Like a Boss - Annabelle Costa Page 0,48

reversal, considering Luke is always the one with all the power. Part of me wishes he’d wipe the worried expression off his face, although part of me loves him more for it. I finally come three times, then collapse onto his sweaty body.

“Did you come?” I ask him.

“I don’t come,” he says.

I stare at him.

He grazes my jaw gently with his knuckles. “It’s okay. I just want you to enjoy yourself.”

“But didn’t you enjoy it too?”

“Of course I did,” he says and pulls me in close. He kisses the top of my head as I snuggle against him. “It was amazing.”

The blankets fell off the bed during our lovemaking, and they’re lying in a big pile on the floor. I run my hand over Luke’s bare chest, worried he’s going to ask for the blankets to cover up his naked body. But he seems completely content and relaxed with our naked bodies pressed against each other. It’s only after he drifts off to sleep with a smile on his face that I get cold and retrieve the blankets from the floor.

This Luke is so different from the one I used to know. The old Luke wouldn’t have shrugged at the idea of not being able to have an orgasm or told me earnestly that he just wanted me to enjoy myself. I can’t imagine drifting off to sleep with the old Luke.

I could never have loved the old Luke. But I think I’m falling for this one.

Chapter 19

Luke is always happy to pick me up to go back to his house, but he hates to visit me in Brookline. “I hate crowded areas,” he grumbles, whenever I suggest it. “And the streets are hard to push on.” He’s not at all impressed when I tell him about the guy in the power wheelchair who always hangs out by the Trader Joe’s in Coolidge Corner.

But there’s a farmer’s market going on and I haven’t been there in ages. Luke sounds horrified when I mention it to him. “What are you—a hippie?”

And that’s how I know he must really like me, because even though he hates Brookline and he finds it hard to wheel on the streets and he hates farmer’s markets, he still shows up at my building on Sunday afternoon, wearing a dress shirt from work, but also Ray-Ban sunglasses. Nobody in the world but Luke could pull that off.

“I look like an idiot, right?” Luke asks me as he pulls off the sunglasses to reveal his nice brown eyes.

“No,” I insist. “You look hot.”

He pulls me into his lap and kisses me deeply on the lips. It’s so intense that I don’t even notice the fact that my neighbor Sadie is standing in front of us, pushing a shopping cart full of grocery bags, her jaw hanging open. Not until it’s too late.

“Sadie,” I gasp, leaping off of Luke’s lap. Luke just looks amused.

“Is this your suitor?” Sadie asks me, her voice almost comically loud.

“Um,” I say. I look over at Luke, who looks even more amused than he was a minute ago. “I… I guess it is.”

“I’m Luke Thayer,” he says to her. “I’m so sorry for Ellie’s rudeness.”

Sadie laughs. “Nice to meet you, Luke dear. I’m Sadie Katz.”

“Okay,” I say with false cheerfulness. “We’d better get going.”

“I don’t blame you for liking him, Ellie,” Sadie says to me. “Look at that punim! So handsome. He looks just like Robert Redford.”

I only very vaguely know who Robert Redford is, but I suppose it’s a compliment, so I’ll take it. Luke seems pleased anyway.

“Also,” Sadie says in my ear, although loud enough for people across the street to hear. “Don’t worry about the wheelchair thing. My husband was in a wheelchair for the last few years of his life and we still had sex all the time.”

I back away, staring at her. Oh God. I did not need to know that. I look over at Luke, who is trying not to crack up. I’m glad one of us is amused.

Sadie says her goodbyes, and I’m left with the image of Sadie having torrid sex with her now-deceased husband. Luke puts his sunglasses back on and grins up at me. “You think we’ll still be having sex when we’re a hundred-and-eighty?”

“Stop,” I say. “Seriously. Ew.”

“All right,” Luke says. “Enough joking around. Let’s check out this farmer’s market. You better make this worth my while, Ellie. I had to parallel park to get a spot. It was horrible.”

We head out to