What do you say to dinner? My treat.”

  Friday, February 22, 7 PM

  “You haven’t touched your food,” Bruno said, nudging my bowl a little closer.

  “Sorry,” I said, putting my phone aside. “I… I thought I’d hear from Luke after his shift.”

  “No word?”

  “No,” I said, picking up my spoon. “I’m not really surprised. I’m sure he’s still mad about what happened at the library yesterday.”

  “Give him time,” he said, cramming a sausage link in his mouth. Bruno had opted for the breakfast platter—scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, sausage, and juice. I thought I’d find solace in a bowl of hot soup, but it wasn’t doing the job; I’d lost my appetite.

  “Julie,” Bruno said, reading into my expression once again. “What’s going on between Matt and Kara isn’t your problem, and it’s definitely not Luke’s.” I nodded as he leaned forward. “You guys have been through a lot together already. Nothing as trivial as this will come between you.”

  I settled a little lower in my chair, closing my eyes to let the familiar sounds of the diner envelop me. I hadn’t returned to this little restaurant since the morning I clocked Lonnie Reibeck in the face for insulting Luke. I was fairly certain the only reason the manager even let me back in the building was because I was with Detective Bruno, one of the most loved and respected men in Oakland.

  I hadn’t heard from Kara since I called off our amateur investigation twenty minutes earlier. Soon after I placed my food order, I sent her a quick message and told her to stand down. I’d hoped she’d taken the advice, but part of me wondered what she’d learned about Luke….

  And just as I checked my phone for the hundredth time—waiting to hear from her or my boyfriend—Kara slid into the chair next to mine and nodded.

  “Sorry I didn’t respond, wanted to come over and feed you my report in person.”

  Bruno lifted his eyebrow and gave me a don’t take it to heart kind of look.

  “Okay?”

  “Luke rolled into the station around five, disappeared inside for about ten minutes, came back out, got in his car, and drove off.”

  “You didn’t follow him?” I was afraid she might have, and part of me hoped that she had.

  “Of course I did,” she said. “And he ended up at an apartment here in the district. This is the address.” She slid a piece of paper to me as Bruno and I leaned in to read it.

  “That’s his place,” I said, relieved that she hadn’t found anything.

 
“I figured.”

  “See, I told you there was nothing to worry about,” Bruno chimed in.

  “So, what about you?” Kara asked, ignoring him. “Did you find anything on Matt?”

  I looked at Bruno and watched as he moved his head with a couple subtle shakes. He didn’t want me to tell Kara what I’d found… probably because I didn’t really know what it meant. It could’ve been innocent enough, but I still thought she deserved to know. Bruno, though, thought otherwise.

  “Nothing suspicious,” I finally said, knowing it was better to take his advice to heart. What good would it do for me to worry her with something I knew so little about?

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, placing her hand over her heart.

  “You know what I think?” Bruno asked, taking another bite. A touch of syrup spilled from the corner of his lips as he chewed. He lifted his napkin, wiped his face, and sat forward. “I think you both need to go home, call your boyfriends, and talk. Communicate. All this sneaking around… it’s unhealthy.”

  “You think we’re the problem?” Kara asked, looking past him. “You think we’re the ones doing a bunch of unhealthy sneaking around?”

  “Yes—”

  “Then what do you call that?”

  She nodded at the front of the diner. Bruno and I turned and watched as Luke held the door for a tall, beautiful brunette. She was the very same woman I’d seen him with at the flower shop late last week. She joined him at a table in the front, both of them laughing and talking, enjoying each other’s company.

  “Shit,” Bruno mumbled under his breath.

  “Poking holes in your theory, Detective,” Kara said, poking at the air.

  Bruno watched Luke for a second and then turned back to me. “Julie,” he said. “Don’t…don’t freak out, okay? Luke’s not stupid. If there was something going on, the last thing he’d do is flaunt it around town. There’s got to be more to this than what we see—”

  “You know what?” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “I’ve… I’ve gotta go… I forgot I had…stuff… to… I’ll see you guys later,” I said, sliding out of my chair and brushing past Kara.