Chapter 10 #2
"Good." Luke squeezes my shoulder. "I like him," he says, to me, quietly.
I turn on Austin. "What did he mean by that?"
"Sleep on the couch," Austin calls after Luke who is walking towards my place, who then raises a hand without turning around.
"He can sleep wherever he wants, Austin, it is genuinely none of your..."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"No," I say. "He's my best friend and you have absolutely no right to..."
"Then he sleeps on the couch."
"Since when did you turn into a caveman?"
"Apparently tonight." He drags a hand over his jaw. "I don't have women, Sav. Not any I talk to. Not anyone."
Something in that lands differently than I expect it to, and I need a second before I can keep going.
I take a breath. "Okay. Here's what happens.
Luke sleeps on the couch. You come over at ten tomorrow morning, and you say what you need to say.
When I ask you to leave, you leave. And when I start dating again, you stay out of it. Understood?"
"You won't be dating anyone else," he says. "Because you'll be with me."
"That’s extraordinarily presumptuous."
"Maybe." He doesn't look sorry about it. "I'll see you at ten."
He turns and walks back to his bike, and I watch him even though I tell myself not to. He gets on and starts it. The rumble carries up the street and runs through me the way it always has. I used to sit on the back of that bike, hold onto him and feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
"Wow," Luke says from behind me. I turn to find him leaning against the wall with his arms folded and the expression of a man who has learned something useful. "That was intense."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm just saying." He falls into step beside me as we head home. "Good god, woman. How are you resisting that?"
"He cheated on me. He made sure I'd find him."
"There's more to it." Luke says it simply. "I could tell from watching him. He's desperate to explain, not desperate to win an argument. There's a difference."
We get back to my place, I make coffee and we sit on the couch. I feel the emotion of the evening sitting in my chest like something I haven't decided what to do with yet.
"I'm sorry he ruined the night out."
"He didn't ruin anything. That was the best Friday night I've had in months and I saw a man nearly combust with jealousy over you, which is honestly the most romantic thing I've ever seen in person."
"It's not romantic, it's..."
"Sav..." Luke sets his coffee down and puts his arm around me and I lean into his shoulder and breathe. "Just listen to him tomorrow. Have an open mind. You don't have to decide anything. Just listen."
"I don't know how I'm going to sit that close to him."
"Yeah, I know." He squeezes my shoulder. "But you're going to do it anyway, because not knowing is eating you up. I can see it."
I close my eyes. "I did love him so much, Luke."
"I know, sweetheart. I know." He pulls me a little closer. "It's your choice what happens next. Not his. Remember that."
"I'll remember."
"Good." He reaches for his coffee. "Now tell me everything about the shooting because I ain’t leaving this town tomorrow without that information."
I laugh despite myself. "Sleep on the couch, Luke."
"Already decided," he says.
AUSTIN
She finally agreed to ten in the morning and it's the best and worst thing that's happened today.
I get on the bike and ride. I don't think about the man with his hand in hers. I don't think about the way she leaned into my chest without meaning to. I don't think about the ten years between us that I put there and what it's going to take to cross them. I ride. That's all.
I pass her street and I see the light still on upstairs in the apartment. She's still awake. I don't stop. I keep riding.
When I get back to the compound, Brick is already there. I don't know how he got back before me. I don't ask. He's sitting at the bar in the empty clubhouse with two beers and he puts one in front of me when I sit down.
We sit in silence for a while. That's something Brick and I have always been able to do. He’s always been a part of my life.
He was the one who put me on a bike before I was old enough to be on one.
He was the one who sat across from Prez in my patch vote.
There's a particular kind of silence that only exists between people who've been through things together, and this is that silence.
He drinks his beer.
I drink mine.
"You're going to get her back, aren't you," Brick says. Not a question.
"I'm going to try."
He nods slowly, looking at the bar top. "You've been holding on to that for ten years. I always wondered if you'd do something about it when you got the chance or let it go again."
"I let it go the first time because I thought I had to."
"And now?"
"And now she's here and EJ thinks I should say sorry." I pick at the label on my beer. "Nine years old and he's already got better instincts than me."
Brick makes a sound that’s probably as close as he gets to a laugh when it's just the two of us. "Stop sitting here then. Go to your house and figure out what you're going to say tomorrow. You've got," he checks his watch. "About nine hours."
"I don't know how to explain why I did it without it sounding like excuses."
"Then don't explain. Just tell her the truth and let her decide what it means." He takes a long drink. "She came back to this town for a reason, Sprog. People don't come back to places unless they're looking for something they left there."
I sit with that for a second.
"Go," Brick says.
I go.
I sit in the kitchen of my house with a glass of water.
I think about everything I need to say and the order I should say it in.
I know the parts she's going to be angry about and the parts she might understand if I can get the words right.
I think about the look on her face tonight when she fell into my chest, the half second before she stepped back.
I don't sleep. I don't expect to.
Ten o'clock can't come fast enough.