by Maria Luis
He sounded winded. Out-of-shape.
Luke wasn’t the same guy who could pick up and run a half-marathon with only a week’s worth of training. The guy he was now couldn’t even manage an hour of PT three days per week.
“I joined her and your mom last year for the holidays.”
When Luke had been away. Bitterness sank its claws into his back. During all those years he’d been away, Amy and Moira had continued to live their lives—which was the point of him enlisting in the first place. But emotion wasn’t rational, and Luke always was. He stowed the bitterness away. “You should join us this year. Amy would want that.”
Eighteen. Exhale, exhale. Inhaaallle. His breath shuddered through his body, sounding raspy even to his own ears. Nineteen. Twenty.
His knees dropped to the mat, his arms curving round his head while he remembered what it was like to be alive. Pain meant you were still living—it’d been a mantra he and his brothers had repeated on various tours of duty overseas.
“You dead?” Robb asked, and Luke heard the exercise ball bounce twice like an over-sized basketball before being placed on a metal rack.
Not dead, just injured. Temporarily. He flipped his worn body over and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re not that lucky, Hampton.”
Robb’s face entered his line of sight. “I’m always that lucky. It’s why I made sure you were comatose on the floor before I told you that I plan on asking your sister to marry me.”
His whole body lurched upward, but, hell, he didn’t even make it farther than his elbows. “I asked you to come to Thanksgiving,” he snapped, hauling himself onto his side, “not to buy an engagement ring.”
Robb didn’t even bother to look chagrined. He sat himself down on a stool on the other side of the room—too far away for Luke to reach him and strangle the life out of him. “It’s too late for all that,” Robb was saying, resting one ankle on his opposite knee, “the ring’s already been bought.”
“It’s too soon.”
“Amy and I have been dating for years.”
Luke lifted a finger. “No, you’ve been on-and-off for years. That’s not the same thing.”
“We’re ready for marriage.”
Well, that made one of them. Luke was very much not ready to see his baby sister walk down the aisle, to Robb Hampton or to anyone else. She was too young, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t she see more of the world before she settled down and locked the chains on? “All women think they’re ready the moment they see their friends start tying the knot. It’s called peer pressure.”
Robb snorted. “Only you would call love peer pressure.”
That got Luke’s attention. “What do you mean, only I would call love peer pressure?”
“You heard me. Amy’s made it no secret that her big brother has the morals of a thief. You hook up with women and then throw them away like trash. When’s the last time you were in a relationship?”
The pointed question rose Luke’s hackles. So, he didn’t date frequently. That didn’t make him a bad person. It didn’t make him shallow, not when he had a very good reason for avoiding the dating scene. “It’s been awhile.”
“How long?”
“What, is this twenty questions?” Luke shoved himself into a sitting position and up onto his knees. “Like I said, it’s been awhile.”
“Two years?” Robb prodded, watching him with an expression Luke could only call smug. “We talking maybe something closer to five?”
Luke ground his teeth. “Jesus Christ, you’re worse than Amy when you want to know something.”
“Ah.”
Narrowing his eyes, Luke snapped, “Ah, what? What the hell does ‘ah’ mean unless you’re at the doctor’s office and they’re asking you to bend over and cough?”
Robb didn’t rise to the insult. Instead he crossed his arms over his chest and slouched back against the wall. “It means that you’re a virgin.”
Luke came up spluttering. “That’s definitely not the case,” he finally managed to say.
“You’ve never been in a relationship.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ve been acquainting myself with only my right hand for the last three decades.”
“So, you admit that you’re a relationship virgin.”
“Fine,” Luke bit out, “Yes, Dr. Hampton, I have never had an actual relationship that has lasted past the morning. You happy now or do you want to know the last time I used the restroom and how I prefer my steak cooked?”
“Not interested, thanks though.” Robb offered him a half-grin. “So, let me get this straight: it’s too soon for me to marry Amy, even though we’ve been together for years, all because you’re scared of love. Did I get that right?”
