Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
S erenity squeezed Gemma just a little harder. “Thanks so much for sharing everything tonight,” Serenity whispered, pulling back. “I’m sure that had to be hard.”
Gemma gave her a sad smile. “No more hard than you sharing about your break in.” She shrugged. “I can’t believe this is all happening. I feel like it’s one of those things where you’re thinking about buying a red car, so now all you see is red cars.”
Serenity nodded. “I know. It’s crazy.” She smiled and tilted her chin in a goodbye as a few more people left.
Shiloh stepped up and wrapped her arm around Gemma’s waist. “I think you’re awesome. You took that kid out like bam! ”
Gemma shook her head and tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear. “Fear makes us do crazy things.”
“Come on, Gem,” Tate said, tugging on her hair as he walked past. “I’ll drive you home.”
She scowled at him. “I have my car.”
“I know.” Tate grinned. “I’m gonna drive it.” He waved her keys in the air.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Gemma rushed out the door after him. “It’s brand new! Don’t even think about it!”
Serenity felt more than heard Luca come up behind her.
“Think Tate’ll ever man up?” Shiloh asked, her eyes focused on the door.
Luca grunted.
“Not likely,” Jett offered, stepping up next to Serenity’s other side. “He’s been her ‘best friend’ for several years now. I don’t see it changing any time soon.”
“Ah, the friend zone,” Shiloh said with a sigh. “It was the best of times…it was the worst of times.”
Jett rolled his eyes. “I’m out.” He punched his brother’s shoulder. “Later.” With a squeeze to Serenity’s shoulder and a nod to Shiloh, the other twin took off into the night.
“Night.” Ivory waved as she walked by.
“Any news from Pearl?” Serenity called out.
Ivory stopped in the door, smiling. “Yeah. It looks like the talking is about to get real. After the second break in, Mrs. Pendergast is ready to leave, and Pearl wants to come and protect me.” Ivory shrugged. “Kind of ridiculous, but you know…older sisters.”
Luca chuckled and Serenity tried not to melt at the sound. “Sounds about right,” she told Ivory. “It’ll be nice to have her back.”
Ivory nodded. “It will. I’ve been hoping she’d come back for a long time.” She waved again. “See you later!”
“Bye!” Serenity sighed. The room had essentially cleared out finally. The meeting had gone well, and Serenity was ready to drop. A new shop owner texting thread had been created, emails exchanged, a sign up for sharing goods in shops had been sent around.
The group were well on their way to creating a more in sync situation on Main Street, hopefully one that would keep them all safer.
It looked like it would also create new friends. Several of the owners she knew, at least by reputation, but it felt like it was turning into more than that and she couldn't help but be excited.
Luca’s hands landed on her waist, but Serenity didn’t relax like she usually would have. She still couldn’t get her earlier turmoil out of her head.
“You look ready for bed,” Luca whispered in her ear.
Serenity’s gaze hit Shiloh’s, who was frowning at her. “Hey, Ser…you look exhausted. Are you getting sick?”
Serenity shrugged. “I’m not getting sick. Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Luca’s hands fell away and she instantly felt bad. It wasn’t like Serenity to snap at everyone. She rubbed her forehead. “Sorry. I guess I am tired. Maybe I should head to bed early tonight.”
Shiloh pursed her lips and nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.” Her bright golden gaze darted up to Luca, then back down to Serenity. “I’ll give you two a minute.” With a toss of her hair, she strutted to the kitchen.
The tension in the room shot up as soon as Shiloh wasn’t there to buffer it any longer.
Neither her nor Luca said anything right away, and Serenity wasn’t sure how to talk to him without breaking down in tears.
“I guess I’ll take off then,” he said, his voice low and wary.
Serenity pinched her lips between her teeth. “It’s probably for the best.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I think some extra sleep will do me good.”
No one spoke again, and finally, Luca kissed the top of her head. “Night.” Without another word, he let himself out.
Serenity couldn’t watch him leave. Her eyes were already swimming with tears. He had to know something was wrong, but would he figure out what? She couldn’t decide if she wanted him to understand or not.
