The Hookup

by Zante, Lily

  The old Kay would have. Good-Time-Kay would have taken anything that was offered, but she wasn’t that person anymore. She didn’t want to rectify a relationship that had started off on the wrong foot with the wrong intentions. Theirs had, and there was no way back.

  She was overwhelmed and tired. Things were slipping through, and all because she was fighting to keep her A-game on her work, and be there for Luke.

  Even Geoffrey had noticed that something was up with her.

  He’d been surprisingly helpful lately and even though she kept her private life private, she had let it slip out one day, about Luke’s illness. He knew of Luke, and he’d caught her at a time when she was on a low. It had just seemed easier to open up to him. She’d told him that Luke had recently been treated for cancer, and that she was taking care of him. That she was juggling her work commitments, as well as taking care of him.

  This evening, after the last meeting with Remington, Geoffrey had passed by her desk and asked her what she was still doing here so late. He told her to go home and have an easy night for a change. He had stepped up and told her he would take care of things in case Remington asked.

  She sat back and rubbed her eyebrows. Tiredness had seeped into every cell of her body, and she was desperate for sleep, feeling suddenly overcome with the need to close her eyes because she had sat down.

  But she fought it, and opened her laptop, and got to work. Halfway through her report Luke’s landline rang. She stared at it, waiting for the ringing to stop, but it went to his answering machine instead.

  “Luke! Why didn’t you tell me?” The voice sounded familiar, and she sat up, trying to place it. “Pick up, pick up, pick up, or I swear I’m going to come over right now.”

  Kay looked up, wondering what to do.

  “Pick up will you! I’m worried sick.”

  She jumped up and picked up the phone.

  “You took your time!”

  “Amanda? It’s me, Kay. We met at your wedding.”

  “Oh…Kay?” Amanda’s voice burst with surprise. “I was so worried when nobody picked up. What’s happened to Luke? He hasn’t returned any of my calls. I finally got a hold of Marie and she said he’d had surgery.”

  He hadn’t called to let his sister know?

  But then again, should she really be that surprised?

  This was Luke all over and his closest relationships didn’t matter to him. She, of all people, knew this.

  “He did,” she replied, slowly. “But he’s fine,” she said, not giving anything away. “You should really get him to tell you.”

  “I called and you answered. Where is he?” Amanda asked.

  “He’s taking a shower,” Kay explained. “And he’s really tired.”

  “Marie said he had something wrong with his thyroid.”

  “He did, but he’s been treated for it and he’s fine. It might be better to call him over the weekend, because I don’t think he’s in the mood to talk right now.” She would rather Amanda spoke to Luke directly and let him tell her. She knew how things with his family set him off. It was better not to get mixed up in the dynamics and politics of the Hunters.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s recovering, and he’s still slightly weak.”

  “Feeling weak?” Amanda asked in a worried voice. “He’s going to live, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, god, yes. He’s going to be fine.”

  Amanda made a low whine. “I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. He could have told me. He’s such an uptight moody bastard, but he’s my brother, so…”

  “I understand.” Of course she did. She got up and wandered towards the bathroom. She could still hear the shower running. Not wanting Amanda to go to sleep worried, she divulged some more information and explained that he’d only just recovered from the surgery, and then he’d had to have the radioactive treatment a few weeks later. “He’s not really been in any state to call and tell anyone.” She was lying here. He could have picked up the phone, but for some reason, she found herself making excuses for him.

  “I’m glad he’s got you to take care of him,” Amanda remarked. “Marie says you’ve really been there for him.”

  Kay winced. “It wasn’t only me. Marie has been here a lot. She’s cooked his food for him. That’s much more than I ever did.”

  “Well, I’m just glad you were there.”

  “I’ll let him know you called.”

  Chapter 37

  It was the weekend, and Kay had come over. ‘For a few hours,’ she’d told him.

  He would happily take a few hours, a few minutes, whatever slice of time she offered. Her being here had made his illness all the more bearable.

  She’d gone grocery shopping again; with Marie away, he sensed that she was doing double duty to make up for it. Together, they were taking things out of the bags and putting them away. He liked this—her being here, and them packing groceries away as if they were a normal couple, running chores on the weekend.

  When his doorbell rang, he looked up, pensive. He hardly ever had any visitors, and at this time, in this condition, he hadn’t been expecting anyone at all.

  “I’ll get it,” she said, setting down the jar of olives. “Were you expecting anyone?”

  “No.”

  She disappeared out of sight, and then he heard voices. Not just one person. He strained his ears, and felt the color drain from his face. He cocked his head, his ears straining to distinguish the voices.

  Seriously? What the hell were they doing here? And why had she come?

  Amanda walked into the kitchen, then raised her hand to her mouth. “Why didn’t you tell us?” And before he had a chance to reply, she rushed over to him. As he reacted, while trying to school his anger, he saw Kay standing there, looking slightly sheepish. And beside her was Maggie.

  “I—I forgot to tell you,” Kay said, putting her hand to her forehead.

  He angled his head. “You knew about this?” he growled.

