“Later.”
I disconnected then I punched in Luke’s cell number.
“Babe,” he answered, sounding amused. “I want you to call in but you don’t have to do it every five minutes.”
I didn’t dilly dally. “You had a thing with Jules when she thought Vance broke up with her.”
Silence, then he hissed, “Fuck.”
He didn’t deny it.
Shit!
I felt an ugly feeling slide through my body, a feeling I’d felt once before in my life. It was the day my Mom sat Marilyn, Sofia and I down and, while crying and carrying on, she informed us Dad had left us.
I pulled myself together and said, “You forgot to mention that last night.”
“Ava –”
I heard a knock at my front door. “My car’s here. I have to go.”
“Leave it, we have to talk.”
“Life’s too short, Luke. I’m through talking.”
Then I disconnected.
I ran to the front door and got the keys to my car from a black guy wearing greasy, blue coveralls. My phone rang while I did this but I ignored it and it stopped when the answering machine kicked in. No one left a message.
Then I ran upstairs, got dressed and shoved clothes in my workout bag. My phone rang again while I did this but I continued to ignore it.
Then I ran out to my Range Rover, tossed my bag in and took off.
* * * * *
I had a feeling Luke would come looking for me so I went to a different gym and paid for a day pass.
While working out I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
However, there was no denying that we’d had several hot and heavy discussions about a variety of things and not once did he mention he had a “thing” with Jules, no matter how short.
Furthermore, not only was Roxie Luke’s first guess about who I thought he had feelings for, Roxie also thought that and I wanted to know why.
After my workout I showered, dressed, went and sat in the Range Rover and opened my phone.
I had seven missed calls. Two were from Luke, three from Ally, one from Shirleen and the last one from Jules.
So, of course, I called Daisy.
“Sugar, everyone is lookin’ for you. Where are you?” she answered.
“In my car, listen Daisy –”
She interrupted me. “Ally is freakin’ out. She let the cat out of the bag but, girl, it sounds a lot worse than what it was. Jules is upset. She wants you to understand what happened –”
I interrupted right back. “I want to know about Roxie.”
“Roxie is freakin’ out too! She likes you with Luke, we all do. This could get weird, like it was weird for awhile when Vance and Luke both were –”