Chapter 23
Cassie
I lie awake in bed thinking of ways to tell Bethany that I have to cut ties with Luke. I come up with exit plans, contingency plans, fall back plans. No surprise, I’m up until the wee hours. Pudge keeps me company, purring on my chest while my heart races. I think she likes the vibration—the thud, thud, thud against my ribs. I’m not happy to oblige her. I’m tired-wired, the worst kind of fatigue.
When I finally manage to slip into dreams, Luke doesn’t make an appearance, but hurricanes do. From four o’clock to six o’clock in the morning, I dream of the same CAT5 hurricane about to make landfall. I run from store to store frantically trying to find supplies. When I can’t find any flashlights at Lowe’s, the guy tells me not to worry because we have phones for that now.
I force myself awake at six thirty—I can’t take the stress of the oncoming CAT5 anymore—and I make myself some black coffee and a piece of toast, and then I shower and dress for the day.
After all that thinking, I still don’t have a plan to save my business. To save both businesses. Because if MatchAI fails, there goes my Old Towne Ghost Tours equity. I’ll be back to eating ramen and baked beans in a ramshackle apartment while Nana’s house crumbles around her.
A little voice in my head tells me Luke won’t let me fail. He’ll quietly find a new investor while extricating himself. But that was the “new” Luke. The “new” Luke who faked being mature so he could get me back while messing around with Macy on the side. When I put it to myself this way, I get really mad at that little voice. Why would she even consider accepting help from Luke Curtis after all he’s done to me?
It’s seven thirty when I settle into my office chair. The office is quiet, ominously quiet like it will be when all my furniture is moved out and I’ve gone to fetch my next free meal at the City Mission. Sarah won’t arrive for another half hour. I’ll have to let her go. She’ll have to scrounge for a new job, maybe move away from Charleston, try to make a go of painting. Her paintings will be featured in the best New York City galleries, and I’ll be painting the front door of my rundown apartment to try to cheer up the depressing neighborhood.
You hush. Why so negative? Where’s Boss Cassie?
Everything will work out. It will be okay. If I have to start over, I’ll start over. I did once. I can do it again.
My pep talk bolsters me and the caffeine from my black coffee fools me into believing I have enough energy to tackle this day. I don’t have time for negativity. I have to execute.
To execute, I need a plan. I don’t have a plan.
I sigh and tap on my laptop to wake it up. As I’m scrolling through emails, the doorbell rings. I don’t think Amazon delivers this early. The sign on the door clearly reads we don’t open until eight thirty. Who else could be bothering me at this hour?
Old Luke had the nerve to ask me out for coffee yesterday. Old Luke most assuredly has the nerve to bother me at seven thirty on a business day. If it’s him, I can’t promise I won’t punch him in the nose.
I head over to the front door. I can see my guest through the glass. It’s not Luke. It’s worse. I contemplate turning my back on Macy and walking away. Let her stand there and ding the dumb doorbell. I’m in no mood to commiserate about my cheating ex. Because that’s why she’s here, right?
On the off chance that she’s not here to complain about Luke, I unlock the door and open it, but I don’t move. My body language clearly reads “you are not invited into my personal space.”
“Hey,” Macy says. She’s shorter than me. Her hair is blond and thin, the ends broken off haphazardly.
“Hello.”
“Luke didn’t send me here. His mom told me where you work.”
“I’m not open yet.”
“I know. I’m getting ready to leave town.”
A toddler appears from behind her legs. He looks up at me with doe eyes while he sucks on his fingers.
My heart softens a bit.
I still don’t invite her in.
“Listen,” Macy continues, “Luke’s not a bad guy. Yesterday was all me. I drove across country and surprised him. We were a thing back in L.A. I faked being pregnant with his kid and then it all fell apart.”
My eyebrows slide up my forehead.
“Yeah. I cheated on him.”
Shock trickles down my neck and arms.
“Anyway. So, for nine months, he thought Gabe was his, and...” Macy looks down at her son. “He’s not. We broke up at the hospital, but I was unemployed with a baby. He didn’t want me to struggle, so he sent me money every month. He has been for the last couple of years. Sometimes when I need a bit extra, I’ve just been texting him. He’s never turned me down. I guess, I thought since he was being so nice, he still had some feelings for me.” Macy scoffs at her own comment.
My thoughts are fragmented. The kid isn’t Luke’s. Macy isn’t his girl on the side. Luke’s charitable heart kept Macy from the poor house. Luke took care of a little boy that wasn’t even his, after being lied to for nine months and having his heart broken.
Why didn’t he tell me all this?
This sounds like the new Luke.
“I lied to him and told him I needed five thousand dollars to fix my transmission. I used it to cut ties with L.A. and drive out here to surprise Luke. As you can guess... Well, maybe you can’t because you left before he cussed me out—he wasn’t happy.”
