But Luke was ruining everything. Luke and his awful absence, and the hole he’d left in her heart, and the way her body wanted him. Tessa stared down into the glass of ale she’d just pulled, trying to decide if the deep brown liquid was darker than Luke’s eyes.
“Tessa?” Jamie said. “You okay?”
“Sure,” she answered with a smile, then quickly left to serve the table before he could ask more questions. But five minutes later when she made it back to the bar with a tray full of empties, Jamie’s eyes stayed on her.
In defense, she stopped to pull out her phone and tweet that there were empty seats at the bar and Jamie would welcome a few more visitors. Unfortunately, a mob didn’t rush through the door to save her before he could pounce.
“So what’s going on with Luke?” he asked with suspicious lightness.
“Nothing.” She gave him a wink. “Just the way you like it.”
“Hey. I don’t want you to stop seeing him if it makes you mope around all the time.”
“I’m not moping around. I’m happy!”
“Yeah, right. So what’d he do to piss you off so much?”
“Oh. Well…” She stacked dirty glasses and hoped he’d get called away.
“Tessa?”
“He called me out on my supposed issues.”
“Oh, no. What an asshole.”
She grabbed the crate and slid it off the counter. “Date him yourself if you think he’s so great.”
When she rushed through the doors to the back, Tessa found that she’d jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The fire of acute and startling embarrassment.
“Oh,” she yelped, cringing at the sight of Wallace on his knees before Faron, his hands clasped together as if in prayer. “I’m sorry!”
Wallace looked over at her, but Faron didn’t even blink. “You don’t get along with my husband. I can’t possibly keep seeing you.”
“Your husband!” Wallace spat on the floor in disgust, making Tessa jump. “He’s not worthy of being called a man. Faron, please. I love you.”
Faron jerked her hand from his grasp and spun away to stalk out.
Arms aching from the weight of the glasses, Tessa just stood there, frozen, as Faron slid past her.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “Wallace?”
He grumbled as he pushed to his feet, and she was relieved that he was morphing back into his normal, grumpy self. “Husband,” he muttered.
Tessa cleared her throat. “Um. You two have met?”
“Met? I used to date him myself, years ago. A blow-hard and a liar, and he’s not even close to being worthy of Faron. That woman is a goddess!”
Goddess or not, Wallace didn’t exactly seem heartbroken.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. It didn’t seem as if a man could recover so quickly from going on his knees to beg for a woman’s heart.
“I am,” he grumbled as he retreated toward his cave and the tanks within.
“Wallace, are you sure?”
He paused and turned halfway back toward her. She watched his face—what she could see of it—for signs of sorrow. But amazingly, he winked and his beard quirked up as if he were smiling. “She’ll be back. No way she can resist me.”
“Oh. I…see.” Tessa watched him disappear into the tank room, then stood there until her arms began to shake. By the time she moved to put the tray down, Wallace was back to his silent monologue to the tanks, perfectly happy in his cave. She hurried out of there as fast as she could…and right back into Jamie’s lair.
“You know,” Jamie said as if a moment hadn’t passed. “I talked to him yesterday.”
Tessa groaned and covered her face, sure that she was losing her mind. “Who?”
“You know who. He called about the case.”
“Good. Great. I hope you two had a lovely chat.”
“He sounded pretty subdued.”
Tears sprang to her eyes in an instant. Was he sad? Did he miss her? God, she missed him so much. The hurt was there. Pulling her toward the ground. An awfully melodramatic feeling for such a short relationship.
“Sis. Come on. Tell me what happened.”
She shook her head, but the words still pushed out. “You were right. About Luke.”
He stiffened and his face flashed to rage. “What the hell did he do?”
“The reason everybody thinks he fathered Simone’s baby…”
“That fucking bastard.”
She shrugged. “It’s not… I don’t know. He didn’t sleep with her. But apparently they had a thing a couple of years ago. They had a few too many drinks and made out.”
