by Hotcheri
“Nope. I didn’t even try after you left,” Luke replied, playing around with a spoon someone had left lying on the table. “As soon as I got home, I had to try on a stupid tux.”
Mmmm. Luke in a tux. That would be a yummy sight. “Oh, you’re going to the gala, aren’t you?”
“Uh huh.” Luke unzipped his black hoodie. “You know about it?”
“Well, yeah. Robyn’s going. She told me about it.” Because just thinking that I knew about the gala because I had been invited- that was just dumb. A nosy question formed in my mind. “Who’re you going with?”
Shrugging out of his hoodie, Luke said “I don’t know yet. Joanna wanted me to take her but she has a boyfriend and I value my life.”
Smart. Timothy Wheeler wasn’t the type of guy anyone wanted to cross. He had a faintly menacing air around him.
“You could take her platonically,” I suggested helpfully, then scratched my nose in thought. “If platonically is even a real word.”
I’m pretty sure it’s not a real word, Celsi.
“I don’t think Timothy would like the idea that the guy who’s hooking up with his girlfriend is taking her to a party,” Luke said evenly.
Even though it was common knowledge that Luke and Joanna were friends with benefits, Luke had never acknowledged the fact that he was still hooking up with Joanna. Until now.
“I guess,” was all I could think of to say.
Leaning further back in his chair, Luke suddenly asked, “Who is Robyn going with?”
My eyes widened as I looked up at him. “You want to take Robyn?” I asked, a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah, I suppose,” Luke said unenthusiastically. “I mean, we’re always at these things together so we might as well go together as a couple.”
It made sense, but I couldn’t stop the feeling in my stomach from intensifying. There was no way that Luke would ask me to the gala, I knew that much. So why did I feel so jealous that he was planning to take Robyn?
“She’s going with Todd.” Impulsively, I added, “Her boyfriend.”
Luke’s bored expression didn’t change. “Robyn has a boyfriend? How long have they been dating?” he asked, not sounding like he even cared to know.
“About a week.”
Luke snorted derisively and I glowered at him. Only Shazia and I were allowed to poke fun at Robyn’s short relationships. “Don’t you think it’ll be over by Friday?” he asked.
Bristling visibly, I said, “No. They like each other. They’ll last.”
Luke shot me a quick look under his bangs, realizing that I was rather ticked off. “I was just joking,” he said.
I sighed. There goes Celsi, overreacting again. “I know, but-,” I started, not sure how to explain myself.
Thankfully, the arrival of the ice cream (brought to our booth by counter girl and another BR employee) saved me from digging myself deeper.
“Thanks,” Luke and I said in unison as the girls set the trays carrying the cups on the scuffed table.
“No problem! Enjoy!”
They took off and I stared at the array of ice creams. Heaven on Earth. I picked up a small plastic spoon from the tray. “It looks so good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Luke stared at the ice cream and took a deep breath. “CiCi?”
I tensed. This was it. He was getting ready to tell me that the reason he was acting so distant was because he didn’t think we should hang out anymore due to Nate. At least I have ice cream to tide me over. Small consolation. “Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
I blinked. Huh? What happened to the ‘breakup’ speech? “Sure.”
Luke stuck his spoon into a peach colored ice cream but he didn’t take a bite. Meanwhile, I was on my fourth spoonful, on a mission to try every last flavor on the table. “Your cousin- Nate, right?”
Oh, the ‘breakup’ speech was coming, alright.
“Yeah, his name’s Nate,” I said, swallowing another spoonful and hoping that I didn’t get any on my clothes. That’s the ultimate mark of a greedy person. But if he was going to give me the cut direct, the quicker I ate, the better.
“Why’d you go off on you like that?”
Again, not expected. I ran a hand through my hair, staring at Luke, who was staring back at me. “He’s just- he’s overprotective,” I said, surprised to find myself defending Nate. I guess blood is thicker than water, after all. I just didn’t want Luke thinking that Nate was a huge jerk and that he was always like that. He is a huge jerk, and he is always like that, Celsi. Sure, he was. But Luke- he didn’t have to know that. But I had a feeling he already did.
