I thought about Ally and The Hornet. I figured it was a taxi night for certain, considering nearly any time I had spent with Ally ended up with me being shitfaced and sleeping with a foot on the floor so the room would quit spinning. Not the disposition I wanted to be in for the next brutally honest third degree.
“It’s probably going to be a late night.”
“I’ll wait.”
“It might be a wild night.”
He gave me a half-grin. “That’ll work.”
Shit.
“Luke,” I said, sounding like I was putting a line under this conversation.
He ignored my line. “I’ll give you a remote for the garage and a key. You don’t come here after you’re done, I’ll find you. You make me find you, you owe me quadruple.”
This talk was not going my way in any way.
“Why can’t I just pay money for your services like normal people?”
“You aren’t normal people.”
“I am.”
“You’re Ava.”
“I’m that too.”
“I’ve known you since you were eight.”
“So?”
“I’ve liked you since you were eight,” he said.
Oh! I like him again, Good Ava told me.
Jump him! Rip his shorts off! Bad Ava urged.
Luke kept talking over Good Ava and Bad Ava’s blathering. “That makes you my people.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop right there.
I needed time to bury that deep before I set myself up to start thinking he was a good guy again only to find out he wasn’t. To buy that time, I said quietly, “Luke.”
“We’re not talking about this anymore,” Luke told me.
“We are.”
“We’re not.”
I glared. “We are. Give me something to go on here, what’s triple payment mean?” I asked, sounding kind of bitchy.
“I told you, I haven’t decided.”
“Which way are you leaning? Maid service? Vacation planning? Darning your socks?”