Jamie’s chin drew in. “Really?”
“Yeah. But he implied that they’d never—”
“They just…kissed?”
Tessa slowly registered that her brother’s anger had turned to incredulous disbelief. “What? He said they were just friends.”
“They kissed one time a couple of years ago and you’re pissed about that?”
Now it was Tessa’s turn to stiffen. “I don’t know if it was one kiss. Maybe there was groping or—”
“Oh, come on. If there was really something going on, there would’ve been a hell of a lot more than that after two years of seeing each other every day. Jeez, Tessa.”
“Hey! You’re the one who told me not to be stupid.”
“Yeah? Well, then, don’t be stupid.”
“Screw you!” she gasped, reaching for the beers Jamie had just pulled.
“Hey—” he started, but they were interrupted by a loud squeal.
“Jamie!” a chorus of girls cried from the doorway. “We saw your tweet!”
“Tessa,” he said past his welcoming smile. “What did you post this time?”
“Nothing. I just put out the word that there were empty seats at the bar. The enthusiasm is all you, big brother.”
“Well, I was going to tell you to get out of here and go see your boyfriend, but now…”
“It’s too busy. And he’s not my boyfriend.” She tried to heft the tray to her shoulder, but Jamie’s hand was locked on the opposite edge of the tray.
“You need to go talk to him. And two tables just left. It’s not that busy.”
“It’s slammed.” She tugged again, but he tugged back and slid the tray right out of her grasp.
“I want you to be happy, sis. Not just safe and protected, but happy, too. And maybe he’s not so bad. Go talk to him, all right? Let him apologize for calling you out on your issues. Because that’s what you’re really pissed about, right?”
She looked uncertainly around the crowded barroom and tried to hang on to her anger.
“I can handle twice this many people. Get out.”
She wanted to see Luke. She really did. During the past few days she’d gotten the feeling that holding her family together was no longer enough to make her happy. That maybe it was time to learn to trust. And if even Jamie thought she was being stubborn…
“Well, fine. If it’ll make you happy.” She pushed the tray at him, whipped off her apron and started to race away. Then she raced back to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
But as she got into her car, she still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. She’d broken up with him in a rage of fury and hurt. How the hell was she supposed to approach him now? Should she just knock on his door and ask if they could talk? Maybe she should bring flowers. But that might remind him of the flowers he’d brought her. She’d rather bring him a gift that reminded him of something good. Something that would make him smile.
“Bingo,” she breathed, finally feeling more hope than heartache.
SHE WALKED INTO the White Orchid with a big smile, but that smile faltered when she found herself confronted with a group of ten or fifteen people gathered in chairs around a podium in the middle of the store. “Um,” she managed.
A woman in the last row turned around. “The class hasn’t started yet.” She patted the wooden folding chair next
to her. “You can sit next to me.”
“Oh, I’m not here for a class, just, er…” Tessa gestured vaguely to the other side of the store and made her escape.
A class at White Orchid? She was a little afraid to find out what that was about, so Tessa hurried to the back corner of the store and grabbed the item she’d come for. Thankfully, a girl was waiting behind the cash register. “Oooh, how cute! Are you staying for the class?”
“Oh, I don’t think… Um, what exactly—?”
“She’s starting!” the girl said in a furious whisper, pointing toward the podium.
Tessa handed over her credit card and kept a close eye on the class.
“I’m Beth, the manager of the White Orchid, and I want to thank you all for coming out to our class on the art of fellatio.”
Tessa swallowed too hard and had to cough to clear her throat, though she coughed as quietly as any human being had ever coughed. If there was one thing she didn’t want at this moment, it was that classroom’s eyes on her.
“This is Cairo,” Beth went on. “She’s going to help with some of the demonstrations.”
It was the gorgeous dark-haired woman from Tessa’s last visit. She bounced and waved to the class, but one hand held a green dildo that bobbed wildly when she gestured. The class tittered with nervous exhilaration.