  “I—I meant to tell you that Amanda called…”

  “I wanted to surprise you,” continued Amanda, breaking away from him and oblivious to what was going on. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t have the energy to speak, because it was all sucked up into a knot of anger.

  “You should have called,” he said, turning his back to Maggie.

  “I did call—”

  “And I forgot to tell you. I was busy with my report,” Kay answered, looking slightly flustered.

  “What does it matter? We’re here now. You could have at least told us something.” Amanda’s eyes were beginning to well up.

  “I didn’t want you to worry.”

  “It’s cancer, for goodness sake. Of course we were going to worry. We had a right to know, don’t you think? I had a right, even if you don’t care about Dad and Travis.” The rising anger in her voice filled the air with tension.

  He didn’t want to upset Amanda, but it wasn’t helping having Maggie in his kitchen, looking at him as if she gave a shit. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he said, finally. “I would have told you eventually. I didn’t know you were back from your honeymoon.”

  “You didn’t even listen to any of my messages?” Amanda shrieked. “Because if you had, you’d have known that we returned weeks ago.”

  Christ. He swiped a hand over his face. What a train wreck of a morning this had turned out to be.

  “I left you so many texts, and called you,” his sister continued. “But they always said you were busy, at the new site, or something. I could never get through. Thank goodness for Kay. If it hadn’t been for her we’d never have known.”

  The two of them smiled at one another. He ought to be glad that his sister and Kay seemed to be getting along, even though they had hardly spent any time together.

  “We’ve all moved on, Luke.” Hatred curled around his heart, impossible to unpick. The sound of that voice cut into him and cut deep. Maggie had finally spoken. She was the last person who should have come here.
He turned around and faced her, this woman who had smashed his heart into tiny, tiny pieces. He looked squarely into her eyes, needing to confirm that she had no hold over him.

  “It was cancer,” he said, not even blinking. “I had surgery. I’m fine. You didn’t need to come.” A phone call would have done.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” suggested Kay, “Let’s go into the living room and get out of the kitchen.”

  He watched her herding them out, and wondered why the hell hadn’t she told him?

  They sat on the sofas; he and Amanda on one, and Maggie and Kay on the other one.

  “That looks nasty,” Amanda commented, staring at his scar.

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean, it looks serious,” she said, with a laugh, attempting to lift the atmosphere which had plunged by about fifty degrees.

  “Cancer is,” he replied.

  “Travis wanted to come,” offered Maggie.

  “Good job he stayed away,” he replied, touching his scar lightly.

  “We thought it would be better if he didn’t come,” Amanda chimed in.

  “Then why did you come?” he asked Maggie.

  “Daddy sends his regards. He was worried,” said Amanda.

  He said nothing, biting down on his teeth, holding back. The last few weeks had imbued him with a sense of calmness that he hadn’t known before. Time away from work, thinking about life, and his own mortality had been sobering. But this sudden unexpected appearance from Amanda and Maggie was too much. Even though he loved Amanda, and even though Maggie no longer inspired feelings of hate in him, it still bugged the crap out of him that she was here and ruining his morning with Kay.

  Mention of his brother and father made staying calm more difficult with each passing moment.

  Amanda took his hand. “I just wanted to come and see you.” Her worried gaze swept over him again, and every now and then it settled on his scar.

  “How was the surgery?” Maggie asked. He tried to stay calm, tried to ground himself. He thought he was over this fucking shit. Instead, he pointed, shot-gun style with his fingers, towards the ugly scar on his neck. “Done, and dusted.”

  Maggie’s eyes narrowed, the same way they used to when she would examine something. He knew that expression well, just as he knew she felt uncomfortable now. At least at the wedding they had been in a big room, surrounded by lots of people. Even at Amanda’s first wedding, he’d been with Ginger, the escort he’d hired so as not to go alone.

  This was tricky, being in a confined space like this. The more she sat here, the more it brought the past back and he didn’t need that, not when he was pushing past it and needing to move on. Seeing her again took him back in time to that warm, hazy summer’s day when he’d arrived home early from the warehouse where he worked. Feeling sick, and unable to work the 8-hour shift, he’d come home only to walk past his brother’s room, with its door half-open and his girlfriend, Maggie, in bed with his brother.

  He had walked in, shocked and broken, and they had looked up. That sight, the smell, and the sounds—music playing on the radio, her giggling—he could hear it even now. And the sheets, a crumpled mess, and the smell of sweat and sex in the air. The image was stamped in his head, but over time it had become interspersed with the image of his mother lying on the blood-red sheets of the bed where she had died, bleeding out on the bed she once shared with his father.

  “Will it come back?” Amanda asked, shaking him out of that nightmare.

  He looked at her, confused. “Will what come back?”

  “The cancer.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, if you don’t mind,” he replied, a growing sense of unease spreading all over him.

  “Sorry.”

  “It shouldn’t come back,” said Kay, stepping in. “But he’ll have to have lots of checkups along the way just to make sure. Apparently, they call it the good cancer”.

