Chapter 4
Luke
I watch as Annie’s face drops.
The way her brows furrow and her mouth slightly opens tells me she wasn’t expecting whatever news was just shared with her.
I step closer, placing my hand lightly on the small of her back, and I know something is really wrong when she lets it stay there.
The heat of her skin meets my palm, even through her red jumpsuit, and the smell of jasmine and roses overwhelms my senses, the same way it does every time she lets me get close to her.
Annie and I have been in this limbo together these past seven years, ever since I walked into Lenny’s and found a brand-new version of her.
She fights me on almost everything I do or say, and it seems like every conversation we have ends in an argument or her telling me I’m an idiot.
And I love it.
I love the fierceness of her, the confidence, the shield she puts around herself and the heart she thinks isn’t there anymore.
But she forgets I know her better than I know myself.
And when she acts like a brat, it turns me on .
I’ve known Annie since I was six years old. As classmates, as friends, as lovers; I know each and every side of her, and I know that she’s fighting me every chance she gets because she still cares. Even if she pretends she doesn’t.
At the beginning, I tried to talk to her about what happened between us. I wanted to do whatever I could to make things right—I still do—but she wouldn’t let me. She was gone by the time I came out of my meeting with Emmett the day of my interview and it was Eddie who started training me at the bar for the next few shifts.
I didn’t get to see her again until my first shift with her a few weeks later, and she ignored me the whole time. Acting as if I didn’t exist.
When we were closing that day, we finally had a moment alone and I tried to talk to her. I asked her what happened at Grant’s party—why she left me, what happened with Devin and the other girls—but she would barely look at me.
I tried to find traces of my 1st grade table partner, my homecoming date, my best friend, but I couldn’t. She wouldn’t even look up from the floor when she said we were both better off forgetting everything that happened between us, and I still wonder if she could actually hear my heart shatter into more pieces than I thought possible.
Forget growing up together?
Forget our first hug, our first kiss, our first time?
Forget how it felt to hold her hand or make her laugh?
Forget the only person who saw me ? Not who everyone else wanted me to be.
Asking me to forget her was like asking me to forget how to breathe .
Then it was like something shifted inside her. Her eyes finally met mine, and she stepped so close that I could almost taste the cherry-flavored lip gloss on her lips.
Then she told me she’d cut my balls off if I told anyone about our past.
Half of me wanted to get on my knees and beg her to listen to me, to give me another chance, but the other half of me recognized that the Annie I knew was gone.
She wasn’t coming back.
So I decided that night that I was going to do whatever I could to make her fall in love with me all over again.
It would be different this time. We were adults. Different people. We weren’t 15 anymore, and I still had to get to the bottom of what happened between us in the first place.
I told myself I would stop at nothing.
Yet, here we are, seven years later, and the closest she’s let me get to her is the night of Drew and Emmett’s wedding almost five years ago when she got drunk, ended up in my hotel room, and told me she was tired of pretending to hate me.
It was the first, and last, time I ever saw her more than a little tipsy.
I wanted to ask her what she meant, but by the time I registered what exactly she was saying, she was sprawled out, asleep in my bed.
I watched her sleep until the sun started to rise and I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. I dreamed about how beautiful she was and how I was almost over that wall she had put between us, but she was gone by the time I woke up.
It takes her a second to register my touch on her lower back. She promptly turns to give me a glare and steps out of my touch as she listens to whatever the person on the phone is telling her.
“Okay, I’ll be right over there,” she says before hanging up and turning to walk back into Lenny’s, ignoring me.
“Who was that?” I ask, stopping her mid-step, and I know it was the wrong question to ask as she slowly turns to face me.
One thing I’ve learned about Annie over the years is there is very little I can say that won’t piss her off, but acting in any way protective or worried about her is a sure way to ensure she doesn’t talk to me for days.
“Why do you continue to act like my business is any of yours?” she answers, crossing her arms.
“You seemed upset. Is everything okay?” I try again, hoping she’ll at least tell me what had her so taken aback.
She rolls her eyes before turning to the front door of Lenny’s. “Someone broke into my apartment,” she answers over her shoulder, as if she’s telling me my shoe is untied. “I have to head over there.”
My fists clench at the nonchalance of her voice and the severity of what she just said.
Before I can tell her I’m coming with her, she’s back inside and the door to Lenny’s shuts in my face. I let out a groan because this girl will be the death of me, either by killing me with the way she acts or with her actual hands.