“Let’s start with a definition—” Beth continued.
Tessa grabbed her bag and tiptoed toward the door with her purchase, not breathing again until she’d made it outside. She’d tried not to listen in, feeling horribly self-conscious that she was eavesdropping on these people, but the phrase “and this can include the scrotum” followed her out the door.
She only made it four feet into the parking lot before she burst into hysterical laughter. And for the hundredth time that week she thought, I have to tell Luke about this. Only this time, she actually could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
LUKE STARED OVER the edge of the crystal tumbler, wondering vaguely if he was drunk yet. He didn’t feel drunk. And he’d only downed two fingers of Scotch, but surely he must be drunk. Instead of watching the view of the half-naked blonde writhing in front of him, he kept looking at the glass in his hand.
The crystal had been a wedding present from someone in Eve’s family. She’d left him the tumblers when she’d moved out, probably figuring he’d need something to drink hard liquor from every night. He’d put them to good use for a few weeks, but his binge had been cut short by the knife he’d taken to the gut. They didn’t allow liquor in the hospital, and even he hadn’t been stupid enough to mix it with his painkillers when he’d returned home.
But tonight, he was fully invested in revisiting his previous taste for a good single-malt whiskey.
He hadn’t lied to Tessa. Not really. Yes, he’d purposefully left out a crucial bit of information about Simone, but that was only because it didn’t matter. How could Tessa not see that? The fact that he felt guilty about it only made him more resentful.
A glance back at the television told him he hadn’t missed much during his daydreaming. The naked girl was still writhing. He still couldn’t care less. Clearly, somebody even more pitiful than him had invented soft-core porn.
He wanted to reach for the remote, but the bottle was closer, so he reached for that instead. But as his fingers curled around the cold glass, someone knocked on the door. Luke’s eyes slid to the screen. The blonde was finally done with her slightly offscreen gyrations. The movie cut to a kitchen scene that seemed unrelated to the previous story, if it could be called that. The guy’s body was suspiciously buff for an average plumber.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Luke muttered. Couldn’t they come up with any new plotlines for these movies?
Setting the drink down, Luke grabbed the remote to hit the off button. Whoever was at the door, that person deserved a thank-you for the interruption.
But when he opened his door, Luke changed his mind about the thank-you. Instead, he scowled. Then scowled harder at the way his stupid heart leaped at the sight of her.
“Hi,” Tessa said, her happy smile dimming a bit at the edges.
He didn’t respond, telling himself he was too pissed to say a word to her, but really his throat was stiff and unwilling to let words escape.
“Um. Are you busy?” She craned her neck to look behind him, and Luke was so relieved he’d turned off the TV that he relaxed his guard and let her slip inside. “You’re not saying anything,” she said. Her eyes fell on the glass and the bottle next to it.
“What do you want, Tessa?”
“Um, I wanted to talk. And I brought…” She thrust a little white bag in his direction. “It’s not flowers, but…”
He took the bag automatically but didn’t open it. They stood there staring at each other.
“Actually…” She took the bag back. “This was a stupid idea.”
Worried she was about to leave, he snatched the bag back and wrapped his fist tightly into the paper. “What was a stupid idea?”
“I just… I wanted to talk. I don’t want you to think I don’t take this seriously.”
“Tessa, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry I got so mad!” she said on a rush. “I’m sorry I pushed you. I was just… I was already upset and then you said that about Simone. I didn’t want to listen. But I want to listen now.”
“I appreciate that. I do.” The thrill of seeing her had faded to only a sharp pain instead of a lightning strike of shock, and now he could feel his anger again. Even though she squirmed, he didn’t give her an inch. Maybe he was just done with apologies from exes today.
“I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “I said things I shouldn’t have said. I was scared. And I was a complete wreck, but that’s no excuse.”
