27. Luc
27
LUC
IS IT ST PATRICK’S DAY?
I slow the bike at a truck stop, twenty or so minutes outside the little town we call home. Paddy’s, which is where truckers come to rest in between Point A and Point B, to fuel up and get a meal. They come in to have somewhere quiet to stow their trucks and catch a little sleep. And when they’re feeling brave, they head inside and spar with the buxom Dolly—Paddy’s loud and large waitress.
Mitch and I come out here sometimes when we have time and a hunger for fried bacon.
Often, we’re called out here on a job because folks cause trouble and need a band-aid or two, and they don’t want to go into town for that.
“I didn’t agree to this.” Kari peels her chest off my back and unravels her arms from my stomach. She tried the frigid, barely-gonna-touch-you thing only until we hit the train tracks leaving town. After that, I figure she decided fuck it , when in Rome and all that, resting her helmeted cheek against my back and linking her hands in my lap. She melted into my body as though we’ve done this a million times before, and even as I left the town limits behind, she didn’t tense up.
She doesn’t mind we’ve gone for a detour. She minds that I parked and now she has to actually acknowledge my existence once more.
If I was smart, I’d have kept going into the next state, then to the next five after that.
It’s damn near silent out here now, the roads all but empty and the trucks that are out here, parked and dark. Paddy’s is lit up like a Christmas tree in December, creating an air of busy-ness that doesn’t quite pan out, because only a stingy few people sit inside, their heads bowed over a plate and their elbows perched on the laminate booth tables.
This is where I wanted to come, where no one knew us, and we know no one else. Where pretenses don’t matter, and hopefully, Kari won’t feel the sting of what I’ve done to her over the years quite so severely.
Slowly, she unsnaps the strap of her helmet and pushes it up to reveal bright eyes. Too wide, too awake considering the hour.
Too fucking beautiful.
“I didn’t agree to come all the way out here.”
Liar, liar.
“I know.” I take her hand in mine, gripping when she’d rather pull away. Then I help her off the bike and onto her own two feet before I release her fingers and trade them for the helmet she places down. “Tonight was huge for you, Bear. First day on the job, and you fucking rocked it.” I carefully hang the helmet off my handlebars and snag the keys from the ignition. “I’m still ramped up from my shift, so I wasn’t ready to go home yet.”
“I was ready.” She’s such a fucking liar, folding her arms and lifting her chin. “You didn’t ask my permission to bring me an hour out of my way.”
“And you didn’t say shit when I turned right instead of left.” I pocket my keys and push off the bike. My thighs are a little like jelly. My knees, embarrassingly weak. But I turn from the bike and look down into perfect green eyes. “You have a voice, Bear.” I bring my hand up, steeling the tremor in my fingers, and gently run my knuckles across her jaw. “We both know you know how to use it. You’ve managed to make your wishes clear since your return to town. So if you had a problem with me hitting the freeway, then you could have said something.”
“I—”
“You wanted this.” I stroke her cheek with the pad of my thumb and thrill in the way she shudders. “You like how it feels when you’re flying through the air at seventy miles an hour, your body wrapped around mine and your heart pounding against my back.”
“Luc—”
“You’re just really scared to admit it. You’re so fucking terrified, Bear. Because I screwed us over already. I know.” I slide my fingers beneath her chin and draw her up until she extends onto her toes. “I know what I did, Kari. And I’m so fucking sorry for it.”
“Sorry doesn’t make it go away,” she whispers. “It doesn’t fix it. Sorry is what people say when they don’t want to feel the consequences of their actions anymore. So they say it, and the person hearing it is expected to move on. It’s manipulation and guilt.”
“Not from me.” I slide my thumb over the bump of her chin and study the way her lips drop into a seductive pout. How they tremble and tempt. But how they’re not mine. Not now, and maybe not ever. “I accept the consequences of my actions. I’ve been living with them for six fucking years, and ninety-nine percent of the time, I’ve left you alone. I’m not here to manipulate you. But maybe?—”
Her eyes glisten, and yet, narrow. “But maybe, what?”
“Maybe I can help fix what I broke. I can rebuild trust. And after that, maybe you can have faith that I’m a better man. Come on.” I take her hand and turn toward the front doors. “This place is open twenty-four hours. It’s quiet. They make amazing scrambled eggs, and mostly criminals hang out here.”
“Wait.” She skids to a stop. “Why are criminals being here a good thing?”
