Chapter 18 #2
The second time through, Luna was a more enthusiastic participant. She scrutinized the lyrics on the screen and sang rather than spoke the choruses and some of the verses. By the end, we both screamed the final extended note.
Luna beamed. “One more time? I think I know the words now.”
Got her.
By the fourth time through Luna—bless her—was really getting into it. I was out of breath. My vocal chords hadn’t gotten a workout like this in a long time. I only sang in the car these days. But it was worth it.
Luna and I took turns singing certain parts and had climbed up on each of the couches. I’d turned the volume up the last time and wondered if the neighbors would hear us and question what the hell we were doing over here.
Luna belted one of the lines without looking at the screen, using the spoon microphone like a pro, and I beamed. For the last part, I jumped from my couch to hers, and we leaned our heads together, screaming into our respective spoons.
The music cut and the room filled with deafening silence mixed with our breaths.
Then, clapping.
I whipped around and found Luke in his dust-covered jeans and work T-shirt, leaning against the wall, gaping at us with an amused smile that made his eyes glitter.
“Oh my gosh, how long have you been home?! You’re early!” Heat rushed to my cheeks. The music was so loud neither of us heard him come in. His arms crossed in front of his chest when he finished clapping, that amused grin still dancing across his face.
“Long enough to enjoy quite the Broadway show.”
I shook my head, pulling my lip under my teeth. He must think I’m such a geek. I bet he was a popular athlete in high school.
But damn, he looked good leaning against that wall. I wondered if he knew crossing his arms like that, in a T-shirt, made his biceps so pronounced it was almost obscene.
Luna leapt from the couch and hugged her dad around the waist. She was still in her dirty tennis outfit, hair a wild mess framing her face.
“Rachel made me switch tennis partners and now I’m playing with Clara but we’re going to beat them in the tournament,” she said with resolve.
Pride filled my chest. I loved her fire.
“Is that so?” Luke ran his hand over her braid affectionately. His palm was so much larger than her head it was comical. He stole a look in my direction.
I gave him a small nod. I’d tell him the full story later.
He crouched down so he was at her eye level. “Wanna take a shower while I get dinner going?”
She nodded, turned on her heel, and scampered upstairs.
“Sorry, she wasn’t in the mood to shower when we got home.”
“She was in the mood to sing instead?”
“Well…that was my idea.” I walked in the kitchen and lowered my voice. “She was in a major funk about Rachel asking her to switch partners. So I suggested we do what I used to do when I needed a motivation boost.” I popped my shoulder up.
“Seems like it worked!” His expression was something between mirth and disbelief.
“I think so!” A smile tugged on my cheeks.
“So Broadway music, that’s the trick to pulling you out of a bad mood?” he asked, his head in the fridge, already taking out the bottle of rosé, a beer, a tray of chicken nuggets, and a white paper package I assumed contained the salmon he promised me.
“One of ’em.” I pressed my lips together.
He turned, resting his hip on the counter, and raised an eyebrow at me. But I didn’t go on, letting what other unnamed things could get me out of a bad mood remain a mystery.
Over dinner on the back deck, Luna asked me what theater shows I’d been in, had I ever done Wicked, had I ever seen Wicked, and can Luke take her to see it.
Luke followed our banter back and forth between bites of salmon and rice, shaking his head occasionally.
Our impromptu karaoke session might have opened a can of worms for him…
By the time we cleared the table, it was nearly Luna’s bedtime.
We managed to carry everything back inside between the three of us.
I was rinsing dishes and loading them into the dishwasher when Luna came up beside me and pressed her finger into my shoulder.
The pressure made a white indentation before it turned back to an angry red.
After the fuss I’d made earlier this week about covering Luna in sunscreen, I’d forgotten my own that day, a last-minute change from a T-shirt to a tank top leaving my poor shoulders defenseless.
“I know, I forgot to put sunscreen on my shoulders today,” I said to Luna with a sigh.
She disappeared down the hall toward the first-floor bathroom and returned with a green bottle of aloe. She squeezed some onto her hands and started rubbing it into my shoulders. It was so sweet of her, my throat closed up. The slider screeched as Luke came inside from cleaning the grill.
