Chapter 10
Savannah
Luke arrives at half past seven with a duffle bag over his shoulder and the energy he always brings into a room. Which is the energy of someone who finds everything at least mildly entertaining and has decided to be delighted by wherever he ends up.
I throw my arms around him before he's fully through the door. He lifts me off the ground and squeezes until I feel something unknot in my chest that I didn't know was knotted. I've missed him more than I'd let myself register.
"God, if I'd known you'd greet me like this I'd have come down sooner." He sets me down and looks around the apartment. "Very you."
"Is that good?"
"It's very good. Small. Tidy. One of those weird candles that smells like a forest." He picks it up and sniffs it. "Yeah. Very you."
"There's only one bed," I tell him. "So, you either sleep in it with me and keep your hands to yourself or you sleep on the couch. Your choice."
"I'll decide later." He drops his bag. "If I've had too many drinks I might try it on and I don't fancy a knee to the balls. I'll probably end up on the couch. Is there a bar we can go to?"
I laugh. He probably would try it on if he was drunk. He's done it enough times before. But after that once, years ago, we'd agreed it wasn't where we were meant to go and it had made us better for it. "There used to be one down the road. I haven't been since I got back."
"Then it's past time." He grins. "Go and put something on that'll make your ex miserable when he sees you."
"My ex is not going to be there."
"Put on the red top anyway."
I put on the red top.
Ruby spots us from the diner doorway before we've made it halfway down the street. Of course she does. She was probably watching from the window.
"That’s Ruby. Don't give her anything," I say quietly to Luke.
"Savannah, you look beautiful," Ruby calls, already looking at Luke with the appraising expression of a woman who intends to have a full report ready for her regulars by morning. "And who is this handsome young man?"
Luke takes my hand and smiles at her like he's known her his whole life. I am going to kill him. "Hi, Miss Ruby. I've heard so much about your apple pie. Maybe tomorrow we can both drop in?" He turns to me like we've already agreed to this.
"What a lovely idea," I say through my teeth.
"Oh, I'm so pleased you have company," Ruby says, delighted. "Especially after the business with the shooting the other day. You must have been frightened, darling."
"I'm completely fine, Ruby."
"A shooting?" Luke turns to look at me. "You didn't tell me that. I'm going to have to spank you for that later, young lady," he says it loudly enough for the whole street to hear and I watch Ruby's face light up like Christmas morning.
"Goodnight, Ruby," I say firmly, and drag Luke away by the arm while he laughs. "That isn’t funny. By the time we get to the bar she'll have called ahead and told everyone we're together."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Luke."
"I'm joking. Is she always like that?"
"You have no idea. Watch and learn."
He's still laughing when we walk into the bar and everyone turns to look at us. I see the moment he understands what I mean, his expression shifting from amusement to mild alarm as heads swivel with the choreographed interest of people who've already been briefed.
"She called ahead," he says.
"She always calls ahead."
I order two beers and we find a little booth at the back and slide in on opposite sides.
It's a Friday night and the bar's busy. There’s the good kind of Friday noise, with low music and overlapping conversations.
I take in the smell of beer and old wood.
I'd forgotten how much I used to like this place.
I'd forgotten how much I'd left behind that I didn't mind.
"Why are they still looking at us?" Luke asks.
"They haven't all seen me since I got back. And we're here together and they're nosy bastards. My parents will know about this before I get home tonight."
"Small towns," he says, shaking his head. But he's smiling. "You look happy here, Sav. Like, actually happy. Not the face you put on at the hospital."
"I do like it here. I always did." I drink my beer. "I just forgot."
We're four beers in and I'm warm, loose and actually laughing at something Luke is doing with a beer mat when he says, without changing his expression, "Who's the guy at the bar."
I knew without looking. I'd felt him come in. I don't know how to explain it better than that and I've stopped trying to. Austin has always been a presence I register before I see him, something in the air that shifts slightly and then there he is.
"My ex," I say.
"You didn't look."
"I didn't need to."
Luke considers this. "He looks like he wants to kill me."
"He won't."
"That's not as reassuring as you think it is." He finishes his beer. "I'm going to the bathroom. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"That gives me a very wide range of options."