How much of this situation was past trauma coming to an ugly head, and how much of it was a real cause for concern?
Serenity had no idea, and that’s why she didn’t want to bring it up, especially when Luca had been so happy about it earlier. The idea of being a police officer had brought a smile to his face she’d rarely seen since he’d gotten home, and she didn’t know how to take that away from him just because she was a wimp.
“Now that the lug is gone, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Serenity grunted a laugh and turned her blurry vision to Shiloh. “That bad, huh?”
“You’re not exactly a closed book, Ser,” Shiloh said sarcastically. “Especially with that pale skin. It tells every emotion without even trying.”
Serenity blinked several times and looked away, trying to get her emotions under control.
“It didn’t look like he broke up with you,” Shiloh continued, “so it must be something else. Did Gemma’s break in bother you? Did it bring back bad memories?”
Serenity shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
“Then what?” Shiloh put her hands on her hips. “You’re not letting me do my best friend duty, sister. Spill it.”
Serenity worked her jaw back and forth, but the longer she waited, the harder the words pressed in her throat. “Luca wants to be a cop.”
Shiloh didn’t answer at first. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at Serenity.
“Officer Montoya, Grady, told him he’d be good at it. And he would,” Serenity quickly offered. “Luca would make an amazing police officer.” She wiped at her face.
“But if he did that, then you’d be left at home,” Shiloh said slowly, as if testing the theory as she spoke. “Home while he was away doing dangerous things, like the ones that already nearly took him from you and left him with that assassin eye patch.”
Serenity nodded, and as she did so, lost the battle with the tears. “Ugh.” She wiped furiously at her face, trying to stop crying. “I’ve been doing this all day,” she grumbled. “And I hate it. I hate being so scared.”
“First of all…concerns about the people we love don’t make us scared, it means we love them.” Shiloh held up a finger. “But there is a reason to be careful. There’s a line of caution, and I think I can understand why you haven’t told Luca your worries.”
“You and your crazy ESP.” Serenity laughed softly through her tears.
“Like I said, you’re not exactly a closed book.” Shiloh pursed her lips. “I take it he’s excited?”
Serenity nodded. “Understatement.”
“So…you don’t want him in a dangerous job, but past issues and his excitement are keeping you from saying so because you don’t want to hurt him and you don’t know how rational your fears are.”
“Ding, ding, ding! Give the girl a chicken dinner.”
Shiloh offered a half smile. “Hold the fork and knife, Ser.” Shiloh shook her head. “I figured out the problem. But…I don’t have a good answer.”
Serenity closed her eyes and hung her head. “Me either.”
Something was wrong.
But what?
Luca grit his teeth the whole way back to the house. Was Serenity upset about how he bungled the fact that he planned to marry her? It hadn’t come up again in conversation and he wanted to leave it that way until he had a real plan in place, but what if that was too late?
Over and over he went through their conversations that day. She’d asked questions about the police academy, they’d made dinner together, she’d smiled at him, told him to go for it, held his hand, accepted his kiss.
Grumbling under his breath, Luca pulled into his driveway but didn’t get out right away. Rubbing the top of his head, he tried going over the day slower. Still, he couldn’t find it.
“Why are women so complicated?” he muttered. He hated the thought of her being upset, but what was he supposed to do if she wouldn’t tell him what she was upset about? Grabbing his phone, Luca decided to give her one more chance.
Are you sure you’re okay? I’m worried about you. Love you.
There. Short, sweet and let her know his feelings. That’s what women wanted, right? They wanted to know where they stood with their boyfriends?
When an answer didn’t come through right away, he headed into the house, wishing his brothers had already gone to sleep, but the lights indicated otherwise.
Not wanting to talk to anyone, he tried to slip quietly in the front door and head straight upstairs, but Jett was either listening for Luca to return or he had ears like a hawk.
“I have ice cream.”
Luca rolled his eyes, but changed his trajectory. Standing in the threshold of the kitchen, he folded his arms over his chest and leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “Do you really think I can be bribed?”
Jett shrugged, taking a bite of his own bowl. “Tate can.”
