LUKA (The Rhythm Series, Book 2)

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  God, it was so fucked up. And I was the biggest fuck-up of all.

  I needed to speak to Seth. I needed to see him, even if it meant he wanted to beat the crap out of me. The way I was feeling, I’d probably let him.

  I caught a bus into the city, climbing onto the top deck and staring down at the people strolling along the sidewalk below. Had their lives done a one-eighty today? Had they gone from being happy to being royally fucked? I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t think anyone looking at me could tell that I was ready to punch the first fucker who got in my face. Anyone who even smiled wrong.

  I sent Seth a text to say that I was outside his building, begging him to talk to me. But I didn’t get a reply.

  After ten minutes of hanging around feeling the anxiety grow, I walked into the vast lobby.

  Whenever I’d meet Seth for lunch, I waited at the pub around the corner, and we didn’t touch or hold hands in case his colleagues saw him.

  Walking into this palace of banking would have been intimidating if my mind wasn’t already splintering into a thousand pieces.

  The receptionist assessed me coolly. I looked out of place in my shorts and t-shirt.

  “I’ll see if Mr. Lintort is available,” she said.

  There was a short conversation as her eyes flickered to me, and then she smiled politely.

  “He’ll be right down.”

  I returned a thin smile and sat in one of the plush chairs ringing the lobby. I scanned the glossy magazines, all to do with international finance, and sighed.

  Even in the cool of the air conditioning, my palms were sweating, and I couldn’t decide what to say to Seth. Everything I thought of sounded pathetic, like I’d deliberately lied to him. My sin of omission had caught up with me.

  I couldn’t read his face when he stepped off the elevator, and that by itself was a bad omen. I could always tell what Seth was thinking—he was the most open person I’d ever met.

  But not today.

  He gave the receptionist a warm smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Martin.”

  She beamed at him. “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Seth nodded at me, and I followed him out of the building. He didn’t speak.

  I licked my lips.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Congratulations,” he said, his voice as cold as a stranger’s.

  “Seth, please. I . . .”

  “Was this just some sort of sick game to you?” he snarled between gritted teeth.

  “Of course not! I found out five minutes before you. It’s just as much as a shock to me.”

  “Oh, I doubt that very much,” he spat. “I really do. Since it’s complete news to me that you had an affair with my sister!”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “This should be good,” he muttered, crossing his arms.

  We were in the middle of the sidewalk, and irritated pedestrians were trying to dodge around us.

  “Can we go get a coffee, sit down and talk? Please, Seth.”

  For a moment, I thought he was going to say no, but then he nodded curtly and pointed across the busy road to a tiny hole-in-the-wall coffee shop.

  There was a single plastic table outside with folding chairs. I bought two coffees and handed one to Seth.

  “It happened once,” I said quietly, barely raising my voice above the noise of street traffic. “It was the last night of the tour and we were having a wrap party. We were all drunk, but Sarah was totally wasted and throwing up. I got her a taxi, but she couldn’t tell the driver her address. He was refusing to take her, so I brought her back to my hotel room.”

  Seth’s face was grim.

  I bowed my head and plowed on.

  “I took off her jeans and shoes and we went to bed. To sleep.”

  I took a deep breath, wary of how to explain what happened next.

  “I woke up and she . . . Sarah was . . . I was hard. She climbed on top of me. I asked her what she was doing, and she said something like, ‘I’ll make it good. I’ve been wanting to do this for ages’.”

  God, that sounded bad.

  “So my little sister who weighs about half what you do, you’re saying she raped you?”

  Seth’s cold look had turned glacial.

  “Fuck, no! But I didn’t want . . . I wasn’t expecting her . . . I’d always told her that I don’t sleep with people I work with! And I don’t!”

  “The fact that she’s pregnant tells me you’re a fucking liar!”

  I dragged my hands through my hair.

  “I’m not blaming her. I’m not blaming anyone except myself. I should have said no. I was drunk, too. It was one time. When I woke up in the morning, she’d already gone. I didn’t see her again until today. She means noth—she’s my friend, but I want you.”

  His gaze softened for a moment, then I saw the shields go up again.

  “What are you going to do?”

  I stared down at my hands.

  “She wants to keep the baby. I’ll support her however I can. I’ll make good money when we start touring again . . .”

  “So, basically, you’re saying you’ll send her some money every now and again.”

  “I . . .”

  He leaned back in his seat, a disgusted look on his face.

  “You’re just going to leave her to bring up the baby by herself?”

  “What the fuck do you want me to do?” I yelled. “Tell me what to do! Tell me how to fix this and I will!”

  He was silent.

  “You could marry her.”

  All the air left my lungs and I stared at him. My chest tightened as if I’d been slammed against a seatbelt in a car that was crashing at 100 miles an hour.

  “What?”

  “You’re friends. You care about her.”

  “There’s a big difference between liking someone,” I whispered, my voice all but inaudible, “and marrying them. I can’t believe you’d . . .”

  “She loves you, Luka,” he said, his voice defeated. “I could hear it when she rang me. She was so happy. She thinks she can make this work with you. I won’t stand in her way. She’s my sister.”

