“Where are we?” I asked, turning to Luke. It was just too dark to read his expression, so I nuzzled in closer as he wrapped one arm around my waist. “Luke?” He didn’t say anything, and his silence was a little unsettling. After the way he’d left the house earlier, followed by his quick change of demeanor at the car, and now his eerie silence, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. “Luke, are you okay? I mean, you’re kinda freaking me out. You’re acting weird, and I don’t think—”
“Julie,” Luke dropped his phone to his side. Now I couldn’t see anything at all. “Please stop talking.”
“But I—”
“Stop talking, and recognize what’s happening here, Jules.”
“What’s happening here?”
“I bought a house,” he tried to disguise the nervousness in his voice, but he failed miserably. “I was going to wait until the weekend to show you, but I—”
“You bought a house?” I asked, suddenly relieved that he couldn’t see my expression. I was certain the look on my face would’ve easily won me the Most Horrified title at the costume party.
Talk about a blindside!
Luke hadn’t once mentioned anything about being in the market for a new place. He loved his apartment so much that he looked after it like it was his own child. He’d never hinted that he wanted to leave, and now all of a sudden he was a proud homeowner?
“I didn’t know you were—”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said, and again, his nervousness got the best of him.
“Surprise me?” I asked. “What’s this have anything to do with me? It’s your house—”
“No,” he said, and suddenly, he didn’t sound so nervous anymore. “It’s our house.”
“Our house?”
“Mine and yours, kid,” he held me tighter. “I bought it for us.”
It took nearly ten minutes for everything to sink in.
I stood on the front lawn and listened as Luke explained himself.
He said he’d been looking all over town for the perfect place, and nothing ever felt right. Then he came across an ad in the paper for this place, called up his realtor, and asked for a showing. Like every other house he’d seen, Luke expected to walk in and hate this one just as much. But he didn’t hate it. He loved it. And he didn’t hesitate to make an offer the moment he finished the walk-through.
I was too flustered to really get my thoughts in order. I didn’t bother asking any of the questions I probably should’ve asked: why would you buy a house without consulting me? Why would you just assume I’d want to move in with you? Why are you so excited about us living together, but you won’t even take the time to propose?
“Can I see it?” I asked, and Luke’s hand landed gently on the small of my back.
“Of course,” he said, and I heard him rustling with his keys. His strong hand directed me closer to the front. “Watch your step here,” he said, and then we both took a one-step rise up onto a stoop. Luke dropped his hand from my back long enough to unlock the door, and how he’d managed to find the key and unlock the deadbolt in the dark was a mystery even to me. He reached back and grabbed my hand as he walked forward. Once we were standing just inside the door, he flipped on an interior light and shut the door behind me.
I stood staring at the empty space.
The dark wooden floor stretched from the doorway back as far as I could see.
“I’ll get the rest of the lights.”
Luke left my side to make his way through the house. He turned the lights on in each room, and once the entire floor was illuminated, he came back to me with a smile.
“Want the tour?”
“You bought this house?” I let my eyes wander from one freshly painted wall to the next. The color was a perfect shade of beige—warm, welcoming, homey. “You own this?”
He nodded slowly and bit his lip. I wasn’t sure he could read my stunned expression, but he took my hand and guided me forward nonetheless.
“This is a closet,” he turned to a set of doors immediately to our right. “Plenty of space for coats, and shoes, and whatever it is that people keep in these things.”
I smiled. A few steps further and to the left, the room opened up into a large kitchen, one that would’ve made Matt green with jealousy. There was a gas range stove with four sealed burners, a double wall oven, and large stainless steel refrigerator fitted between two of the marble countertops.
I didn’t even want to know how much money had gone into designing that kitchen, and I couldn’t imagine Luke or I either one would ever utilize any of those appliances to their full potential.
I took a minute to study the tiled backsplash on the wall and the dim fixtures around the island. I don’t even know how many times I’d thought ‘holy crap, Matt is gonna freak when he sees this place!’
A door off the side of the kitchen opened to a descending staircase. The basement wasn’t finished, but Luke said something about making a project of it in a few years. There was a small corner with a folding table, washer, and dryer, but other than that, the basement was pretty much that… a basement.
Back on the first floor, I wasn’t sure I’d managed an expression yet. Luke still watched me with great uncertainty, and he held his hand out to take me to the next room. At the back of the house, just behind the kitchen, there was a small, carpeted dining room. A set of windows spanned the entirety of the room. Just like his apartment back in the district, Luke had already taken the time to hang blinds and curtains.
We backed out of the dining room and walked directly into the attached living room on the right side of the house. Like the dining room, it was also carpeted. Unlike the dining room, it was incredibly spacious. There was a wood burning fireplace on the far wall, and a small hallway stretched back, concealing four closed doors.
“Bathroom,” he pointed at the first, and I stopped off to check it out. For obvious reasons, bathrooms weren’t particularly my favorite spot to hang out. Still, I studied the unique features before turning out.
