Chapter 29
LUKE
Ibrightened up at the sound of Clara’s voice, although I didn’t really hear what she’d said. These branches were being annoying, fighting me at every turn. My fingers were sticky and sweat was dripping down my back.
I looked up at her with a smile, but it withered on my face when I saw the pain in her eyes.
“Clara, what’s wrong? What happened?” I dropped the shears I’d been using to prune the tree and rushed over to her. I put my hands on her shoulders but she took a step back, shaking her head.
“You got some texts.” She tossed my phone at me like she couldn’t bear to touch it anymore.
Confused, I caught it and looked at the messages. My brother had texted me to bust my balls, as was tradition, but it sounded really bad. “Did you see these?”
She nodded. “I didn’t mean to snoop. But they popped up and I thought you would want your phone. But that doesn’t matter. I need to know what’s going on here. Have you been lying to me, Luke?”
I took a deep breath, but it lasted too long. My hesitation was obvious, and it was as good as a yes to her. I saw it in her eyes, but I wasn’t going to just give up. “Okay, so technically I never lied to you. I might have left out a few details, though.”
Clara’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Don’t try to talk around this. Tell me straight. Did you lie to me about our arrangement?”
I nodded grimly. “My brother and I made a dumb bet over Thanksgiving. I would bring a girlfriend home to cheer up my mom, since she worries about me never settling down and dying alone. If I didn’t, I agreed to give him my cabin.”
She looked behind her. “This cabin?”
“Yeah, I know it’s dumb, but I need you to know, when we made that bet, it had nothing to do with you. I hadn’t even run into you yet.”
She frowned in thought. “But it was Thanksgiving, and you just told me you were talking about me to your brothers. You’re telling me it was just a coincidence you came after me?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I reached out to take her hand but she pulled away again, shattering my heart.
“Why didn’t you tell me it was for a bet with your brother? Why did you pretend it was about getting a promotion at work?” Clara’s voice was filled with anguish and I hated it.
“It was about both,” I said, the words feeling too small. “I figured you didn’t need to know about the bet. I thought you’d be mad.”
She snorted. “You’ve got that right, buddy.”
So it was buddy now. Not baby or even Luke. Fuck me. “I know you’re mad and you have every right to be.”
“Oh, thanks for allowing me to have feelings.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” I ran a hand through my hair, panicking, knowing she was slipping away from me and everything I was doing only pushed her further away.
“Can you just take me back to the city?” Clara asked quietly.
My shoulders sagged and I reached a hand out to her again, which she sidestepped. “Let’s talk about this. I swear there was nothing shady about this.”
“A lie is a lie is a lie,” she said sadly. “And you know damn well I have trust issues after what my ex did to me. I swore I would never let a man trick me again.”
“I wasn’t trying to trick you,” I insisted.
“Well, you did it anyway. Please take me back. I need some time, okay? Please.”
I wanted to argue but she seemed certain of her decision. Maybe I could talk her down, but I didn’t want to bully her into staying out here with me. If I was going to fix things with her, it wouldn’t be by locking her up out here like a princess in a tower. The thought crossed my mind, though.
The ride back was silent. Clara sat in the backseat and curled up into a little ball, facing away from me. I felt like utter dog shit for making her feel that way. All I wanted was to make her happy, and I had fumbled that ball spectacularly.
I had never thought I was tricking her, but now I could see how devastating it was from her point of view.
How betrayed she felt. I also thought she was overreacting, but I wouldn’t win Clara’s heart back by dismissing her feelings as invalid.
I had made the mistake here, by not being completely honest with her, and I didn’t get to tell her how to react to the mildly shitty thing I’d done.
What I wanted to do was kiss every tear away and swear my undying love to her. But she had said she needed some time, and I had no choice but to listen to her.
The drive back was too long and too short at the same time. Her silence was maddening, but I knew things would get worse once we were back in the city. Worse for me at least.
I was right.
Within an hour of arriving back at the penthouse, she was dragging her suitcase to the elevator.
With a heavy heart, I tried one more time to ask if we could talk. “Clara, I know I messed up but don’t you think you’re being a little drastic? Can’t we talk about this?”
She wouldn’t meet my gaze, devastating me. “Luke, I’ll be honest,” she said, voice rough. “There’s nothing you could say to me right now to change my mind. I’m spiraling right now and I need time and space to sort through everything.”
“Can’t you stick around while you sort through things?” I asked, hating how desperate I sounded. It was nothing compared to how I felt.
“No, I need distance to get some perspective,” Clara said. “Things have been happening so fast and they’ve gotten way more complicated than either one of us expected. I think it’s best if we hit the brakes and slow way down until I can figure out what comes next for us.”
The idea that there might be a next anything for us gave me a ray of hope. It wasn’t much, but it sounded like she wasn’t ready to throw everything we had in the trash. Not yet. If I kept pushing her, would she cave or would I just make things worse?