  When I spoke, my voice was even more choked. “What about us?”

  He shook his head, the hard look back. “There is no us. Not anymore.”

  “But . . .”

  “No! She can never know that we . . . she can’t know.”

  I sat back and stared at him.

  “You want me to pretend . . . ?”

  He shook his head, staring at his untouched coffee.

  “No, I want it to be real for her—and for you. You have to make this work, Luka. Not just for Sarah, but for my whole family.”

  “You can’t ask me to do that!”

  He shrugged and stared off into the distance.

  “That’s up to you.” Then he met my gaze, trying to be cool, but I saw the pain burning inside. “We’re finished, Luka.”

  His voice dropped like a stone and he stood up to leave.

  I hung my head. “Guess I’ll see you at lunch.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll cancel. Sarah will be furious, but better that than . . .”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, instead walking away.

  “Seth!”

  He turned to look at me, intense sadness written on his mobile face.

  “Do you love me?” I whispered. “Because I . . .”

  Anger flooded his whole body, his eyes dark and furious.

  “You can’t ask me that. You can’t say that. Ever.”

  “You’re asking me to choose!” I yelled at him. “How the fuck can I choose between my child and . . .”

  “And what? Just what am I to you, Luka?”

  I swallowed and grabbed his hand.

  “My soulmate.”

  I thought for a second that I’d gotten through to him, but then his lip rose in a sneer.

  “Life just got fucking real, didn’t it? You need to grow the fuck up.”

  He strode across the street,
and this time he didn’t look back.

  My last shred of hope was torn away.

  I stood up slowly, watching him disappear into his office building. I waited, hoping he’d realize this was all a mistake. I counted to 299 before I gave up. He wasn’t coming.

  The weight of his silence crushed the air from my lungs.

  I CAN COUNT on one hand the number of times I’ve cried in my life:

  The day I realized I was gay.

  The first time my mother hit me.

  The day I realized I wasn’t gay.

  And today. Right now.

  The pain was so intense, it eclipsed everything except one word that spun around and around in my head: Soulmate.

  I didn’t want to go back to the apartment, to Sarah, but we needed to find a way through this, because it wasn’t about me, or Sarah, or Seth anymore: it was about a child.

  My child.

  I wanted to do the right thing, but I had no idea what it was.

  I did know that I needed more time before I saw Sarah again, so I texted her with an excuse that I was held up at the theater and I’d meet her at the restaurant. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat anything.

  So I walked.

  You see a lot more of a city when you travel through it on foot. You see the people who live there, not just the shops or theaters or tourist attractions. There are communities within the city, just like any small town. Except the ones in London were made up of Greeks or Lebanese or Syrians. Petticoat Lane, famed for its market, was half Cockney Londoners, half Pakistani. You could walk from Marble Arch and Old World history, up to the Euston road where the shop signs were written in Arabic.

  You could walk around Buckingham Palace, and if the Queen was in residence, they’d fly the flag. I liked that.

  But today, all of those people, all of that life passed me by in a fog of despair. Everything I’d known was now uncertain, and in all the craziness, a new life had been created.

  I’m going to be a father.

  I tried to phone Ash, but his cell went to voicemail and I remembered it was only 6AM in Chicago.

  I sat on a bench for at least an hour, hoping clarity would somehow come to me, but all I felt was the sharp ache of loss, a silence and sadness, despite being surrounded by people.

  When I couldn’t delay it any longer, I dragged myself to the restaurant Sarah had chosen for our ‘celebration’. It was full of hipsters along with a few guys in suits. I saw her waving from a table near the back, her facing glowing with happiness.

  I forced a smile in return, desperate to feel a sliver of something positive. My friend was so damn happy. I loved her. I did.

  “I guess it’s true,” I said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Pregnant women have a glow.”

  Sarah laughed, her eyes sparkling with hope and joy.

  “Yeah? Because I could have sworn that this morning my squinty eyes and snotty nose were scaring the shit out of you.”

  “That is also true.”

  She grinned and playfully elbowed me in the ribs.

  I settled into the seat opposite her and picked up the menu, trying to ignore the pitch and roll of stomach acid.

  There was a moment’s awkward silence before she spoke.

  “So, tell me about the show,” she began.

  I was about to answer, when a huge smile broke out across her face, and she leapt to her feet.

  “Oh my God! You’re such a rat-bag! You told me you weren’t going to come!”

  And she threw herself into Seth’s arms.

  Where I wanted to be.

  He hugged her tightly while I stood up, shoving my hands into my pockets to stop myself from reaching out for him. He gave me a bleak look as he hugged his sister, his expression resigned.

  That was the moment when I knew it was really over between us.

  “Of course I came,” he said, forcing a smile. “It’s not every day my little sister tells me I’m going to be an uncle.”

  “Twerp,” she said, nudging him. “You’re only half-an-hour older than me.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re really short as well.”

  He sat down next to her and picked up the menu.

  Sarah smiled, her affectionate gaze flipping between us.

  “My two favorite people in all the world,” she sighed happily. “So, how well do you guys know each other, apart from having met at Becky’s party?”

  I’d been about to take a sip from my water glass—I would have choked on it.