“I’m not scared of love. It’s a thing. It exists.” Just not for him. He’d reconciled himself with that fact years ago. “All I’m saying is that maybe the two of you should be waiting until you’ve been more on than off.”
“But, see, we have been more on than off.”
“Every time I’ve come home that doesn’t seem to be the case,” Luke pointed out. The clock above Robb’s head struck four p.m. He had to be getting home soon if he hoped to meet up with Julian for Sassy’s walk. “When I’m on leave, the two of you are never speaking.”
The look Robb sent him spoke volumes—Luke just didn’t understand the message. His sister’s boyfriend rolled his eyes to the ceiling and lifted his hands, palms up, like he was seeking strength. Finally, he said, “I’m so glad that thought actually occurred to you. Have you ever wondered as to the reason why your sister and I break up every time you come home?”
Actually, it hadn’t occurred to Luke to wonder. He’d always taken the status of their relationship at face value, especially when he factored in Amy’s disposition during those times. She’d never seemed particularly upset or angry, and so Luke had let the big brother role fade in support of her decisions.
“I can see that you haven’t.” Robb closed a fist near his face, biting on his thumbnail in thought. “Okay, so I’m just going to be totally honest with you here. Amy and I have never broken up.”
Luke lifted an eyebrow in question. “Come again?”
“You heard me. Me and your sister? We’ve been together for years—no breaks up, no ‘breaks’ or whatever the kids are calling them these days. Together.”
Something that felt very similar to betrayal settled in Luke’s stomach. It was heavy and uncomfortable and nauseating, not unlike the feeling that swamped him just moments before he passed out. “What do you mean, you’ve never broken up? You just admitted to—”
“We’ve been lying.”
Hell. Luke hastily scanned the workout room. He needed a seat, maybe an ice bath dumped over his head. “Amy doesn’t lie.” The words emerged slow, like they’d been forced around a swollen tongue. “She wouldn’t have just lied to me for thirteen years.”
His fingers clenched around the cane’s rubber grip.
Robb didn’t seem that at ease either. Red tinted his cheeks and his hair stood at end thanks to the constant running through of his fingers. “You met me that first time, years ago, and you disliked me with just one glance.”
Luke rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm. “You told me that my sister was a great lay. I hated you on principle.”
A grimace pinched Robb’s mouth. “I was eighteen and a punk.”
“An accurate description,” Luke quipped, still rubbing his chest. It felt . . . tight. Uncomfortable. Not unlike the anxiety that flared up now and again when he felt incredibly stressed. “You were a prick and I didn’t want you near my sister.”
“You told her that.”
A trip down memory lane was not what Luke wanted. “I did,” he said, somberly. “I also told her that her taste in men was abysmal and that she should look for someone better.” His eyes narrowed. “Obviously she didn’t heed my advice.”
More with the reddening cheeks. “I said that on purpose,” the other man muttered, shift
ing uneasily in his seat. “You had this reputation for being a ladies’ man. I figured that if I could speak your language . . .”
Speak his language? “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, well, I was an idiot back then. I can promise you that I’ve improved since.”
“Lying to my mom and me for years about dating and not dating Amy isn’t a great step in the right direction, Hampton.” Shit, his mom. When Moira discovered Amy’s subterfuge, she was going to flip out.
Moira O’Connor prized honesty above everything else—in fact, it’d been the only real rule she’d enforced when he and Amy had been young. Tell the truth and the severity of your punishment would lessen. Lie, and there was a pretty decent chance that the only thing you saw for days would be the four walls of your room.
At Robb’s ensuing silence, Luke growled, “What am I missing here?”
“Your mom knows.”
“She knows what?”
Luke swore he heard Robb gulp down his fear. “She knows that Amy and I lied to you. She’s known all along, but she agreed with us. There was no point upsetting you when you were home for a maximum of a month each year. It was just easier to . . . pretend.”