“That wasn’t over protectiveness, it was just plain evil!” Looking annoyed, Luke rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward. “I’m an overprotective big brother, but if my sister was with a guy, I wouldn’t talk smack, especially in front of the guy.”
Nice line, but your sister is 5, Luke. What the hell would she be doing with a guy?
Still, despite my cynical thoughts (I’m prone to them) I couldn’t help feeling buoyed that Luke Astor was getting incensed on my behalf.
“He just wants to look out for me,” I said lamely.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “By calling you a slut?” I opened my mouth to reply but he continued talking. “Okay, I did too. I mean, I insinuated it. And I’m not making excuses; I know I was wrong for it. But this guy who’s calling you names- he’s your cousin!” He shook his head, disgust curling his lip. “There’s no way he should be talking to you like that. You don’t deserve it.”
I ran a hand over my face, slumping in the booth. “Maybe I do, Luke.”
Luke shook his head, still looking irate, disgusted and pretty damned sexy. “Nobody does. Especially not you, CiCi,” he said, sounding so compassionate that I felt tears come to my eyes. I blinked them back. I wasn’t going to cry. But knowing that Luke cared so much about me that anger was flushing his cheeks- I felt so appreciative for it. It was nothing to him whether he did or didn’t care. But he did.
Propping my chin on my upturned palm, I stared out of the window. “He wasn’t always like that,” I said softly, remembering a time when Nate was the sweetest guy in the world. Even though he was just 9 years older than me, he’d been the only father figure I ever knew.
“Really?” Luke sounded unconvinced, spooning some ice cream into his mouth. “I find that pretty hard to believe.”
I shook my head, no longer sure why I felt the need to defend Nate. I guess I just had to let Luke know where he was coming from. “He used to be ordinary. Normal.” I let out a breath, turning from the window to find Luke’s dark green eyes on me. “Like a brother to me.”
“So what happened?”
Luke still had a skeptical look on his face and I bit my lip, deciding to explain so that maybe he could see why Nate acted the way he did and draw his own conclusions. I really didn’t know exactly how Nate had changed so much, but I had an idea why.
I looked down at the table, wondering where to start. “When Aunt Kelly took me in, Nate was great. He treated me like a princess.” I smiled to myself, memories of Nate taking me to the Zoo or to the corner store for candy still fresh in my mind. “Everything I wanted, he would get me, just to try to get me to forget that my mom- that she abandoned me.” Luke’s eyes narrowed and I belatedly remembered that I had never told him about my mom just leaving me at Aunt Kelly’s and never coming back. I was already on my way to revealing so much and I didn’t want to start with that story too, so I hurriedly continued. “He was the best big brother ever.”
“Uh huh.”
Luke seemed so dubious that I smiled despite myself. “You don’t believe me.”
He shrugged. “I do, I just have a hard time picturing the guy who swore at you treating you like a princess,” he said, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. “So what changed?”
“He met a great girl and when she found out that she was pregnant, she moved in with u
s and Rhea was born.”
I closed my eyes, remembering how excited Nate and Tori had been about the baby. Nate held down two jobs to ensure that Rhea got the best crib, stroller and clothes he could afford.
“Your niece?”
“She was a little angel, Luke,” I said, tears springing to my eyes again as I heard Rhea’s infectious laugh ring in my head. “Sweet, adorable- Nate doted on her.” Opening my eyes and willing the tears not to fall, I said, “You know how you go through life hearing about children being kidnapped, getting into accidents and things like that?”
Luke nodded, reaching across the table to put his warm hands over mine. “Yeah.”
“And you think ‘that couldn’t happen to me and my family’?” I blinked back more tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of Luke. Keep it together, woman! But this was the first time in ages that I had talked about Rhea and it was still so painful to know that I would never see her beautiful face again. “That’s what Nate thought about Rhea. Me too. She was just- too harmless, too special.” I didn’t know how to explain how we all thought that there was nothing that could take Rhea away from us, but I saw from the look on Luke’s face that he understood. “Everything Nate did was for Rhea.”