  “The good cancer?” Maggie asked, and the three women laughed lightly. The conversation was so awkward, and the silences like barbed wire, that he wished he was back in the isolation room.

  “Why did you come?” he asked Maggie, unable to hold back. He felt nothing for her, and knew he would never have visited her had the situation been reversed. Why had she come?

  “Luke!” Amanda and Kay’s voices rang out in a chorus.

  “No, I really want to know. Why did you come? You didn’t need to.”

  “I was worried about you, we all were, and I wanted to see that you were okay.” Her voice was hard, determined, as she held the stare. The silent seconds stretched out for what seemed like days.

  “It’s good of you to come,” said Kay, making an attempt at conversation. “Oh my goodness,” she cried in the next breath, and stood up. “Please excuse my bad manners. Can I get you anything to drink?”

  Both visitors nodded their heads in unison. “We should go,” said Amanda, raising a slight smile. “I had hesitations about coming, but I needed to see you, and I’m glad we came.”

  He could have handled Amanda. He didn’t mind his sister being here, but Maggie? She was so out of place, so superfluous, so unnecessary. This was supposed to be a relaxing Saturday afternoon with Kay.

  Now Maggie had gone and ruined it.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, standing and getting ready to go.

  “I’m fine, Maggie. I’m just fucking fine. Now, run back to my brother, won’t you?”

  “Luke,” cautioned Amanda.

  He stared at her and shrugged. “She didn’t need to come. Even you know that.”

  Kay looked at him, then, her face questioning, and her mouth slightly parted, as if she had only now pieced it all together.

  “We’re going,” said Amanda in that over-the-top cheery voice of hers. She kissed him on the cheek and gave him a gentle hug. “But I’ll be back with Kyle when you’re better.”

  He frowned. “Kyle?”

  “My husband,” Amanda retorted. “And I’ll have to tell you all about our honeymoon.”

  He groaned. “Looking forward to it.”

  Chapter 38

  He looked as if he was going to explode, and she knew he was all riled up again. “Why did you ask them to come?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t. Why are you so mad? I thought you liked your sister?” She could see him biting down, could see the tell-tale muscles twitching along his jaw. Any moment now he was going to lose it.

  “I do like my sister,” he ground out quietly.

  “So what’s the issue?”

  He didn’t say anything, and she could see him struggling not to erupt in anger. For he was angry. She’d been watching him the whole time. Had heard and seen his interaction with Maggie.

  And finally, she had understood.

  She was merely biding her time.

  “Amanda called here a few days ago, and you were in the shower. I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

  “You forgot to tell me?” he snarled, his voice full of sarcasm.

  “I was working on my report.” He had no idea what it had been like. No idea at all. Sometimes she wondered why she’d done it, why she’d agreed to keep an eye on him, when she didn’t have to. She could have owned up and told Marie the truth, but she hadn’t. She’d chosen to keep the farce going. Maybe she’d even loved seeing the new Luke unravel. Maybe that had been a part of it, too.

  “You know how fucked up my family is. You should have warned me.”

  “You’re not even listening to me. I forgot. I’ve been juggling a lot of things.”

  “I’m sorry.” He paced around the room, as if he was trying to keep it together. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  “I didn’t know Amanda was going to turn up. She didn’t say she was.” Her voice was rising in pitch and she could feel her own anger grow. His temper was like quicksand—hard to avoid once you happened across it. She had forgotten it, almost because being with him during his recovery had dimmed the memory of what he could be like.
She remembered the bartender she had first come to know over a few cocktails, and found it difficult to reconcile the man she now knew, with the man she had first believed him to be.

  And just like quicksand, her feelings for him were hard to hold on to. She wasn’t sure how to be around him, which Luke he was at any moment. Today’s episode had shown her that the old Luke was never far away. Any interaction with his family riled him up, and her patience was disappearing fast. She did not need this headache.

  “I didn’t need my family to come here.”

  “But I had nothing to do with that. If you want to blame me for anything, blame me for forgetting to tell you. It’s not like I didn’t have another million things to take care of apart from you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to look after me.”

  Anger hurtled through her like a hurricane. The ungrateful douchebag. “You didn’t, but Marie did.”

  That startled him. His expression bordered on disbelief. “I wish she’d mind her goddamn business. I don’t need anybody to look after me, and I sure as hell don’t need you.”

  “Really?” The audacity, the sheer, unbridled ingratitude of the man. “You could have fooled me.”

  But he seemed too caught up in his own troubles to notice her shock.

  “Actually, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t only do it because Marie asked me to. I wanted to make sure you were okay. I did it because, despite you being the biggest asshole to me a lot of the time, I thought I caught a glimmer of the real you, a new you, sometimes.”

  “You don’t know the real me,” he replied, looking completely miserable as he sat on the sofa. He leaned forward, holding his head in his hands. She could see that the morning had taken its toll on him. The arguing was only going to make things worse.

  “That’s because you can’t share yourself. You won’t open up,” she said, keeping her distance across the room from him, and folding her arms. “You’re a tightly wound up ball of emotions, sometimes, and trying to reach inside you is impossible.”