“Dude,” Luke said, leveling a proud gaze her way. “So good. He just needs a break is all. It’s why I forgive him for being such a perfectionist all the time. I guess that’s a quality directors need if they want to be any good.”
“Probably helps,” she said, realizing that they were talking about Mike, not Luke. Not their future. She needed to be better about focusing.
“I know one day he’s going to take off again,” Luke said, looking solemn. “Probably back to California or wherever a film takes him. Then Kris will get her lame condo and write me off.”
“Will you sell the house then?” Rori asked, hoping the question wasn’t coming too soon.
“Sell it? Why would I do that?”
Rori shrugged, keeping casual. Planting a seed. That’s all she needed to do. “Well, if they’re not there, there’s no reason for you to be there, right? You and I can live anywhere we want. In any country we want. Or in multiple countries. You hang around with me for a few years, and you’re definitely going to hit your fifty-country goal.”
To her relief Luke brightened at that. “I so can’t wait for that. It’ll be crazy fun!”
Ah, he was saying “fun” again. That was a good sign for selling the house. “Plus, then you can take the crime scene tape off of your parents’ bed and let someone use that room again.”
His nose scrunched. “You saw that?”
“Yes, I did. I know there’s a story there waiting to be told.”
He shook his head emphatically. “You don’t want to hear it. Trust me!”
“Oh, but I do,” she teased, reaching over and giving his thigh a slap.
He studied her, eyes playful. “I warn you. It ain’t pretty.”
“Most good stories aren’t,” she countered, and when he laughed she knew she had him. They’d been serious long enough. It was time to abandon her ploy for intimacy and do what Luke did best: have a little fun.
Chapter 19
Rori may not have had all the answers she wanted by the time she and Luke pulled onto his street close to eleven that night, but she had learned a couple of things she hadn’t been expecting.
First, misbehaving was as fun as it appeared to be. Second, American pizza was obscenely fattening even as it was insubstantial. You could eat a pile of it and still crave more. Third, rootbeer had its place in the world of food. At first Rori had thought it tasted like carbonated medicine when Luke made her try it. But when taken as a chaser to copious amounts of cheese and dough, rootbeer became sweet and oddly palatable.
Rori had eaten several thousand calories that night, but she couldn’t begrudge the experience. After all, she would forever associate the experience with Luke, whereas before American food always soured in her mouth as she thought of her dad. Until now, her biological father had tainted everything else American in her mind with his shadow.
No more. She had a new tour guide to America, and his name was Luke Foster—a guy who never made life hard when it could be easy. Easy come, easy go, that was how Luke lived. One moment he greedily packing up the leftovers to take home, and the next he was handing his precious pizza over to two poor college kids sitting by the entrance who only been able to afford drinks. When or how Luke had noticed their plight, Rori wasn’t sure. She only knew that their faces had lit up at the thought of eating, and somehow Luke had known they were hungry.
So, yes, they may not have discussed where they would like to live or what time of year they would like to get married, but Rori did know that she was currently attached to a fundamentally good man. Behavior like his didn’t pop up overnight once a person came into money. Kindness was bred into a person, and somewhere along the line it had been bred into Luke.
So what if he didn’t reach for her hand while they ate, or that he never asked questions about her? He was making her lead every step of the way, which she wasn’t used to, but it would certainly make things easier. It gave them less to argue about.
That’s what Rori told herself even as she sensed that something was very off. After the day they’d had, a man in Luke’s position should be trying to lure her