“Thanks, Luna,” I said to her softly.
“You’re welcome!” She disappeared again to put the bottle back in the bathroom.
“That’s a really sweet little girl you have there,” I said to Luke, my voice hoarse.
“I know.” He smiled proudly.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, embarrassed that I was having such an emotional reaction to the kind gesture.
“It’s okay. You good?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and told my tear ducts to calm down. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“You sure? Because you have me tempted to ask who hurt you.”
A laugh rippled out of me, cutting off the burgeoning tears, and soon I burst into full-blown giggling.
Luke started laughing, too. “Like, has no one ever given you aloe before?” he asked between breaths.
We were both cracking up when Luna reentered the kitchen. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh nothing, Luns, your dad is just teasing me.”
Luna turned a death glare on Luke, and I had to bite my fist to stop from laughing louder.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she said to her dad.
“It’s all in good fun, Luns. C’mere.” He lunged toward her, but she sensed he was about to tickle her and bolted into the living room. She squealed as his hand grazed her side before she spun out of his reach and jumped, giggling, over the back of the couch.
Luke’s gaze snagged mine, a happy glimmer in his eyes. It was hard to look away.
Over her protests, Luke took Luna upstairs to bed a few minutes later. I put the rest of the leftovers in containers and placed them next to the fridge. Luke’s footsteps sounded on the stairs as I washed the final dishes in the sink.
When I felt his large presence behind me, I looked over my shoulder. He stared at my back. “She didn’t rub the aloe in all the way. Do you want me to, uh—” His low voice was tentative.
“Sure, thank you,” I said quietly. Although I braced myself for the friction on my tender, burned skin, I still sucked in my breath when his fingertips landed on me.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Carpenter’s hands.”
I didn’t correct him that it wasn’t the feel of his hands that caused my reaction, but the fact that he was touching me in the first place.
His touch was featherlight, barely enough pressure to massage the last of the gooey, cooling gel into my shoulders, like he was worried about hurting me.
I glanced at our reflection in the window over the sink.
Luke towered over me as I pressed my lips together and watched him.
His head was lowered, a look of concentration on his face.
The lock of dark hair that always fell down on his forehead somehow made his reflection even more handsome.
He massaged one last circle into my skin and removed his hands. “All good now,” he rasped, meeting my eyes in our window reflection.
“Thank you.” I smiled, letting out my breath.
He cleared his throat and leaned back on the kitchen island. After adding the last dish to the dishwasher, I turned to face him.
“So, you trying to turn Luna into a theater kid?” he asked, dark eyebrows raised.
“As a former theater kid, I’m not sure how I feel about your tone!”
He held up his hands, palms out. “No offense meant! I’d love if Luna found something like that that she adored. Her mom was a theater kid.”
Her mom. Luke almost never mentioned her. Was she Luke’s ex? A former lover that didn’t want to keep Luna? That thought angered me.
Did she die? Empathy panged deep in my belly.
“Really?” I left my other questions unspoken, swirling only in my mind.
He rubbed a hand down his face, suddenly growing serious. “I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this until now. Technically, Luna is my niece.”
I gaped at him. In all the times I’d wondered about her mother, I’d never thought to question whether Luke was her biological father. They looked so much alike, she called him Dad...
Luke swallowed and looked over my shoulder, not making eye contact for the next part. “Her mom was my sister. She and her husband… They died in a car accident five years ago.” It sounded like it took effort to force each word out of his throat.
I sucked in a breath. Oh my gosh.
When his eyes found mine again, I could tell he was trying to hold it together, that sharing this hadn’t gotten easier for him over the years. My heart ached, and my body itched to comfort him.
“That’s awful,” I whispered.
He nodded before looking away again and clearing his throat. “They put in their will that if anything happened to them both, they wanted me to take her.”
“Wow,” I breathed. As if Luke couldn’t be more admirable. He’d mentioned his parents in passing—Luna’s grandparents. Maybe they were too old to take care of a child? It felt too invasive to ask.