“Listen, Clara, please,” I begged. “I know you want space, but just let me take you wherever you’re going. I can get you a hotel room. The nicest one in the city, anywhere you want.”
“No, Luke. Thank you, but no.”
I shook my head, not ready to give up. “How about this? You can stay right here, in my penthouse. I can leave. Then you’ll have plenty of space and I won’t bother you at all.”
She finally looked at me. Her eyes were ringed red from crying, and I hated that I was the one who had made her cry. It was the last thing I wanted to do.
“Luke, I already have a flight booked back to Texas.” She looked around my apartment like it would be the last time she ever saw it. “I need to head to the airport, and I think it’s best if you just me go.”
“I don’t know if I can, Clara. I don’t want to fake this anymore.”
Her tears started flowing again and she waved me off. Clara rushed to the elevator and told me not to follow.
It wasn’t easy but I let her go, knowing I needed to respect her choices right then or risk losing her forever.
The apartment was eerily silent without her in it. I stared at the decorations, unfinished, the spot for the tree empty. It would remain that way. The poor fir tree had been cut down for nothing. Another victim.
The urge to tear down all the lights and the garland gripped me, but I didn’t have the energy.
Now that Clara was gone, I suddenly felt empty, a deflated balloon.
It was all I could do to slump boneless on the couch, facedown so I didn’t have to see the lights surrounding me.
They weren’t on, which made them even sadder.
They were just dull wires that I would probably never turn on again.
I groaned into my couch cushion, not wanting to face reality for one more second.
My chest ached like I’d had an organ removed, specifically my heart.
I got up and poured myself a shot of bourbon.
It probably wasn’t the healthiest way to cope with my ruined life, but I was all out of good ideas. Time to indulge in some bad ones.
I took three shots in quick succession. Instead of making me feel numb, it just gave me a stomachache. In worse shape than when I’d started, I went to the guest bedroom and crawled into her bed, hoping it would help me feel close to her.
The sweet scent of her filled my lungs, and I sucked it in greedily, pulling her pillow right up to my face.
It smelled like vanilla and something that was distinctly her, something that didn’t come in a bottle or a spray.
Otherwise, I would buy gallons of it and spread it around the apartment, using it to calm me down like catnip.
At some point, I drifted off to sleep. All my dreams were of her walking away. Her bright red hair swayed over her perfect ass, and when I called her name, she didn’t turn around to look at me.
I woke up sweaty, confused, in a bed I no longer had a right to be in. It was nearly midnight.
I checked my phone to see if she’d contacted me, but there was nothing.
I sent her a text, knowing she didn’t want to hear from me, but I asked her to please just let me know she was all right.
Even just a thumbs-up or something would do.
I was worried sick, even though she wasn’t mine to worry about.
I checked online for flight information, trying to guess which one she might have been on. She would probably fly into Houston, but she might hit up Dallas in a pinch. Clara had been in such a hurry, she might not have been too particular about how she got back.
I should have told her the truth, not just about the stupid bet, but how I really felt about her. I had tried to say it right at the end, but by the time I was ready to be honest with her, she wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. If it was Clara, I was going to run around in excited circles like a dog whose owner just got back from a long vacation. If it was Troy, I was going to scream at him until he was sorry he’d been born, that prick.
It was neither of them. Nic’s name flashed on my screen and I had no idea what to do.
I let it ring for a moment before answering, breathing fast. “Hey, Nic.”
His voice was a flat monotone. “Clara wanted me to tell you she made it back home to Texas.”
“Nic—”
“Don’t,” he said quickly. “She told me about the bet, the hundred K.”
“Look, I promise she’ll still get the money. I was the one who messed up, not her.”
Nic snorted. “No shit.”
“I didn’t mean for things to go this way,” I said, feeling low. “None of this went the way I planned it.”
“Look, man,” Nic said. “You’re both grownups and I’m not getting involved in whatever you two were getting up to. You broke the fucking bro code, and you kept secrets, but that’s not what’s pissing me off right now.”
I dreaded the answer but I had to ask. “What’s pissing you off?”
“I’m mad because you hurt my little sister’s feelings,” he said. “She’s been crying ever since I picked her up from the airport. And those tears are your fault, Luke. What the fuck, man? I trusted you.”
“Nic, I know it’s crazy, but I really care about her. I didn’t tell her about the bet with my brother, and I fully own up to that. But I wasn’t using her or faking anything. And I’m ready to get on a flight right now to come tell her that.”
“Don’t bother. She won’t talk to anyone right now. The poor kid’s a mess. I think she only told me about what happened because she needed a ride.”
“How do I fix this?” I asked him.
“You need to figure out what you really want from my sister,” he said.
I paused. “I’m not sure how to explain it. I—”
Nic ended the call without another word.
I stood in my apartment, having forgotten how cold it felt when I was alone.