His eyes not leaving my face, Luke slowly stroked his thumb over my wrist. “What happened?” he asked slowly.
I swallowed, a knot in my stomach. “It was a Saturday and I was at home with Tori and Rhea. Tori was supposed to be looking after Rhea because I had to go to work, but she was sleeping, so when it was time for me to leave, I put Rhea down for her nap.” I remembered that day so clearly, it was the worst day of my life. Rhea hadn’t wanted to go to bed, I had to bribe her. I told her I would buy her Pringles if she went to sleep like a good little girl. “She loved Pringles, so she finally agreed to take a nap. And when I came back home with the tube of chips... A tear slid down my cheek as I went on. “When I came back, Tori was still sleeping. I- I went to check on Rhea.”
I couldn’t stop the tears from coming as I recounted the events of that awful day. My lip wobbled and I held my head in my hands, not looking at Luke. Why did he have to see me crying?
I heard him mutter, “Oh, my God,” and suddenly he was right beside me, his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his warm body as he handed me a napkin. “You don’t have to continue, CiCi, I’m sorry-,” he murmured, his lips moving against my forehead.
But I couldn’t stop. “She was so still- it was the worst thing-.”
Shaking, I sobbed into Luke’s t-shirt as he wrapped both of his arms around me, squeezing tight like he never wanted to let me go. Which was fine with me. And if I hadn’t been crying, I would have really enjoyed how his hands were gently rubbing up and down my sides or how he was simultaneously kissing my forehead while murmuring soothingly into my hair. But I couldn’t focus on that (damn).
“Wow... she was-,” Luke started, smoothing my hair from my face.
Sniffling, I nodded into Luke’s chest. His muscular chest. “She was- she was dead, Luke. She suffocated with her own pillow.”
“I’m so sorry,” Luke said, picking up another napkin to wipe away my tears. One of my recurring fantasies, having a hot guy comfort me while I cry, but I couldn’t enjoy it. He kissed my cheek, his nose against my skin. I shivered again but that had nothing to do with the crying and everything to do with being so close to Luke.
“I just went nuts. I woke Tori up, called an ambulance but it was too late.” The feeling of utter desolation that had swept through me upon finding Rhea in her crib- it still haunted me till this day. And what had happened next only made things worse. “When Nate heard, he went crazy.” I sniffed again, raising my head from Luke’s chest with regret. He didn’t let go of me. “I never saw anything like it, Luke. He smashed the dishes, broke a window and just threw things around.” Aunt Kelly had screamed at him to stop, but it seemed that breaking things was the only way for Nate to vent his rage. And he was truly angry. Unfortunately, he was angry at one person- me. “He blamed me for what happened to Rhea.”
“Really?” Luke sounded disgusted as he rubbed his cheek against my hair, sending tingles rushing through my body. I was going into sensory overload. “Why?”
Tears seeped out of my eyes as I sighed. “I put her to bed,” I explained simply.
“Damn,” Luke breathed. I felt him swallow. “I’m so sorry, CiCi.”
“I loved her so much! I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt her,” I said, running a hand over my face. “But Nate wouldn’t listen to reason, it was my fault and he wanted me to pay. The neighbors- they called the cops on him but before they arrived, he took off.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “He wasn’t at the funeral.”
I didn’t want to think about the funeral, about Rhea’s tiny casket, about how Tori just went to pieces seeing her beloved daughter being lowered into the grave. Because if I thought about the funeral, I wouldn’t be able to stop crying.
“What?” Luke sounded livid. “Are you serious?”
I nodded. “He came back home about two weeks later and he’d changed. He started drinking heavily, being loud and unreasonable.” Living at home started to become nightmarish. But that was something Luke didn’t need to know. “Tori left him and he just got worse. He was so- bitter. He started hating me even more because I was a constant reminder of what happened to Rhea but- it wasn’t my fault, Luke! I never meant to hurt her.”