“It’s kind of like a tomcat and mouse situation. The mice are pests, and the cats keep them away. In our case, crowds are pests, and criminals keep them scarce.” Chuckling, I bring her through the heavy glass door and into the diner that hasn’t been updated since some point a few decades before I was born. Then I smile at the voluptuous Dolly whose boobs are always a few steps ahead of her. “We’ll take a booth.”
“Go for it, Handsome.” She wipes the counter with long sweeps of her arm, winking when she casts a quick, discreet glance toward Kari. Then she asks, “Coffee? Or cocoa?”
I look at Kari for a beat, her head bowed low and her bravery all but gone now that other people are around us. Then I glance at the clock on the wall and note the time. It’s all fun and games to be awake in the middle of the night. But soon, we have to sleep. And chugging caffeine probably isn’t the choice mature, responsible, first responders would make. “Cocoa,” I decide. “We’ll only be here an hour, then it’s time for bed.”
“On it.” Dolly winks and turns to get started, so I tug Kari a little closer and give a wide berth to the booth occupied by three guys. Two on one side, and the third opposite them. The two are almost a matching pair. Not identical, but the genes run strong enough to promise a brotherhood. A direct biological link. Whereas the third doesn’t appear to be related at all.
“We don’t look at them,” I mock whisper, drawing a furious blush to Kari’s cheeks. “And they won’t look at us. They don’t want to be noticed. And honestly, we want to be left alone. ”
“Are they…” She swallows and side-eyes the trio. “Are they cops? I see a gun.”
“We don’t see a gun,” I snicker. “Trust me, we see nothing .” I bring her to the booth furthest from anyone else, perched in a dark corner where the light reaches but the shadows are most prominent. Only half of the booth gets a window view, whereas all the others get to look out to the gas pumps no one is using right now. “We’ll sit here.” I keep hold of her hand. I know she wants to wrench it free. I know she wants to force me away and take back her personal space. But I’m stronger than she is, and I have a plan to just… exist in her space until it becomes her new normal.
“I can sit without your help.” She’s as predictable to me as the sun rising in the east, attempting to squeeze her hand free. “Let me go.”
“I’m being a gentleman.” I help her slide in and chuckle when she snarls. But then I release her since I’m not actually trying to upset her. It’s a delicate balance to walk.
Normalize my presence. Beg for forgiveness and prove I’m a better person.
“How do you think your first shift went?” I slide in after her. Fuck sitting on the other side; to do so would, one , mean I don’t get to be near her, but, two , it would also mean sitting with my back to the criminals we’re not paying attention to. No thanks. “From where I was standing, all I saw was badassness.”
“Badassness is not a word.” She lifts her chin and looks out our partially obstructed window. “And I froze up when the girl came in. Hardly the bedrock of badassery.”
“Is badassery a real word?” I turn in my seat, just a little, and rest my elbow on the back. “You didn’t freeze. You took a second to process.”
“I’m an RN who chose the emergency room. Taking a second to process could kill someone.”
“She was six years old, had a busted face, two broken limbs, and was begging for her mom.” I reach across and grab her jaw, dragging her around until her eyes meet mine. “She had just fled a home invasion. You didn’t fuck up, Bear. You were being tested by a really cruel universe.”
“A test I failed.”
“Bullshit!” I make her jump with my bitten-out word and attract curious glances from the three huddled together a handful of booths away. Then I rein in my temper and repeat, “Bullshit. You took care of that girl the way she deserved. You were a guardian angel sent to her when she needed one most. Just like Mr. Turner was sent to you and Marcus. Stop downplaying something truly amazing. ”
“I barked orders at a doctor.” Her cheeks flame bright red. “That was so bad!”
“That was entertaining as hell,” I laugh. “Eastgate is decent enough. He can move a little slow, considering his line of work, and you knew what needed to be done. Perhaps if Cleo had landed a different nurse, she’d have been ten minutes slower. Twenty. Waiting for a doctor to order tests and a scan.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and grin. “Your one second delay wasn’t a bad thing, Bear. It was you loading badassery.”
“You’ll say anything to make me feel better.” She glances across as Dolly steams milk, the hiss playing out through the tiled room and the large woman’s bodacious backside bouncing as she dances to a song only she can hear. “I could have amputated her leg, and you’d say it’s cool, since clearly prosthetics can be customized to pink these days.”
“I mean… Yeah. Maybe. But she could totally get Barbie or My Little Pony branding on the side. A six-year-old would heal fast and learn to walk on their prosthetic within weeks. It’s totally fine.”