So, this was what it was like to feel sucker-punched by invisible hands. Luke wouldn’t recommend it. It felt like death with a sprinkle of Hell for good measure. He went back to rubbing his chest in tight circles. “It was easier to pretend for years than it was to just tell me the truth?”
“We’re both sorry.”
Cowards. The word ran rampant in Luke’s skull, bouncing around this way and that until it nearly fell from his tongue. Sweat dampened his palms, and the outer perimeter of his vision turned a rather abnormal shade of red.
“I’ve got to go.” He heard the words escape him, though he had no recollection of opening his mouth. “Yeah, I’ve . . . got to go.”
He threw a wild glance about the room, sure that if Robb stepped too close, Luke might just introduce the man to his fist. As much as a scared shit he’d been those first few weeks of training, years in the military had sharpened his reflexes. He’d been the best sniper in his platoon and a workhorse when it came to combative training.
“I’m sorry, man,” Robb was saying plaintively, straightening from the chair. “I would have said something sooner, but as the years went on, you didn’t like me any better than that first day.”
“Because I thought you were playing with my sister’s heart.” Luke grabbed his cell phone and wallet off the bench. He stuck them into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Turns out y’all were just shitting on mine the whole time.”
“Listen, Luke—”
Except Luke didn’t hear the rest of what Robb Hampton had to say. He’d already thrown open the door and had stalked (or as close to stalking as he possibly could, given the circumstances) to the stairwell. As he took them one at a time, leaning heavily on his cane for support, he called for a cab.
He couldn’t guarantee that if he saw Robb’s face on Thanksgiving Day that he wouldn’t introduce his fist to the man’s pretty face.
By the time Luke made it home, the sun had started to set and Julian Bryce was sitting on his front stoop.
“Shit.” He passed a twenty-dollar bill up to the cabbie and cranked open the back door, more or less throwing his body out of the car and onto the cracked sidewalk. Julian glanced up at the sound of the car door slamming shut and immediately jumped to his feet.
The kid looked so much like Anna, it was almost unreal. They both shared the same blond hair and the same blue eyes, and it hadn’t escaped Luke’s notice that they tended to tug on their earlobes when they were nervous.
“Hey Luke!” Julian called out, one hand cupped around his mouth. “I showed up a few minutes late. Thought you might have taken Sassy out . . . thought maybe you’d decided to fire me.”
Luke clapped the kid on the back as he passed him. “Your job’s safe. I was late coming out of physical therapy.”
The kid’s eyes dropped to Luke’s leg in a gaze as subtle as a stampeding rhinoceros. “How’s that going for you?”
Definitely not as good as he’d hoped it would be by now. Luke took the porch stairs one at a time, trying to hide a sliver of envy at the way Anna’s son bounded up all four in one fell swoop. “It’s going.”
“Yeah? No amputating then? We watched this video in science the other day about amputations. It was crazy. They talked all about this thing called phantom limbs, and one of the girls in the back of the class passed out.”
“What the hell are y’all watching in science?” Fiddling with the key, Luke shoved the correct one into the lock and let them in the front door. With a sharp whistle to alert the Dane that he’d arrived home, Sassy came hauling butt toward them, thin tail whipping back and forth as he prepared for a lick attack.
Julian’s hands immediately sank into the extra skin behind Sassy’s ears, bending low so that the dog could lick from his chin all the way up to his forehead. “It’s my teacher’s last year before he retires. I think he’ll let us watch pretty much anything. Last week we watched this video about a woman giving birth.”
Luke snapped his jaw shut and rubbed the back of his neck. “Did it just follow her from doctor’s appointment to doctor’s appointment?”
“Nope.” Sassy turned his snout to the ground and head-butted Julian—a move that made the kid laugh. “The camera was inside her. You know . . . up the chute?”
If this was the sort of conversation that Anna had to put up with daily, no wonder nothing fazed her. And here was Luke, wondering how the hell they could stop talking about a woman’s . . . chute. “Let’s not call it that,” he muttered, “too clinical.”
“It was a bit clinical,” Julian agreed readily enough. “Two people fainted that day.”