“This is just a spare room,” he opened the next door. It wasn’t incredibly spacious. “It’s not much, I know, but I thought we’d convert this into a home-office of sorts,” Luke said, raising a brow. “You know, a place for you to do homework now, and conduct business in a few years when Just a Little Soiree takes off.”
I bit my bottom lip and turned back to him.
Just a Little Soiree.
Just hearing those words fall off his lips made my heart swell with happiness.
I’d told Luke earlier in the year, just before my second semester at the local community college that I’d finally decided to chase that unattainable dream. I loved planning parties. I loved organizing, decorating, and executing such huge events. For the past couple of years, I’d never thought of it as anything that I could ever make a realistic career out of. But then one day I woke up and decided ‘why not?’ How would I ever know if I didn’t try? I marched into my academic advisor’s office last spring, threw myself back in a chair, and finally declared a major: hospitality management, emphasis on event planning.
I swung by the police station after school that day and Luke instantly recognized a change.
He’d said, ‘you’re practically glowing, Jules, what’s going on?’
That’s when I told him that I’d decided to start my own party planning business. Of course, I had to get through school, learn the basics, and really make sure I had my feet on the ground. Saving the money I earned working part-time for Grace and Lonnie at the flower shop (I’d taken over Matt’s job when he left) I’d be able to make myself a nice little nest-egg for the start-up. I figured, maybe by the time I’m twenty-five, I can hit the ground running.
Luke had been nothing but supportive.
He’d even been the genius behind the name Just a Little Soiree. He said it had a ring to it, and I liked it. So it stuck.
“Bedrooms,” he turned to the two doors facing the front of the house.
I stuck my head inside the first and smiled; he’d already put a dog bed in place, which meant he planned to let Elvis have his own room. We walked back out, and Luke put his hand on the door knob leading into the master bedroom.
“Again, I wasn’t planning to bring you here until Sunday evening, so I’m sorry for the mess,” he said, and then he opened the door and flipped on the light.
I took a step into the bedroom and caught a breath in my throat.
“Luke?”
The clothes he’d worn to the house earlier were strewn about the tidily made bed—Luke’s bed—and there were boxes, mostly unpacked, stacked in every corner.
“Have you been staying here?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, “I haven’t had much free time lately, and I just had trouble going between here and the apartment, so I moved out...six weeks ago.”
“You’ve had this house for almost two months, and you’re just now telling me?”
“Ah,” he rubbed the back of his neck, “I’ve had this house for about five months, actually.”
“Five?”
“It needed some work,” he said, half-laughing. “Believe me when I tell you it didn’t look half this nice when I bought it. It was quite a fixer-upper, but I got it for a hell of a price. The kitchen was a disaster—”
“Wait a minute,” I held my hand in the air. “Time out.”
“What?”
“You bought this house in….”
“May,” he spared me the mental math.
“And you remodeled the kitchen?”
“The kitchen, the bathrooms, the whole place.”
“And you’ve been living here since—”
“Your second week of the semester.”
“And you didn’t tell me because…?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” he said, and then I remembered that he’d already told me that once before on the front lawn.
“But… I hate surprises.”
“Do you hate this surprise?” he asked, looking around the room. “I mean, minus the crap thrown everywhere.”
I smiled. The mess was very unlike him, but I kinda liked that. It was unpredictable stuff that made Luke so intriguing to me; I never knew what to expect with him.
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t hate this surprise at all.”
Luke’s chest fell as he let a long, slow breath pass between his lips.
“Luke, it’s a really sweet gesture, and I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful, but why did you bring me here? If you wanted it to be a surprise, why didn’t you just wait? I mean, Sunday’s only a few days away, and you said yourself you weren’t planning on bringing me here tonight for the big reveal. What changed your mind? You’ve already waited five months; why not wait a couple more days?”
He closed his eyes as if he needed to make sure he couldn’t see my face when he said, “Charlie.”
“Charlie?”
“Julie,” he said, and he finally opened his eyes. His mouth hung open for a few long seconds, and then he dropped his head. “I think we need to talk about—”
And then his phone rang.
Lifting a finger, he pulled it from his back pocket and checked the screen.
With an annoyed sigh, he answered.
“What?”
He only listened for two seconds before he interrupted the person on the other line.
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said hurriedly, and his eyes got wider. With a giant smile he ended the call with, “We’re coming. We’re leaving now. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
Luke turned back to me and he couldn’t force his smile away no matter how hard he tried.
“Rebecca’s in labor. She’s on her way to the hospital right now—”
“She’s having the baby?” I shook my head. “Now?”
“Right now,” he said. “That was Dad. He said the contractions started just as Bruno picked up the microphone for his encore performance.”
“Then why are we still standing here?” I took his hand. I tried to pull him out of the room, but he kept himself planted right in place. “Stop dragging your feet, Luke! Let’s go!”
“Julie,” he pulled me back to him. Our chests brushed for just a second, and then he took a step back. “We were right in the middle of—”
“Luke,” I said, nearly jumping up and down, “it can wait, okay? Whatever it is, it can wait. We can talk about it later. We have to get to the hospital. You’re about to be an uncle again, and I’m about to be a… a… a…”
“Whatever it is, I don’t think there’s a name for it, Jules,” he smiled. “Come on.”