“I’m not Tate.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Jett muttered. “Dude’s gonna give himself a coronary if he doesn’t tell Gemma how he feels soon.”
Luca sighed and came farther into the room. “It does seem pretty obvious. I’m guessing this is the relationship you’ve been teasing him about. Drooling from afar, I think you called it?”
Jett pursed his lips and nodded. “I think the whole town knows except for Gemma.” He shook his head. “I can’t decide if she’s blind by choice or not.”
Luca grabbed a bar stool and sat down. “She seems pretty comfortable with him.” He picked up a loose spoon and dug right into the container. Why dirty a dish if he didn’t have to. “How did that start, by the way?”
Jett pointed his own spoon at Luca. “Trying to change the topic? How utterly chicken of you.”
Luca glared. “I wasn’t changing the topic. I was furthering the topic.”
“Semantics.”
“Truth.”
Jett huffed and went back to eating. “You probably don’t remember Gemma growing up. She was quite a few years younger than Tate and me.”
Luca nodded.
“She opened her store a few years ago, and Tate ran into her while they were both buying ice cream from Blaire’s truck.”
“That’s a new one too,” Luca mused. “A lot has changed since I’ve been gone.”
Jett looked at his brother from under raised eyebrows. “You could say that.”
Luca swallowed hard, the ice cream landing like a torpedo in his stomach.
“Anyway,” Jett drawled, “I think it was love at first sight for Tate, but you know how he is. He joked and teased and weaseled his way into her life as everything except boyfriend material. Now they hang out, and he’s so firmly planted in the friend zone that I’m not sure he’ll ever get out.”
Luca nodded. “You said that at Seri’s.”
“And it’s still true.” Jett jammed a large bite in.
“You’re gonna get a brain freeze.”
Jett shrugged. After a minute, he managed to get the large bite down to manageable size. “So what happened to you and Little Sis? She looked like she’d been crying.”
“She said her allergies kicked in today.” Luca stabbed at the ice cream, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat another bite.
“I didn’t know she had allergies.”
“Neither did I.” Luca scowled and shoved the container away, folding his arms over his chest.
“You don’t believe her,” Jett said. It wasn’t a question.
Luca raised one shoulder. “I don’t know. I don’t think she’d lie to me, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s wrong. I thought our day went really well.” He rubbed his head. “Maybe something happened during work I don’t know about?”
“Maybe…” Jett said cautiously.
“You don’t think that’s it.”
“I don’t think she’d treat you differently if it was something from work.”
Luca grunted. “Then what?”
“What did you talk about today?” Jett grabbed his bowl and the spoons and put them in the sink, then put the lid on the ice cream.
“About me going to the academy.”
Jett raised his eyebrows.
Luca held his palms up. “She asked if it was what I wanted and then told me to learn more about it.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Luca affirmed. “I told her I’d never make that kind of choice without her again, so I made sure to talk to her about it. But she didn’t discourage me at all.”
Jett made a face. “Girls are hard.”
Luca smirked. “No kidding.”
“I don’t know why you and Tate are so set on them.”
Luca rolled his eyes and pushed back from the counter. “Tate’s right. You’re jealous.”
“Nothing but trouble,” Jett shot out. “I’m keeping my life easy.”
Luca started to walk toward the stairs. “I’m gonna sleep on it,” he shot over his shoulder.
“Good luck with that. I’m not confident that will fix anything.”
“It’ll fix this headache,” Luca muttered, stomping up the stairs. He sighed in relief when Jett didn’t have anything else to say.
Once at the top of the stairs, Luca’s whole body sagged, suddenly heavy and exhausted. The whole day had gone well, but the ending had been weird and Luca’s brain was tired from trying to solve riddles that made no sense.
He glanced at his phone only once before tossing it on his bed. Serenity had never answered him. He’d left the door open. If she wanted to talk, she’d tell him. He had to believe that, had to trust that she wanted things to work between them as much as he did. If something was wrong, she’d either fix it on her own, or she’d talk to him about it. That’s how Serenity had always been, and Luca refused to let his mind dwell on other possibilities. He refused to let the thought that the perfect future he’d imagined only this morning was nothing more than a short-lived dream.