“Impressive.”
“That’s what I thought.” The kid slung an arm over Sassy’s back to pet his opposite side. “So, I’m thinking I might walk Sass down to Louis Armstrong Park today. It’s not that far.”
It was farther than Anna would like, that was for sure. Julian’s safety was something Luke could understand. New Orleans’ French Quarter neighborhood was historic, its architecture beautifully breathtaking, but it was no place for a teenager to be walking alone as night began to settle in.
“You want some company?”
The words escaped before Luke could put a lock on them. He didn’t miss the kid’s look of surprise. “Thought you were confined to the house?”
Would a few more weeks of non-activity really make a difference for his hip? A few blocks wouldn’t do him in . . . much. “Nah,” Luke said, waving away the truth, “it’ll be good for me to get some fresh air.”
Now the kid looked more suspicious than concerned. “Did my mom set you up to this? I told her that I don’t need a babysitter. I’m fourteen.”
Had Luke ever been sheltered the way Anna sheltered her son? He didn’t think so. From almost the moment of birth, he’d been the man of the house for better or for worse. At Julian’s age, Luke had already learned what it meant to stand on his own two feet and lend a hand to the household.
“Look, kid,” Luke murmured, already hooking Sassy up to his leather leash, “I’m not much of a babysitter.”
“You don’t look like one.”
A compliment from the prepubescent; his day was now complete, he thought wryly. “The last time I babysat anyone, we ended up at McDonald’s at three in the morning, caroling the girl at the drive-thru register.”
“Whoa, really?” Julian’s blue eyes glimmered with delight. “How old was the kid? What did y’all sing?”
Handing the leash over to Anna’s son, Luke gestured for him to head out the front door while he locked up. It wasn’t until they’d descended the front steps and banged a left toward the back of the Quarter that Luke continued, “We sang ‘Baby Got Back.’ You probably don’t know the song. Sir Mix-A-Lot was popular before your mom even thought about having y
ou.”
Sassy paused at a fire hydrant to take a leak, lifting his leg higher than some people were tall.
Almost offhandedly, Julian replied, “My mom didn’t think about having me—I was an accident. And I love that song. I’m not kidding. Last year, I pulled the best prank on Mom ever. Anytime someone came through the front door of the shop, I timed the song to start playing.”
Impressive, but Luke’s brain hadn’t fast-forwarded past the ‘accident’ comment. Had Anna really told her son that he hadn’t been planned? Luke wasn’t a father, and had no plans to become one, but it seemed pretty harsh to tell someone so young. He slid his gaze to Julian, noticing for the first time the kid’s at-ease attitude.
A fourteen-year-old Luke would have been Julian’s polar opposite. Single moms had raised them both, but somehow Julian still maintained a youthful naivety that Luke had shed by the age of ten.
Tugging on the leash, Julian led Sassy into a trot. Luke struggled to keep up and sent up a silent prayer that his hip wouldn’t flake on him during the walk. They passed rows of traditionally styled shotgun houses, their wood siding and telltale louvered shutters a myriad of bright colors: turquoise, violet, red, orange, and a few stray brick buildings stuck in between.
“You didn’t say how old the kid was,” Julian pointed out a few minutes later.
Luke sidestepped a particularly deep pothole. “Eighteen.”
The kid’s nose wrinkled. “Isn’t eighteen a bit old for a babysitter?”
In the regular world, yes. Within the military, eighteen was the equivalent age of an infant. Considering that Luke’s baby-sit-ee had been three sheets to the wind—for that matter, so had Luke—he figured that night had either been a resounding success or an absolute failure, depending on the way you looked at it. There’d been no in-between.
Feeling the kid’s watchful gaze, Luke said, “He hadn’t felt too well that night.” Witching-hour caroling in the drive-thru had led to an awkward stumble back to base and a night spent hugging the toilet for dear life.
It had been one of the few times in Luke’s life where he’d felt like every other twenty-one-year old celebrating his birthday.