Four
We pulled up to the hospital just as Grace and Lonnie arrived with Molly in tow. We’d missed Rebecca by seconds, they told us, and she was already in a wheelchair on her way up to the delivery room.
Despite their ability to relay all of the necessary details to me and Luke, neither Grace nor Lonnie really knew how to handle the sudden onset of their nerves; their feelings, though, were justifiable in every sense, and had everything to do with the fact that they were about to become grandparents again.
It’d only been a few months since Rebecca had sat Luke’s father and step-mother down to tell them the truth about who she was and why she’d come to Oakland, and her revelation had hit them like a ton of bricks. Rebecca knew she had no choice but to come clean and spill the beans, especially with another baby on the way. She couldn’t imagine bringing another child into the world without the family it deserved.
Rebecca’s admission to the Reibecks resulted in a huge wave of relief from Luke. He was finally off the hook—no more secrets, no more sneaking around, no more lying to his parents. While Luke reveled in his newfound freedom, Lonnie and Grace experienced emotions that were a little more traumatizing. Lonnie was in shock for days; I’m not sure he even uttered a single word to anyone for well over a week. And sadly, one person in particular really needed him to open up; the knowledge of Rebecca’s true identity struck feelings in Grace that were something akin to being stabbed in the heart. Lonnie had never told his wife that he’d been married twice before. As far as she knew, she was Lonnie’s second wife… only to find out that she was really number three, and that her husband had been lying about his past for a really long time.
It hadn’t been an easy pill to swallow for either of them. Maybe that’s why Luke had tried so hard to keep it a secret back when he learned the truth; had he known that Rebecca’s news would cause such an uproar in his family? Had he known that everything would come crashing down, and that Grace would take the brunt of the fall?
I think so. And maybe that’s why he’d put his heart, soul, and every ounce of his energy into making sure he kept his sister’s secret.
It took a month for Grace and Lonnie to talk through their problems, but they didn’t reach a successful solution without seeking some help from a couple’s counselor. In the end, Grace accepted it, and they worked through it, little by little. She didn’t see what other choice they had; Rebecca was Lonnie’s daughter, and that made her family. Since, they’d both made an effort to be an even bigger part of Rebecca and Molly’s lives. Despite the fact that neither of them knew how to act about it now, everyone knew they were bursting at the seams to meet their newest grandbaby.
“Anyone know how to get to the maternity ward?” Grace adjusted her Salt costume as she waddled up the parking lot.
“No clue,” Lonnie and I said in unison, but Luke was already darting for the farthest set of double doors.
We followed him, knowing he was probably headed in the right direction, and Lonnie put his arm around my shoulder.
“Diggin’ the dress,” he gave me a tight squeeze. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you before, but I like your audacity. You’re a real go-getter, there, Julie.”
“It’s just a joke—”
“Right,” he smiled bigger, “just a joke.”
We followed behind Luke as he threw open the hospital doors and exchanged
a series of ‘hellos’ with the guards at the front desk. He didn’t linger long, and within a few short minutes, he’d directed us straight to the elevators, up to the third floor, and into the maternity wing.
The friendliest face in the world was ready and waiting to greet us the moment the doors bounced open.
“Derek!”
“Oh, thank God!” He opened his arms to invite a hug. “I couldn’t find you at the party. We had to rush straight to the hospital. I’ve been calling you for over an hour. Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry. Luke and I took a ride, and I left my phone at the house.” I looked down at my dress, “I don’t have pockets.”
Derek closed his eyes and pulled me close to his chest. “You’re here now, that’s all that matters,” he said so quietly that I’m not sure Luke, Lonnie, or Grace even heard him. “I’m freaking out, Julie. I don’t know what to do—”
“Hey,” I pulled far enough away to look him straight in the eye, “it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
“I can’t believe this is happening—”
“Well, it is,” I nodded my head confidently.
“Ugh,” he blinked a few too many times, “God, I think I need to sit down.”
“Right,” I said, heading to the nearby chairs in the waiting room, “let’s sit.”
Grace, Lonnie, Luke, and Molly excused themselves to the corner of the waiting room, giving me and Derek some much-needed privacy.
“How are you?” I leaned forward to get a better look at him. He already looked different than he had when I’d seen him at the party just an hour earlier; at the party, he was relaxed, despite the fact that he was alone. At the hospital, he was frazzled and jittery.
“I should be a bigger part of this, Julie.”
“Hey, your part’s done,” I tried to look on the bright side. “There’s not really much you can do now,” I patted Derek’s leg. “You’re just gonna have to sit here and wait it out like the rest of us.”
“I wish she’d let me in there—”
“Oh yeah,” I said, wide-eyed, “that wouldn’t be awkward at all. Hey Rebecca, I know we hooked up one time nine months ago, and now you can’t stand the sight of me, but how ’bout I come watch as you squeeze a baby out of your—”
Just a Little Sequel Page 3