I take a deep breath. Fatigue wears on me, a heavy relaxed sensation. Not the tired-wired of last night. “How do I know you’re not lying? How do I know he didn’t set this up?”
Macy picks up Gabe and supports him with her hip. “I guess that’s up to you to decide. I can tell you he never cheated on me. He supported me through my pregnancy. We decorated a nursery together. He was all in.”
Telling a guy you’re pregnant with his kid when it’s someone else’s is a major screw up. It’s a huge blow to a man’s ego. A life-altering moment.
“Okay. That’s off my chest.” She kisses Gabe on the cheek. “You ready to go to Florida, bud?”
“Mickey!” Gabe squeals.
“Have a safe trip.” I shut the door and turn toward my desk.
“Oh hey,” Macy says. Her voice is muffled by the glass.
Macy and Luke are blocking each other’s paths. Fire lights Luke’s eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he says.
I duck around the corner so they can’t see me.
“What did you tell her?” Luke adds.
“Mickey!” Gabe squeals again.
“I told her the truth,” Macy says.
“I wish you would have told me you were coming,” Luke growls.
“Goodbye, Luke.”
“That’s it?”
“I won’t bother you anymore.”
They fall silent. Because Macy is walking away, I assume. And then my doorbell rings. Before answering, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
A look of consternation hardens Luke’s features. I return the expression as I let him in the door. He’s carrying the box of kittens. Mewing enters the office along with him.
“I come bearing kittens,” he says.
I peer into the box and then glance up at Luke. His expression has softened a little.
“I thought you might like to visit them. I fed them before I came.”
“Have you found the momma cat?”
“She’s emptying the bowls I leave out for her, but she won’t show her face when I’m around.”
“You better find out where she came in, otherwise you’ll have another batch of kittens under your house.”
Luke brought the cats to distract me. To distract us. It’s working.
“Hey, I’m sorry about Macy. I had no idea she was coming this morning.”
I inhale deeply and let it out through puckered lips.
“It’s a lot,” Luke adds. “I know.”
“So...”
“So, can we talk?”
I nod and lead him into the conference room. I take a seat next to the door in case I need to make a quick exit. Luke sits next to me and sets the box on the floor between us. I pick up one of the yellow tabbies and hold it close to my chest.
“You brought these to soften me up,” I say.
“Maybe.”
The kitten squirms in my hands. “They’re getting stronger.”
“Yeah. I’m rethinking my plan to have ten kids. This feeding schedule is brutal. I’m not sure I could do it with ten little humans.”
I laugh. “I know I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry about Macy.”
I scratch Cheez Whiz on the head. I’m not sure which yellow tabby is which, but I’ll assume this little guy is Cheez. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“I tried to tell you when we were kayaking, but all you wanted to do was kiss me.”
I grin at him. “So it’s my fault.”
“Sorta.”
“Well... Why don’t you tell me about her now?”
Luke reaches down and scratches one of the kittens. It hisses at him, but he’s unfazed. He clears his throat. “After we broke up, I kind of lost it.”
“You binge-watched superhero movies.”
He nods. “When I wasn’t doing that, I was working too hard, when I wasn’t working too hard, I didn’t date. I couldn’t. But I finally forced myself. I went to Las Vegas with a woman named Jen and came home with Macy.”
I raise an eyebrow at Luke. “Did you leave Jen in the casino?”
“I sent her home on a plane. Macy and I drove back.”
As I rub Cheez Whiz on the neck, his eyelids begin to fall. He relaxes into sleep.
“Macy and I hooked up and started dating. The relationship was a mess. She’d accuse me of cheating, I’d tell her the truth—that I wasn’t cheating. She’d tell me she loved me, and I wouldn’t say it back, and we’d have hours-long fights about how I was afraid to commit, how she was giving me everything, and I was holding back. I suppose she was right, but it was excessive. Every weekend. Fight. Make up. Fight. Make up. Like I was watching the world’s longest tennis match.
“Then one day, she came to me and said she was pregnant with my child. I left. Just got in my car and drove for three hours. I didn’t love her. I didn’t want to have a baby with her. But it was my baby. And as time wore on, through doctor visit after doctor visit, I started to warm to the idea. I was going to be a dad. I could see myself playing catch with my kid at the park, wrestling with him in the living room. Cleaning up his puke. My mind went through every scenario. I imagined my son as a teenager, learning to drive, going away to college...”
Luke flicks his thumb across his forehead. “I thought I was going to be a dad.” He leans back, covers his face with his hands, rubs his eyes.
I press Cheez Wiz to my chest, remembering the shock I felt when I learned Luke cheated on me. But in Luke’s case, there was a kid involved. A kid he thought was his own for nine months. I can’t fathom the pain he must have felt.