She rolls her eyes, finally playful, which is a hell of a lot better than hateful. “Your assessment of my abilities is not unbiased or trustworthy.”
“So ask someone else to assess you. You could blow shaving cream up a patient’s ass, and I’d still think you’re the best.” I lean in a little closer. Too close for strangers, and yet, not nearly close enough to assuage the want in the pit of my stomach. “What do you think of your first day on the job?” I grab a long lock of curly brown hair and bring it up to study the ends. “What’s your self-assessment? And don’t tell me you screwed up with the girl.”
“I think…” She snatches her hair back and draws a deep breath. “I think I’m glad I spent my entire college career huddled up in my room, reading textbooks instead of partying like everyone else. I was able to draw on what I’d learned tonight, and I was able to do it reasonably quickly. That made me confident, when, in other emergency situations, I might’ve panicked.”
“You’re our newest nurse in town, huh?” Dolly plops two steaming mugs on the table and pushes one across to sit in front of Kari. “Luca’s been talking about you for years. How you’re top of your class and gonna shake things up once you got back from college.”
Stunned, Kari looks at me. Her eyes wide and her lips dangerously thin.
Then of course, I look at Dolly and firm my lips. “A little discretion, please. What is said between the hours of midnight and one should remain confidential, no?”
“Of course.” She winks and wrinkles her nose and brings her focus back to Kari. “Forget I said anything. Your man has definitely not been out here in the middle of the night before, waxing poetic about your pretty face and brilliant brain.”
“He’s not my man,” she breathes, pale and flustered. “He’s just… he’s a family friend.”
“Yeah, kinda like how I wanna be a family friend to that delicious specimen over there.” She hooks a thumb toward the criminal trio, smirking when one of them glances up. Black eyes. Tattoos covering every inch of exposed skin except for the bits on his face. Then she focuses back on us and raises her hands to create finger quotes. “’ Family friends’. The kind that share a bed.” She drops her hands. “I’d like to point out that your family friend is completely and ridiculously besotted with you, Miss Cutie Face. I ain’t never had a man look at me the way yours looks at you.”
“I’d like to drink my cocoa in the quiet.” Kari’s humiliated. Humiliated ! Because Dolly doesn’t mind a scene at all. And the other guests inside this diner hang on every word the woman speaks. “Please,” she pleads.
“Oh sure.” Dolly huffs and does that thing women do, bouncing her head. “No one ever wants to talk to Dolly, except when they’re lonely. And even then, they only wanna talk about the woman they’re in love with. I never get to be the talked about . Just the talked to .” She presses a hand to her chest. “Why is life so cruel?”
“I can’t…” Kari drops her face into her hands and shakes. “I can’t handle this.”
I laugh in the back of my throat, bouncing until the movement vibrates against our chair. But I look at Dolly and find a little mercy for Kari before she combusts. “Can we get a stack of pancakes please? Just one really big stack, and two sets of silverware.”
“Family friends.” She blows out a harrumph of displeasure and spins on her heels. “My ass.”
“You brought me here to torment me.” Kari peeks out from behind her hands, her cheeks blazing a bright red. “Here, Bear. I’m soooooo sorry about upsetting you all these years. Let me take you somewhere you’ll hate.”
“In my defense,” I grab her wrists and carefully drag her hands from her face. “Dolly has always been nice to me. And I think she’s showing off for those other guys. Guess she’s got a thing for dangerous red flags.”
“ T hose were my red flags!” Kane preens at my kitchen table, beaming because he was seen. In my memories, in a whole other lifetime, there he was. “By the time I snagged Jessie, I was so sure you’d forgotten you ever saw me.”
I shrug and look down at a sleeping Billy. “My entire life has been spent in my memories. While Kari was away at college, I was with her in my mind. And now that she’s…” I swallow when a heavy ball of grief lodges in my throat and cuts off my air. But I cough the intrusion away and bring my gaze up. “My memories are a good place to be when the rest of the world sucks. So I guess it makes sense to me that I’m pretty good at recalling them.”
“And your memories of that night have nothing to do with Kari finally getting on your bike,” he counters with a smug grin. “You saw me there. The criminal trio ,” he chuckles. “Cap would take offence to that label.”
“Cap and I are okay. And you’ll handle your brother.” I bring my hand up and stroke the bridge of Billy’s nose. “Getting Kari on my bike was a fucking miracle. But having her back in town and talking to me were miracles, too. Seems I was on a roll.”