“Is everything okay?” I hear Mia ask Annie when I get inside.
“Everything’s fine,” Annie answers as she grabs her purse, but she doesn’t look Mia in the eyes. “My landlord called with a small issue and needs me to head over.”
“What kind of issue?” Drew asks.
Before Annie can give some bullshit excuse, I answer for her knowing I will pay for it later. “Someone broke into her apartment.” There isn’t the usual lightness to my voice; I’m not here to make light of things or make a joke in an uncomfortable situation like I usually do.
What if Annie had been home during the break-in?
I can’t even think about it without feeling like I might hyperventilate.
Annie’s shoulders tighten and her eyes whip to mine. She’s pissed, and I knew she would be, but so am I. Not only because this situation is serious and she could be in danger, but because even for how much Annie has changed and evolved into this new version of herself, she still believes that asking for help makes her a burden.
She may not be scared to speak her mind or tell you what you don’t want to hear, seeing as though she refuses to take shit from anyone, but I still have yet to see her ask for help when she needs it.
Years of parents treating her like she is nothing more than background noise and people who were supposed to be her friends telling her she’s paranoid or overreacting when they made a joke at her expense left scars on her that may have healed but have never gone away.
The atmosphere of the bar shifts, and a worried Drew and Mia and a pissed off Emmett and Eddie watch Annie and me as we stare at each other, a silent conversation passing through us, one that has happened many times before.
Her telling me to stop talking, and me not listening.
“You’re not going alone,” I say, staring into her eyes. We’re all around the high-top table, but the world around Annie and me disappears. Annie’s eyes soften for a moment, and she lets me see past that hard exterior .
She’s worried, probably scared. Maybe she’s grateful that I knew she didn’t want to go alone but didn’t want to say so.
But then she blinks, and that moment of vulnerability is gone as fast as it came.
My hands itch to touch her, my arms ache to be around her, my lips beg to tell her that she doesn’t need to be so guarded all the time, that I am here to love her and protect her and show her that she doesn’t have to do it all alone, but I resist every urge.
The same way I always do.
“We’re coming with you,” Drew finally says, bringing me back to the moment. Annie’s attention swings to our friend, and she knows better than to argue with Drew when she puts her foot down. Emmett nods his head once in agreement as he helps his wife out of the high-top chair.
Annie has her own history with Emmett, and I know he sees her as a sister. When I started working for him, I learned quickly that he wasn’t as scary as he pretended to be—Annie is much scarier—and there is no doubt that if Annie is in any kind of danger, he’ll be right behind me in making sure she is okay.
“Us too,” Mia and Eddie say at the same time, the two always being on the same page. The newlyweds are two of the most stubborn people I know, but they are also two of the most loyal, not just with each other but with all of us.
Plus, both of them throw punches when they’re pissed, so they are the perfect people to have in your corner.
“No, absolutely not. This is your guys’ night,” Annie tells Mia and Eddie before turning to Drew, “and you’re about to pop. I don’t even know what I’m walking into, but an apartment that was just broken into is no place for someone who is nine months pregnant.”
Annie’s face is hard, her features tight as she looks at our friends.
She’s scared, but that’s when she fights the hardest.
Drew crosses her arms the best she can over her stomach. “You’re not about to go there alone,” Drew says, her voice softening. She steps forward and extends a hand that Annie grabs.
“We’re coming,” Mia adds, stepping next to Drew and reaching for Annie’s other hand.
I must not be the only one who can tell Annie is scared.
Annie’s face relaxes, and the three girls pull each other in for a group hug.
Emmett and Eddie watch the girls with soft smiles on their faces, but the smiles don't reach their eyes. They’re pissed.
The Lenny’s crew—as Mia’s brother deemed us a few years ago—was built on issues with our own families, some more than others, and the five of them having to deal with a lot of shitty cards being handed to them.
Between Annie’s dad leaving and her mom’s diagnosis, the shooting at Drew’s school, Emmett losing his sister, Mia’s boyfriend’s suicide, and Eddie almost killing his abusive, alcoholic father, it’s safe to say that all of my friends have had the universe actively working against them.
The worst I’ve had is a father who treats me like spare parts for my older brothers.
Either way, because we know what each other has been through, we are all protective to a fault.
“So it’s settled,” I announce. I look at Annie, and even as her eyes narrow in her signature death stare, I give her a smile I hope still makes that black heart of hers beat faster. “Lead the way, Annie girl.”