Chapter 10 — Luke Time
Luke Time
I carried Tatum inside with her legs locked around my waist and her face buried against my neck, the smell of sunscreen and fair sugar still warm on her skin.
She hadn't let go in the truck.
She hadn't loosened her grip when I parked.
She hadn't made any meaningful attempt to behave like a person with working legs when I got her out of the passenger seat and started up the front walk.
I wasn't in a hurry to make her stop.
That was probably the first problem.
The second problem was my house.
It didn't smell like mine anymore.
Not just cedar and lake air and the faint bachelor-house evidence of coffee, laundry detergent, and whatever I had burned in the toaster last week.
This was different. Coconut. Vanilla. Kiki's expensive shampoo.
Shay's peach lotion. Fresh flowers jammed into a coffee mug on the counter because nobody had found the vase yet.
Grocery bags sat near the pantry. A pair of Shay's sandals lived beside the sliding door like they had paid rent.
Kiki's favorite yogurt had claimed a shelf in my fridge.
My house had evidence now.
Soft, female, dangerous evidence.
Kiki stood at the stove in cutoffs and one of my gray T-shirts, stirring something in a pan I definitely hadn't owned that morning. Her golden hair was loose around her shoulders, and when she looked over at us, her smile went warm before it went knowing.
Shay sat at the island with her dark hair in a messy knot, one bare foot hooked around the stool rung, scrolling through her phone like a woman who had already decided this was her island and the rest of us were temporary guests.
"You're back," Kiki said.
"Barely," Penny said behind me.
Penny came in with the clean Rourke glide, except the polish had cracks in it.
Her platinum hair was a little wild from the fair.
Her green eyes were too sharp. Her mouth still had that look from behind the tent, the one that said she knew exactly how far my hand had gotten down her shorts and exactly how little either of us had wanted to stop.
She shut the door behind us and leaned back against it.
Tatum made a sound against my neck.
Not words.
More like a complaint the universe was meant to interpret.
Kiki set the spoon down and came around the counter. "Hey, baby."
"I'm fine," Tatum said into my skin.
"Convincing," Shay said.
"I am. I survived. I was brave. I didn't die on a Ferris wheel in front of three counties and a teenager named Brandon who smelled like funnel cake and panic."
"Brandon seemed nice," Penny said.
Tatum lifted her head enough to glare at her. Her eyes were still bright from crying, from adrenaline, from being stuck too high above the ground and needing me on the phone until the ride crew got her down. "Brandon watched me negotiate with God."
"God said no refunds?" Shay asked.
Tatum pointed at her without letting go of me. "Too soon."
Kiki reached up and brushed copper hair off Tatum's face. The gesture was so gentle it should have softened the room.
It didn't.
Because Tatum was wrapped around me. Because my hands were under her thighs. Because her body was pressed full length against mine, warm and trembling and very much not finished needing me. Because Kiki and Shay looked at that and didn't flinch.
They understood Tatum.
Which meant they understood me.
That was much worse.
"I made up the second guest bathroom for you," Kiki said. "Charger on the counter. Face wash by the sink because you always forget it."
Tatum blinked at her.
"You got my face wash?"
"And your little sleep shorts with the moons on them."
"I love those."
"I know."
Tatum's mouth wobbled for half a second, and then she hid it by dropping her face back against my throat. "You're the best person alive."
"Also true," Kiki said.
Shay slipped off the stool and wandered over, eyes bright, grin crooked. "I brought three pairs of leggings, four tank tops, two bikinis, one dress I bought because it made the saleswoman ask if I was going somewhere scandalous, and a concerning amount of lip gloss. So, you know. Housewarming."
“You moved in fast,” I said.
Shay looked around the kitchen, then down at her bare feet, then at the mug of flowers, then at Kiki wearing my shirt.
“Efficiently,” she said.
Penny laughed under her breath.
Tatum lifted her head and looked at me. "Put me down."
I looked at her legs still locked around me. "Are you planning to stand?"
"No."
"Then that's not what you mean."
"Put me on the couch. Then sit under me."
Shay pressed both hands to her chest. "The recovery plan has layers."
I carried Tatum to the couch and sat because apparently this was my life now.
She rearranged herself instantly, straddling my lap, knees on either side of my thighs, arms still around my neck.
Her shorts rode higher. Her bare thighs bracketed me.
She smelled like sun and sugar and fear fading into something hotter.
"Hold me," she said.
"If I hold you any closer, we’ll be fused."