  “We’ve hung out with friends a few times,” Seth said casually.

  Stab.

  “Isn’t that right, Luke?”

  Another stab.

  “It’s Luka,” said Sarah, poking her brother in the arm.

  “Sorry, Luka,” he laughed.

  I felt sick.

  “You’ve pissed him off now,” Sarah accused her brother. “He hates being called ‘Luke’.”

  Seth knew that. And he’d never called me ‘Luke’ before. He was making a point—we were just casual, barely friends. He didn’t know me well enough to get my name right.

  My stomach lurched.

  I couldn’t sit there and listen to anymore.

  “Excuse me,” I said, standing and heading for the men’s room.

  I pulled open the door and threw up the coffee and croissant that I’d had for breakfast in Seth’s kitchen.

  Christ, was that just today? It seemed a lifetime ago.

  My throat burned from the acid and my head throbbed.

  I stood in front of the tiny sink. What have I done to deserve this?

  Everything.

  Nothing.

  I splashed some cold water on my face and over my wrists, trying to cool my overheated blood. Then I rinsed my mouth out, spitting repeatedly until the foul taste had gone and the water made my teeth ache. I felt sick and shaky, brimming with anger and misery.

  Then the door opened and Seth walked in.

  I wanted to punch him.

  I wanted to kiss him.

  We stared at each other in the mirror as he tightened his jaw.

  “Sarah was worried.” Silence. “She cares about you.”

  “And you don’t.”

  “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

  “Hard?! Fuck you!”

  He cringed and looked down, avoiding the desperation in my gaze.

  I turned, grabbing his face, kissing him franticly, feeling the softness of his lips under mine. For a moment, he kissed me back, despair in every stroke of his tongue.

  Then he pulled away, leaving my hands empty.

  “I can’t do this! She’s my sister,” he whispered, his voice taut. “I’d do anything for her.”

  “What about me?” I said fiercely. “Don’t I get any say in this?”

  Seth’s face crumpled, but then he took a deep breath.

  “She needs you, Luka.” And he stared right at me. “I don’t.”

  I wished that he’d hit me or yelled at me, because that would hurt less than this coldness. If he’d stuck his hand into my chest and yanked out my still beating heart, the pain couldn’t have been worse.

  He left the bathroom, the door closing softly behind him.

  I stared in the mirror, my eyes reflecting pain, and I let my forehead thud against the cold glass, willing myself to get it together, to be the man I had to be.

  I counted to sixty then walked back into the restaurant.

  Sarah was sitting with Seth’s arm around her shoulders, smiling at something he’d said. But when she saw me, her smile slipped.

  “Bloody hell, you look awful! Seth said you were okay,” and she glared at him accusingly.

  I caught his eye, seeing the guilt in his expression.

  “Stomach bug,” I lied. “I’ll be fine.”

  Sarah looked as if she was about to argue, when the server arrived at our table.

  “How are we today?”

  “We’re pregnant,” Sarah announced, unable to contain her n
ews, shining with happiness.

  The server laughed. “I don’t get that answer every day! Congratulations,” she said kindly. “You’ll want to avoid some of the seafood and soft cheeses then.”

  Sarah’s face fell. “I do?”

  The server blinked and looked shocked. “Well, it’s advisable.”

  I could see Sarah welling up again, vulnerability and fear in her eyes. I patted her shoulder as I slid into my seat.

  “You like pasta, don’t you?”

  Sarah wiped her eyes and tried to smile.

  The server looked confused, her eyes flicking between me and Seth.

  “Oh, he’s my brother,” Sarah laughed. “Luka’s my . . . he’s the father.”

  I forced my lips into a smile, my face moving unnaturally, as if it had been glued in place.

  “Or you could have the grilled lamb?” I said desperately. “You’d like that.”

  That lunch remains in my memory as one of the most painful experiences of my entire life. I loved them both. I loved them differently. And I had to choose: to tell Sarah the truth and fight for Seth, or . . .

  Or maybe the choice had been made for me.

  When I went to the theater that night, the relief in my body was intense. Moving, dancing, it freed me from the chaos of my thoughts. Instead of thinking, I could feel. Instead of being fucking terrified, I could soar across the stage. And instead of feeling disgusting and pathetic, I could hear the appreciation of the audience.

  I was a fake, a liar.

  But I was also a dancer. A fuck-hot dancer.

  Performing was my sanctuary, my safety-net, the illusion of a world that still believed in magic.

  But when the costume was gone and I’d wiped off the makeup, I was just me. I hated that.

  Having nowhere else to go, I went back to Sarah’s apartment, wondering what I’d find and which Sarah I’d be facing: my friend, or the mother of my child.

  I walked along the street slowly, second-guessing myself with every footstep. When I arrived, the porch light was shining, but the apartment was in darkness.

  She left the light for me.

  That small gesture was reassuring.

  I slipped into the darkened living room, moving as quietly as possible. I saw a pile of blankets and pillows on the couch, and breathed a sigh of relief. At least she seemed to realize that having sex wasn’t going to solve our problems.

  And I’m ashamed to admit that my dick stirred at the thought of sex with Sarah. As if I needed a reason to loathe myself even more.