Like a Boss - Annabelle Costa Page 0,11

still so freaking sexy. And he’s loaded.

“So now that everything is on the table…” His smile widens enough to nearly reach his eyes. “We can finally catch up. How are you doing, Ellie? What’s new with you these last sixteen years?”

“Um…” I tug at my dangly earring. “Well, I…” My mouth opens, but I’m at a loss. Usually, when I run into people from my past, I talk about my job. But Luke knows all about my job. And besides that, there’s not much else to say.

“Married?” he asks, even though he can see from my ring finger that I’m not.

I shake my head. “No, but… I have a boyfriend.”

I don’t have a boyfriend. Not even close. I don’t even have a boy that I’m friends with, much less an actual boyfriend. The closest I’ve come in the last year is this guy who accidentally brushed his elbow against my boob on the T. But I hate the fact that I have nothing new about my life to report.

So I made up a boyfriend. Big deal.

Surprise registers on Luke’s face. “Oh?” he says. “Is it serious?”

Why not go for broke? “Yes, it’s pretty serious.”

“Good for you,” Luke says. “What’s his name?”

His name? Um… “His name is Mike.”

“Mike,” Luke repeats. He looks up at my eyes. His are possibly his best feature, although it’s a tough call. “Well, I’d love to have you and Mike over for dinner.”

“That would be great,” I lie.

Please don’t let him ever take us up on this dinner invitation.

“How about you?” I ask, desperate to change the subject from my fake boyfriend. “What’s new with you?”

He shifts his weight in his chair. “Oh, not very much. Same old.”

Is he kidding me? The guy can’t walk anymore. He’s not going to tell me anything about why? He’s just going to pretend this huge thing hasn’t happened?

Well, fine. If he’s going to pretend, I’ll play along. “Well, sometimes it’s good when things are uneventful.”

Luke bursts out laughing, and he suddenly looks so much like the kid I knew during freshman year, I get a pang in my chest. “Look at you. You’re dying to know, but you’re too scared to ask. You’re so freaking polite.”

My lips set into a straight line. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He grins and shrugs. “Fine. Then I won’t tell you.”

I’m starting to long for the cold, distant Luke from a few minutes ago. I had forgotten how frustrating he was. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. You’re the boss, after all.”

The smile fades slowly from his lips. “I was in a rock-climbing accident when I was twenty-three. Broke my neck.”

Twenty-three. That means he’s been in that chair for eleven years. No wonder he looks so comfortable in it. His disability is new to me, but not to him.

“Twenty-three,” I repeat. “So that means you’ll never… I mean, it’s…”

He decides to put me out of my misery. “Let me help you out, by answering some of the most frequently asked questions. No, I will never walk again. No, there’s no stem cell research right now that I could get involved in. This is it—forever. Yes, I live alone without a nurse helping me. And no, I’m not so depressed I want to kill myself. I enjoy being alive, thank you very much.”

I inhale sharply. “People don’t really ask you that.”

“Oh, they definitely do.”

I watched as he lifts his wine glass to drain what’s left of it. I notice he holds it loosely supporting the weight of the glass with his fingers rather than pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

“And no,” he adds, “I can’t move my fingers. My hands don’t work. That one was a real punch in the teeth when I was twenty-three.”

“But I saw you moving your fingers,” I protest.

“It’s a trick.” He winks at me as he releases his wine glass. “When I extend my wrist, my hand closes into a fist. But I can’t do it without moving my wrist.”

He demonstrates for me how when he bent his wrist back, his fingers close. It makes me think of that handshake he gave me yesterday. He can move his fingers, but not very well. It makes me wonder how he does anything. How does he dress himself? Bathe? He told me he was independent, but it’s hard to imagine. I wonder if he was lying, the same way I was lying about having a boyfriend. I wouldn’t blame him. Who wants to admit