Everything.
From Luke moving into the house across the street; me being Fatty, Fatty Four-Eyes (that last part, Ren knew, I met him pre-weight loss and he’d been nice to me then too); having a crush on Luke since time began; all the way to the cookie swipe (though I just said we did the business, I didn’t go into detail, thank goodness, his eyes got a little scary just hearing the “we did the business” part).
He listened without comment to all of this.
When I was done he asked, “Did you get your head together?”
I nodded.
“What’d you decide?” He seemed very interested in my answer.
Yikes.
I sat back and took a sip of wine. This was going to be the hard part.
“I need you to take me back to Luke’s,” I told him in a quiet, don’t freak out on me voice.
His mouth got tight but, to my surprise, without a word or a freak out, he nodded.
That said a lot about him. All of it good.
Hell and damnation.
We did the dishes and he took me back to Luke’s. He walked me into the building and when the elevator doors slid open, his hand came to my neck before I could walk in.
He brought me close, his face dipped to mine and I saw the hungry look in his eyes. This time it was more intense because I could see it was mingled with anger or frustration or both. I figured whatever he was going to say was going to complicate my complicated life significantly.
I was not wrong.
He started talking and I vowed that if I ever got caught in a man pickle again, I would choose a man who was not a straight-talker.
“After he gets done with you, screwin’ with your head while he’s f**kin’ your body when he knows you have serious feelings for him, or you get done with bein’ with a guy who would do that, done with a guy who’s thinkin’ of someone else when he f**ks you, when you decide you wanna be with a guy who is thinkin’ of nothin’ but you when he f**ks you, Ava, you call me.”
Ho-ly shit!
What did I do with that?
I just stared, I couldn’t do anything else.
“Do you understand me?” he asked.
At that, I just nodded.
I understood him. Ee-yikes but I understood him.
“Good,” he said and he sounded pissed off. Even pissed off, he still brushed his lips against mine. I registered that the lip brush felt nice while he walked away.
I shrugged off the lip brush, got in the elevator and used the key to Luke’s floor. I did my now familiar holding-of-the-breath-until-the-doors-slid-open-to-Luke’s-loft and I let it out on a gush when they did.
He was sitting at a stool in front of the bar, the kitchen garbage can a few feet in front of him, sorting through one of the piles I made for him (tossing most of it in the garbage, I might add) and eating one of my Milano cookies. He was still in his Tom Petty mood, I knew this because Tom was singing “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” on the stereo.
His head swung around when I walked in.
I opened my mouth to say “Hey” when he spoke. “Where the f**k have you been?” he bit off.
Hmm.
Someone was in a bad mood.