Like a Boss - Annabelle Costa Page 0,52

did you and Luke meet?” Sophie asks me when we’re seated.

“Through work,” I say, not wanting to get into the long story of Luke’s infatuation with me back at Harvard.

“Oh, you work then?” Sophie asks, looking pleased.

“Uh, yes,” I say.

“That’s so wonderful,” Sophie says. “The way so many women work nowadays. Tom would never let me work. Aside from the pageants, of course, but I retired from that after getting married.”

“Pageants?”

“Oh, yes,” Sophie says. “I was Miss Delaware. A long time ago, of course.” She adds, “But not too long. I had Luke when I was quite young.”

I can imagine Sophie being in a beauty pageant. She’s certainly pretty enough. And while she might be exaggerating her youth, she’s at least fifteen years younger than her husband.

“Luke seems very happy with you, by the way,” Sophie says, her eyes shining. “I haven’t seen him so happy in… well, ages.”

I blush. “Oh.”

“It’s hard,” she goes on, “with all the money he has and his reputation, to find a nice girl to go out with.”

“Yes,” I murmur.

“And of course,” Sophie adds, “it’s been so hard since the accident. A lot of women, even the gold-diggers, are hesitant about a man with a serious disability.”

I feel like Sophie’s talking too much and Luke would be outraged if he knew. I’ve known women like Sophie before, who seem unable to censor what they say.

“Anyway,” Sophie says, “you can take it from me: Luke is a really good person.”

I want to believe that. I really do. I want to believe every negative thing about Luke on the internet is all slander.

There’s a pause in the conversation. I look at my watch and realize we’ve been sitting here barely ten minutes. How long is Luke going to be in there with his father? We’re not going to be sitting here awkwardly for an hour, are we? Or what if it’s longer?

“Um,” I say, “what was Luke like as a kid?”

Sophie’s eyes light up and I know we’ve got the next hour covered.

_____

Luke is with his father for nearly two hours. In that time, I’ve managed to see every photo of him from birth through age eighteen. He comes out of his father’s bedroom looking exhausted, but his eyes widen when he sees all the photo albums. “Mom,” he says, “what have you been doing to poor Ellie?”

“She asked,” Sophie says defensively.

I shrug and Luke seems too tired to pursue the matter further. “We should go,” he says.

“We’re not staying for dinner?” I ask.

Luke looks over at the four steps to get to the dining room. “We’ll just grab dinner on the way home.”

“If you want, sweetheart.” Sophie’s face falls. It’s so obvious that disability or not, Sophie worships the ground her son walks (or wheels) on. “Can I come to your house for dinner one night this month?”

“Of course,” Luke says, and she leans in to give him a hug and a kiss.

On the drive home, Luke seems just as tense and agitated as he did on the way over, although now I can understand why. When we get into Lexington, he asks me if I’ll stay the night and I tell him of course I will.

We grab some Chinese food and eat in the living room. At first, I’m not sure if Luke is going to want to fool around, but when the food is gone, he leans forward and starts kissing my neck. “I’m so glad I have you, Ellie,” he says.

I smile and let him pull me into his lap. He wheels us both to his bedroom and shuts the door behind him. Then he shuts off the lights. Luke always turns off the lights when we fool around because he’s self-conscious about his body. I try to tell him he’s being ridiculous, but I guess when you go from having the body of the guy I saw the night of Primal Scream to what he’s got now, you realize how much you’re lacking. Honestly, I’ve dated guys who had much worse bodies than Luke—fat guys who hadn’t been to a gym in their entire lives. And it’s not like I’m any kind of model myself—I’m sure my scrawny figure pales in comparison to Rebecca. But I think he’s sexy and he thinks I’m sexy, and that’s all that matters.

Luke transfers onto the bed and I undo the buttons on his shirt. He tenses slightly like he always does, but then he relaxes as I start kissing his chest. I pull off my