He grins before he slides out of the booth and I finally let myself look.
Austin is at the bar with Brick and Cash, which means this wasn't a social visit.
This is club business that happened to bring them to this particular bar on this particular night.
They're following up on High Stakes intel; I know that much from what EJ told me when I asked why the whole club had shown up at the diner.
There's always a reason when the Black Saints go somewhere together.
Cash has a glass in front of him, but his attention isn’t completely on the glass.
He’s half present and half somewhere operational, his eyes moving around the room in a way that looks casual and isn't. Brick is watching the room with his back to the bar, arms folded, because that's Brick's version of relaxed.
And Austin is watching me.
He's not pretending to do anything else.
He's sitting at the bar with his elbows on the counter and his eyes straight across the room at our booth and when my eyes meet his he doesn't look away.
He doesn't smile. He just looks at me the way he's been looking at me since he walked into my surgery, like he's making sure I'm real.
I'm aware that Cash clocks the moment and tips his head slightly toward Austin, and I see Austin say something back without breaking eye contact with me. Whatever he said, Cash shrugs and turns back to the room. Brick doesn't move. He already knows.
I look away first.
The booth dips and I think it's Luke back already but it's not Luke. Austin slides in across from me and fills the space like he's always been in it.
"That your man, Sav? Did you move home and bring him with you?"
There's an edge in his voice that I recognize. I never thought I'd have to deal with jealous Austin again. I'm not sure I was prepared for it.
"None of your business." I hold his eyes. Neither of us is going to be the first to look down. "I don't flaunt my personal life the way you do."
"You fucked him?" His jaw goes tight.
"None of your fucking business."
"I thought you didn't swear."
"I told you not to swear in front of your son. Different rule."
Something moves across his face when I say your son. A kind of flinch. "I need to see you, Sav. I need to talk to you. I'm going out of my mind knowing you're here and not being able to talk to you."
"What do you want to talk about, Austin?" I hear my own voice getting louder and I can't stop it. "How you slept with someone else in the bed where we slept? Or how you told me you loved me and then made sure I'd find you with her? Which part do you want to go over?"
I'm aware that people are looking. I don't care.
"That's exactly why we need to talk." He looks lost. It's the most honest his face has been since he walked into my office. "Not here. Come home with me or let me come to yours. I just need you to hear me out."
"Luke is staying at mine."
The darkness moves through his eyes like weather. "He's staying at yours. One bedroom."
"Don't," I say.
"Is he sleeping in your bed?"
I stand up. "I don't owe you an explanation, Austin. I don't owe you anything."
I move toward the end of the booth, but he catches my arm. I fall into his chest and his scent hits me before I can defend myself against it. I hate my own body for every single thing it does in that second.
"Sav. Please."
"Sav, is everything okay?" Luke is back.
I step out of Austin's hold. "Let's go. We can drink at home."
Austin follows us out. I knew he would. I can hear him behind us on the pavement, so I keep walking and don't turn around.
"This isn't over, Sav. Once you hear what I’ve to say, if you decide you never want to see me again, I'll respect that. But you need to hear it."
"Austin, go away."
Luke has stopped walking. I turn and he's looking at Austin the way Luke looks at things he's trying to understand, open and straight and without performance.
"Look," Luke says. "I'll find somewhere else tonight. You two need to actually talk. It seems important."
"He's not ruining our night, Luke."
"Hey." Luke puts his hand on my arm briefly. "I can see how much this matters. Just listen to him, okay?” He looks at Austin again and Austin looks back. Something passes between them that I'm not part of. I watch Luke make a decision.
"She deserves to be looked at like that," Luke says to Austin. Quietly. Not aggressive. Just straight.
Austin goes very still. It's a specific kind of stillness, like he's been handed something he didn't expect and he's working out how to hold it. I don't think anyone has said that to him before. I don't think it's something he's let himself hear.
"Like what?" I ask.
Neither of them answers me. Austin is looking at Luke and Luke is looking back. There's a whole conversation happening that I'm completely excluded from. It's irritating and also, quietly, something else entirely.
"Alright," Austin says. He says it like he means it. Like he's making an actual agreement with a person he's decided to respect.