“Anyway,” he finally continues. “That’s when everything started to change for me.” He leans over slightly, pressing his palms together. “I felt all the wrongs I’ve committed against women, every single one of them, except I felt what they must have felt. What you must have felt. I’m not saying this for sympathy or to make me look good. I just mean, it was a hard time. A really hard time. And I deserved every second of it.”
I take a deep breath as I try to come to terms with this new slice of Luke’s past.
“I came out the other side a changed man,” he continues. “I know it’s hard to believe. How can someone do a one-eighty and change? But it happened. I’m different. Down to my bones.”
People can change. I know they can. I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise. People deserve grace. I know that much. But people need boundaries too.
I put Cheez Whiz in the box and give the other three head scratches before sitting back up. Luke’s shoe is untied, the laces splayed out on the wood floor. “Your shoe is untied.”
Luke sighs, bends over, makes two bunny ears.
“Double knot it.”
He obeys and then sits up, searches my face a moment before saying, “Cassie. I’m really sorry.”
“You keep saying that.” I shift in my seat. “And that’s all good. But I don’t know the new you very well. The new Luke.”
Luke nods slowly. “It’s like starting over.” He hesitates. “That is, if you want to start over. If you don’t, I’ll leave you alone. I’ll become a silent investor again. You’ll still have my full backing.”
I think carefully about my next sentence. I imagine myself with Luke tomorrow, a week from now, a year. Sharing my life with him. Learning to trust him again. The knot in my stomach loosens. “I can try to start over.” My voice wobbles. “I want to try.”
A smile lightens Luke’s features. His eyes map my face like he’s seeing me for the first time. “Okay, then.”
I rein in my emotions and look sidelong at Luke. “You have a lot to prove.”
“I’ll spend the rest of my life proving myself to you.”
“Whoah, whoah. Hold up.”
“Too soon?” His expression is teasing.
“Way too soon.”
We lock eyes, and laughter spills out of us both.
“Thank you,” he says after we quiet down.
“Don’t thank me, thank Cheez Whiz. He’s the one who buttered me up.”
“Thank you for giving me another chance.”
“You’re a hard sell, Luke. Let’s be honest.”
He tucks his chin, looks past me for a moment. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
“But I know people can change.” I wait for him to meet my eyes and then offer him a smile.
He grins back, and I feel a spark in my belly. We both look away, Luke focusing on the kittens, me studying the tiny scar on the back of my hand from a cat scratch.
“I’m so sorry you had to watch Macy kiss me with those lips,” Luke says, still looking down.
“They’re rather large, aren’t they?”
“A little too large.”
“It’s a look.”
He glances at me. “What did she say to you?”
I rest a forearm on the table and rap at the glass with my fingernails. “She said you guys decorated a nursery together.”
“We did. Dinosaurs. It was my idea.”
“I’m sorry she lied to you. That must have been terrible.”
Luke rests an elbow on his knee and props his chin with his fist as he watches the kittens explore their box on wobbly legs. “It was.”
We trade air as we both breathe into the silence.
“I spent all last night trying to figure out how to keep MatchAI afloat without your investment cash,” I say. “I didn’t want to borrow money from the guy who cheated on me twice.”
Luke lowers his hand on top of mine. “I should have cut ties with Macy months ago, but—”
“I understand why you didn’t.”
Relief erases the lines next to his eyes.
“And you didn’t need to tell me about her,” I continue. “Not yet. Saturday was our first official date. People don’t unload their life stories on the first date.”
“It wasn’t our first date.”
“It was my first date with the new Luke.”
“Is that what you’re calling me now?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess it fits.”
He squeezes my hand, and a spark of electricity travels up my arm.
I clear my throat and stand. “I think these guys are hungry. I’ll see if I can find something in my apartment to...”
Luke stands and closes the distance between us. He slips his hand between my arm and waist and presses against my back. We meet eyes as I struggle to finish my sentence.
“Cassie,” he says softly.
I wait for him to continue. He drinks me in with his eyes while a faint smile plays on his lips.
“Yes, new Luke?” I whisper. My attempt at defusing the tension with a bit of humor doesn’t work. Luke’s gaze remains steady like I’m the only person in his universe.
“I love you,” he says.
The words permeate my thoughts and cause a jolt of shock to slice through my body. His lips descend onto mine, and I don’t resist. He presses me closer. Not close enough. I wrap my arms around him and give in.
When we part, a slow clap sounds through the room. Sarah is standing in the doorway. Our audience.
“Should I have brought those party favors that shoot streamers?” she asks.
“I think so.” Luke grins.
I glance at Sarah and then fix my eyes on Luke. “Maybe.”