“You didn’t hurt her, CiCi. How could it have been your fault when you weren’t even there?” Luke asked as another wave of tears took over me. Crying in public is never pretty. Especially when I’m the one crying.
“To Nate, it’s my fault,” I said when I could finally speak again. “If my mother had never left me at their house, Rhea would still be alive.”
Maybe that was true. I was just bad luck to everyone around me. The Celsi Sawyer curse.
“I don’t believe that. Don’t say things like that, CiCi, you know it’s not true. Your cousin is a jackass if he doesn’t realize that it was just an accident.” A pause. “CiCi, does he- does he hit you or anything?”
I pulled back to look at Luke properly. He was staring at me with a troubled look on his face, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth. “Well, he’s violent when he’s drunk,” I admitted.
“He hits you?” Again, Luke sounded angrier than I would have expected.
I shook my head quickly. “No, he just throws stuff. Not at me, though. Just at the walls,” I lied.
“Oh, God, CiCi,” Luke breathed against my forehead, running a hand absently through my hair. My stomach did a back flip. Could he possibly sound any sexier? Wasn’t he supposed to be comforting me, not turning me on?
“I’m used to it,” I said honestly, finally mustering the nerve to pull out of Luke’s embrace. I leaned against the backrest of the booth but Luke just scooted closer to me, putting an arm around my shoulder and pressing me against him again. “And even if I wasn’t, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“How about your dad?” Luke asked, giving me a sideways look.
Softly, I replied, “I never knew my dad.”
“I’m on a roll today, aren’t I? Just bringing up painful subjects,” Luke sighed. “I’d invite you to come live with me, but my dad’s as bad as Nate.”
I stared up at him; he had a perfectly serious expression on his face. “You’re joking,” I said.
He shook his head, grinned wryly. “I wish I was.”
We sat in a comfortable silence for a long while, Luke absently playing with my hair and humming a song under his breath. I rested my head on his shoulder on impulse and he slipped his free hand in mine. You’ve come a long way from concentrating on not looking at me, haven’t you, Luke?
“Thanks for listening, Luke,” I said finally, my voice small. I felt ashamed that I had cried so much, but I was glad that I had confided in someone. Not even Robyn and Shazia knew exactly how I felt about Rhea, and how deeply the accident had affected me. “I
needed that.”
“Anytime. After all, you’re there for me; I needed to return the favor.”
“I thought you were gonna tell me that we shouldn’t hang out anymore,” I admitted. Luke glanced down at me in surprise.
“Why’d you think that?” he asked, trailing a thumb across my cheek. I tried not to tremble. Obviously Luke had no idea what he was doing to me!
“You were acting- odd. Kinda distant. So I thought...” My voice trailed off and I shrugged.
“Sorry about that. I had- stuff on my mind.”
“It’s okay. We all do,” I told him, smiling up at him. He stared down at me, biting his lip.
“You’re brave,” he said softly.
“I am?”
I thought I was the biggest wimp to ever walk the earth, but he was entitled to his own opinion.
Luke nodded. “Yeah. If I was dealing with your issues, I’d be a wreck. But you- you always have a smile on your face and you’re helping me, the biggest screw-up on the planet. So that makes you- brave.”
“I don’t think you’re a screw-up.’
“Then you’re the only person who doesn’t.” But Luke appeared to be pretty pleased by that, judging from his smile. “So, I was wondering- can we get together later on in the week?” Luke asked hurriedly, looking at me. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
I had to will myself not to shake my head before he finished his sentence. No need to appear overeager.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, my heart beating a little faster. Another afternoon to look forward to. Hanging with Luke was always eventful. “What’s next on your agenda?”
Luke cleared his throat, giving an embarrassed laugh. “You’ll laugh at me,” he said.
I shook my head. “Me? Never!”
“Well, I’ve never been to the top of the Empire State Building-,” Luke started.