“She was spitting venom,” Kane snickers. “I’d hardly call those love sonnets.”
“Arguing with her was better than not speaking to her for three years at a time. And I’d done that twice already. I wasn’t risking a third.”
“So you got her on your bike. Shared pancakes, and… what?”
“And then Brittany threw the hammer down at family dinner a little while later. Destroying what little progress I’d made and landing me in a whole lot of shit.”
“Oh!” Jess’ feet thunder across the living room. “Oh! Oh! I know this story. I was there for it!”
“Britt?” Kane’s eyes widen. “She told Kari what you guys did?”
“She told the whole fucking family.” I think back to that night, smiling now that years separate it and us. But Jesus, at the time… it was rough. “She… well… all the girls, really, were deep in their sneaking around with guys phase.”
“We called those our hoe days.” Giggling, Jess plops down onto Kane’s knee and faces me. Luckily for her since murderous black eyes shoot up to the side of her face. “Laine was sneaking around with Graham.”
“That fucking asshole,” I snarl.
“I was sneaking around?— ”
“With who?” Kane squeezes and pins her to his knee. Which could seem abusive, I suppose, in most other relationships. But not for Jess. She holds no fear as far as her thug goes. “Who were you sneaking around with, Jessica Ann?”
“Not you,” she sniggers. “Had I known you were already hanging around town, I might’ve come looking sooner. But since I didn’t…”
“Britt had started dating Jack,” I push on. “The fighter who would eventually become her husband. But back then, he was just a one-night stand. One she revisited a few times.”
“He was big and strong and sexy,” Jess adds. “And since his family owned the club we always danced at, he had keys to the office for a little one-on-one fun with Britt.”
“Which was all good and fine,” I sigh. “But Alex was always gonna be Alex. So by the time Britt brought Jack home to meet the family, X was losing his mind.”
“Because he was a fighter that she was having casual sex with?”
“Because Jack’s girlfriend before Britt, Steph,” I clarify, “had died in a car accident the year before. Jack was driving.”
“But it wasn’t his fault,” Jess interjects. Her eyes dance, from humor to hurt in a single second. “Like with you,” she sighs, studying me, “drunk drivers get behind the wheel sometimes. It’s what they do. And unfortunately for Jack and Steph, she didn’t survive it.”
“So X was losing his mind because his baby sister was dating a fighter,” I fill in for Kane, “but that fighter was also the dude whose girlfriend died.”
“And X just so happened to catch Britt and Jack banging in public that one time.” Jess giggles again, her chest and shoulders bouncing with it. “So he was pissed . She brought Jack to dinner to meet the whole family, and X did what X does. He was throwing a tantrum and tossing insults at Jack. And Britt did what Britt does?—”
“Tossing them straight back,” I finish. “Alex was being an asshole, and Britt wasn’t tolerating it. Alex mentioned something about how Britt was a good girl, and good girls don’t have casual sex.”
Joining the dots, Kane grits his teeth. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “Oh shit. In all her maturity and wisdom, Britt pointed straight at me, at the fucking dinner table, and said yes, girls like her do have casual sex. Because she had, in fact, fucked me.”
Kane lets out a piggish snort that almost makes me smile. “Damn, Britt.”
“Alex carries a gun,” I snicker. “And an extremely short temper. So I hauled ass out of that house so fucking fast, I’m pretty sure I was gone before my chair hit the floor.”
“Coward,” Kane cackles. “The chief is a pussycat. You didn’t wanna stick around to see what would happen?”
“Oh, I knew what would happen. So I removed myself before Alex ended up in prison. But of course,” I sigh, sobering, “Kari was at that dinner table, too.”
“But she knew about you and Britt. She doesn’t get to be angry twice. And Britt didn’t know about you and Kari, so her announcement was… well, not cool. But not malicious.”
“I was never mad at Britt for that.” I drop my hand away from Billy’s nose and trace her puffy lips instead. “It happened. It was in the past. And it’s not like I could ask her to censor herself. That was her life and her actions to speak about whenever she wanted. Kari’s horror wasn’t in the details this time.”
“It was in the delivery,” Jess adds, understanding a new, fresh perspective on that day. “Britt made a scene, and even if the rest of us had no clue about you and Kari, we now knew about you and Britt. That would make it hard for Kari to eventually reveal that you and her were together when the time came.”
“Pretty much. It was just another blow to the heart I wanted so badly to mend.”