After a moment he added, “It was my mom’s suggestion that she call me Dad.
Because she was so young, she probably won’t remember them at all.
” He gave me a small shrug, like some part of him still questioned the decision.
“She almost never asks, so I don’t think she does.
I’m glad she calls me that, though. Because that’s how I feel.
” His voice turned to gravel by the end.
Was I allowed to comfort him? He just touched me, albeit under a totally different pretense.
Fuck it. I closed the gap between us and my hand reached out on its own to rub a comforting caress up and down his upper arm and then hold on just above his bicep.
He stared at my hand for a moment. When he lifted his gaze, it was all eye contact, his brown eyes glassy pools.
“You are her dad.” I said softly. “It doesn’t make your brother-in-law any less her dad. But you’re who’s raised her and loved her like a daughter. Not to mention sparing her spending her whole childhood explaining why she has no parents around.” I couldn’t look away as I spoke.
He nodded and lifted the corner of his mouth up, but his eyes were still sad. My eyes wanted to fill, too. Poor Luna, losing both of her parents so young, before she’d remember.
It was so quiet in this kitchen. What he shared was so personal. Under different circumstances, it might have felt uncomfortable, but instead I just felt honored that he shared it with me.
“Sorry. I don’t know why it’s always so hard to say it out loud,” he added softly, voice hoarse.
“A loss like that will probably never get any easier to talk about.”
He nodded.
I inhaled carefully, determined not to lose the battle with my tear ducts.
“Luke, it’s amazing you honored their wishes.
You’re doing such an incredible job with her.
” My fingers gripped his arm just a little tighter.
I didn’t know how, but I could tell he needed to hear that.
I could tell he didn’t always think so. I let go of his arm but didn’t move back.
He swallowed hard, nodding almost imperceptibly. It didn’t seem like he believed me, and I vowed to myself that I’d keep saying it, as long as I was here.
I kept it together for the handful of minutes it took to finish putting away the leftover food. We parted on a slightly somber note, but Luke still walked me to the door and told me to get home safe, even though Mimi’s was only a mile away.
He did that every time.
As soon as my car door closed, a sob ripped out of me. I couldn’t believe what he went through. What Luna went through. What got me the most was that she would’ve been too young to have memories.
She has no memories of her biological parents.
And Luke. He was probably only twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old when he lost his sister and became a guardian to an orphaned three-year-old.
I shook my head, swiping at my cheeks. He might notice if I didn’t pull out of the driveway soon, so I put my car in reverse and drove carefully toward Mimi’s house.
What a beautiful thing Luke had done, fulfilling his sister’s wishes, giving Luna every bit of love she deserved after she lost so much.
I thought of Drew. Would he do the same for me?
Would I do the same for him? Despite our differences, I knew the answer to both of those questions was yes. It made me want to talk to him.
“Hey, Val. Everything alright?” Drew’s voice came through my car speakers.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just saying hi.” My voice was still a little strained from the crying, but I hoped he couldn’t tell.
“Are you sure nothing is up? You’re not one to call to check in.”
“People can change, Drew,” I teased.
He chuckled. “You bored on that medical leave?”
“Actually, not at all. I love it.”
Drew told me about the classes he was teaching next semester and the medical paper his wife published recently. I told him how Mimi was doing and how great it’s been to spend more time on Martha’s Vineyard like we did when we were younger.
“I’m jealous. I’m going to try and get over there when Mom and Dad visit next month.”
“That would be great.”
“Yeah?” The lack of certainty in his tone zapped me like a bee sting.
Did he really question whether I wanted him to come?
I’d snapped at him the last few times we talked, and I felt bad about it.
He’d actually been a lot more sensitive lately, hadn’t said anything patronizing that made me feel inferior in a while.
“Yeah, Drew. I’d love to see you,” I assured him. “Mimi would, too.”
“Cool, I’ll make it work.”
I smiled to myself after we hung up, already looking forward to it. Until I remembered that the week my parents were coming to the Vineyard was after July 15th.