Shit, she did look sorry. Her green eyes fairly glowed with regret. Pissed as he was, he felt his resolve softening as if he were butter in a hot pan. “I’m sorry, too. About Simone. I should’ve told you the whole story.”
“What is the whole story?”
Luke looked up at the ceiling. He wanted to tell her it was none of her business, but it was. A little. And what the hell did he have to lose? “I was on the rebound. That’s all. Feeling a little wounded. We’d been working together a month, and we got along so well. We had a few drinks and I was walking her home, and I thought it would be a great idea. It wasn’t. We went to her place, but thank God Simone was sober enough to stop.”
“But you wanted to? You would’ve…”
His jaw tightened. “Look, I’m a man. I was drunk. I mistook friendship for something else. But I swear to God, she’s been like a sister to me since then.” Luke looked up at the ceiling again, resentful of the suspicion in her eyes. “Listen, Tessa…I understand why you were upset that day. I know how important your brothers are to you. But that doesn’t change the fact that you don’t trust me.”
“What?” she croaked, her bright eyes dimming.
“Tessa, come on. You can’t trust me. You can’t invest in a relationship, and—”
“That’s not true! You haven’t even given me a chance to explain. I was afraid. I was trying to hold on to every single thing in my life with a death grip, just like you said.”
“Of course you were. I don’t begrudge you that, but—”
“But I’m working on it. I told Eric everything. More than everything.” Her eyes welled with tears. “And I’m trying to figure out how to trust and—”
“Tessa.” Christ, he couldn’t stand the way her face crumpled when he snapped her name.
“You were right! And I’m sorry, Luke. Please.”
A couple of days ago, he would’ve given anything to have her here. Anything. But on the heels of his conversation with his ex, Luke knew it wasn’t going to be easy. He couldn’t just pull Tessa into his arms and forget everything. “You were right, too. I’ve got my own problems. But that’s the thing, Tessa. Our problems won’t fit together eas
ily.”
“I don’t know what you mean. It’s not that I don’t trust you. Like you said, I can’t trust anyone, but I see that now.”
He squeezed the bag harder in his hand, crumpling the paper until it tore under his fingers. He tilted his head toward the couch. Tessa edged quickly around it and sat down as if she were permanently laying claim to that spot.
Luke sat with more care, afraid if he moved too quickly, he’d forget not to reach for her. He’d forget that he shouldn’t tuck his face against her neck and breathe her in. If he tasted her scent, he’d be lost. Hell, he’d be so lost that he wouldn’t even care. So Luke sat on the edge of the couch and clutched the paper bag like a shield.
“I can’t pretend that I’m an open book,” he said. “But I’m not stupid. I’ll fall in love again. I’ll have relationships, and those won’t be real if I don’t open up. But I can’t do it with someone like…”
“Someone like me?”
“No.”
“I don’t—”
“My ex-wife,” he interrupted. “She’s a good person. But we didn’t trust each other, not enough to be honest. It was more like a chess match than a marriage. We circled each other like adversaries. But we were so young. I didn’t see that.”
“I know I haven’t been the most honest person in the world, but—”
“It’s not that simple. You don’t understand….”
“Then make me understand!” she shouted. “Please.”
He made the mistake of looking at her eyes, liquid with sorrow. She was pulling him in, so he shook his head and looked away. “I was devastated by the divorce. Blindsided. And I hadn’t once thought of falling in love again, and how that might happen. But everything about you made me think about it. Made me want it. Still….”
“What?”
“Tessa, I can’t spend all my time wondering what you’re really thinking. What you’re really feeling. What you’re keeping from me because you’re afraid I won’t like it. And shit, I can’t do that to you, either. I thought my wife and I had a good, normal marriage. I never realized that she wasn’t happy, because she didn’t tell me and I didn’t pay attention. At all. I lived in my own head, in my job. I loved her. But I didn’t know how to be in a relationship. Next time, I’ll pay attention, but I can’t live with the constant fear that I’ll come home one day and find a note….”
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