"I'm still shaky."
"I know."
"And I need you."
The room changed.
Not because anyone was shocked. That would have been easier. The room changed because everyone knew she didn't mean it in only one way.
Penny went still by the door.
Kiki's face softened, but her eyes sharpened.
Shay's grin faded into something warmer and more dangerous.
Tatum pressed her forehead to mine. "I need your hands on me."
My fingers tightened against her waist.
"Tatum."
"Not later." Her voice dropped, rough and quiet and right against my mouth. "I know everyone is here. I don't care. They know me. They know you. I need you to stop being careful with me for five minutes before I crawl out of my skin."
There were a lot of good reasons to say something responsible.
I couldn't find one I believed in.
So I kissed her.
Not a comfort kiss.
Not a soft, careful, post-trauma, are-you-okay kiss.
I kissed her because she was in my lap and asking.
Because she'd been terrified and brave and furious about both.
Because she'd spent half the day turning every ride and bench and crowded fair path into an excuse to touch me.
Because when her family watched her cling to me after the Ferris wheel, they saw sweetness.
I knew better.
Tatum made a low sound into my mouth and rolled her hips once, just enough to send heat straight through me.
Penny exhaled slowly.
Kiki went back to the stove.
Shay said, "Well. Good recovery plan."
Tatum pulled back only far enough to smile against my lips. "I'm maybe at seventy percent chaos."
"The other thirty percent is still on the ride," Penny said.
"Rude."
"Accurate."
Tatum tucked herself into my chest again, but her hips stayed heavy in my lap and her mouth found the side of my neck. Not kissing exactly. Resting there. Breathing there. Letting me feel the warmth of her lips every time she spoke.
"I want you to fuck me," she whispered.
My entire body went tight.
Kiki didn't drop the spoon.
Shay didn't make a joke.
Penny's eyes found mine from across the room, and there it was again. That sharp, unfinished ache from the fair. She watched Tatum on me like she was happy for her and jealous of the privacy and already imagining her own turn, all at once.
The house held all of it.
The flowers. The sandals. The groceries. Kiki at my stove. Shay at my island. Penny by the door with her sunglasses in her hand. Tatum in my lap, warm and trembling and hungry.
This place had been too quiet for years.
Now it was full.
And I was done pretending I didn't like it that way.
***
Tatum stayed on my lap while the room found its shape again.
Not distance.
Never that.
Just enough breathing space for Kiki to finish whatever she was making, Shay to steal a bite from the pan and get swatted for it, and Penny to take off her sunglasses like she had decided we were all done pretending this was a normal afternoon.
Penny set them on the counter.
"The party is Friday," she said.
The line landed so cleanly it might as well have been a knife.
Shay looked up. "The couples thing?"
Penny's mouth curved. "The couples thing."
Kiki leaned back against the counter, warm and interested. "The one with your college friends?"
"Avery, Sienna, Miles, and whatever orbiting bodies they bring with them." Penny folded one arm across her stomach, then unfolded it like she hated that she'd done it. "I have nothing to wear."
Tatum turned her head from my shoulder. "You own, like, seventy dresses."
"I own seventy wrong dresses."
"That's so Penny," Shay said, delighted.
Penny shot her a look. "It matters."
The teasing softened.
Because it did.
Not the dress. Not really. Penny Rourke could wear a paper bag and make men apologize for not being worth her time.
But this wasn't about fabric. This was about walking into a party with me beside her while people who knew her life, her habits, her social currency, and her flawless performance all looked at us and understood something had changed.
She wanted to look like the woman she felt like with me.
That did something to my chest.
"Buy one," I said.
Penny looked at me. "That's not the problem."
"Then buy four."
Her eyes narrowed. "Luke."
"I'm serious." Tatum shifted on me, and I adjusted my hold on her without thinking. Penny watched my hand on Tatum's back, then looked back at my face. "Get whatever makes you feel like yourself when you walk in with me."
That got her.
Just a little. A flicker under the polish.
Kiki smiled into her coffee.
Shay's grin went wicked. "Responsible Luke has entered his benevolent overlord era."
"Don't call it that."
"I absolutely will."
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet, and took out my credit card.
Penny's expression changed before I even held it out.
Not surprise. Penny didn't do surprise if she could help it.
Recognition.
She understood what the gesture meant.
I held the card between two fingers. "For today."
"I didn't ask you to fund a shopping trip."
"I know."
The room got quiet.
Tatum's fingers traced the back of my neck.