by S. J. Sylvis
Twenty-Seven
Luke and I had been on completely different wavelengths since the hospital. We lived right next door to one another, but he might as well have been millions of miles away. I started to run again in the mornings, and I always made sure I looked exceptionally sexy in my tight running pants, just in case he finally came to join me like old times, but nope. Nada.
One morning after I’d given up on him joining me, I ran my normal two miles and was starting back up my steps, when he emerged from his house. He gave me a tight smile and a half-nod and started jogging in the direction I’d come from.
Awkward wasn’t even close to describing how pathetic our interactions were. They were downright painful.
I started to look at different homes in the area because I just didn’t think I could handle living with him so close, yet so far away, for much longer. I would rather give up my cute and affordable, perfectly-located historical home and find somewhere else if it meant I could start putting myself back together.
I was always on alert. Wondering, pondering, fantasizing. Wishing that Luke would just come bursting through my door, but…
I needed to stop.
I needed to get a hold of myself.
Rounding the corner of Church Street, carrying a take-out bag from The Chelsea (with enough food in it to feed a small village—don’t judge me. I was still wallowing, even weeks later), I stilled my feet. My eyes found the one man I wasn’t expecting to see.
Grant.
It had been months since I’d seen him last. I mean, my last encounter with him had been in his apartment with jelly in his hair, cuddling a blow-up doll. Agh. The memory of Luke and me flashed through my brain and I physically cringed.
That was the first night I had felt that we truly connected, and it was the first night that I had started to really develop feelings for him. I shook my head, dissolving the memory, and then my eyes met Grant’s. His eyes went wide and his mouth parted before it formed into a scowl.
I mean, he knew where I lived, so if he had wanted to pick a fight with me, why hadn’t he just come over and done it? Or just called me?
Had he been waiting for the perfect moment?
Which apparently was right now since he started to travel the necessary distance towards me. I gave him a quick wave but he didn’t wave back.
Okay, so this wasn’t going how I’d planned. I’d been prepared to say, “Oh, relax. It was a small prank. Your hair has grown back. Blah, blah, blah.” But instead, I took off in the opposite direction. I literally ran from him, while trying to hold in a laugh that was bubbling up from deep inside of me.
My life was a joke.
A big fat joke!
I got a few yards away, rounded another corner, and then slammed into something extremely hard.
“Oomph,” I wheezed, still clutching my brown paper take-out bag. Catching my breath, I squeaked, “Excuse me!” and hands curled around my arms. I turned my head up and instantly lost my breath.
Two sea-glass green eyes stared back at me, a small smile playing at his lips.
“Clumsy much, Doc?”
I opened my mouth to speak but then I heard Grant yell my name from a distance. Luke’s head swiveled towards the voice.
“Run!” I gasped.
Luke looked confused, but I snagged his hand and we both took off sprinting through the courtyard.
We kept running, striding in pace with one another, until I felt that the coast was clear.
I breathed, “Okay, I think we’re good.” I looked back and didn’t see or hear anything unusual. Only passing cars and a bird chirping in the distance.
“Who was it?” Luke asked, out of breath. “Do I need to kick someone’s ass?”
My heart was pounding excitedly in my chest at our close quarters. I swallowed and grinned.
“Grant.”
He laughed, “What? What did you do now?”
I shook my head. “Nothing! But he spotted me and I got scared so… I ran.” Luke boomed with laugher.
“He can’t still be mad about the jelly thing. That was forever ago.” Luke shook his head.
Except it somehow feels like it was just yesterday.
I shrugged, “He looked angry…”
“Well,” Luke looked around me and shrugged, too. “Let me walk you home so you don’t get attacked with a blow-up doll.” I hid my smile and followed after him.
We made it one block before I finally asked, “So…how ya been?”
He slowly looked over at me. “I’ve been fine.”
Guilt had started to weigh on my shoulders the night after he’d come to the hospital. I was angry with him before, clouded by contempt over what had happened with Ash, but as soon as he told me the truth, I felt absolutely sickened at that fact that I hadn’t even had the courtesy to ask him how he was since coming home from Afghanistan. Did he see anything awful over there? Did he have any more run-ins with bullets?
His haunted eyes from the night he’d confessed his memory to me filtered throughout my head anytime I tried to sleep. I would toss and turn and sit up in bed to look in the direction of Luke’s house, just wondering how he was doing, and then I’d plop myself back down on my pillows. I felt so selfish to not have asked him. I should have.
I pushed my guilt away. “You’ve been fine since… coming back…to normal life?” My voice dropped and Luke looked over at me, scrutinizing my motives.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He paused for a moment, stopping on the sidewalk. I stopped beside him and looked over when his smooth voice filled the air, “The hardest part about being over there this time was the fact that I couldn’t get a hold of you to tell you the truth.”
I swallowed and half-wanted to just crush my arms around his neck, but the other half of me didn’t know what to do. I was at a loss. I was stuck, just staring, dazed by his words.
Luke started walking again, at a slow pace, and I followed. Keeping my mouth shut.
“How have you been?” he asked, simply. As if he hadn’t just stolen my heart again.
I shook myself out of my trance. “Fine.”
I could see him nodding in my peripheral vision and I felt the words in the back of my mind egging me on. I wanted to ask if he’d given up on us, or if this was how it was going to be from now on. Was he truly over the thing with his ex-wife? How could he ever want to be with anyone ever again after that monster?
I took a deep breath. “Did you get things figured out with Ash? The divorce and everything?” Her name felt like poison on my tongue and when I glanced up at Luke, he was staring at me intently. Then he motioned behind me and my mouth gaped.
I was home. How the hell did we get on our street so fast?
I pulled my takeout bag closer to my body, hearing it crinkle. “Well…thanks for walking me home.”
Luke didn’t look like he was going to answer my question about Ash, and that set a knife to my stomach. I started to walk up my porch steps, the knife digging in further with each climb. The second I got my door open, he answered, “Things are over with Ash.”
I turned around to say something, anything really, but he was already walking over to his house.
I watched him climb his steps, pull out his key and insert it into his door. He peeked up and smiled, “Watch out for those blow-up dolls, Doc.”
And then my heart leapt in my chest. There was hope.
A light knock on my door woke me from catching up on all the sleep I had missed on my night shift. I sat up, massaging my neck from sleeping at an extremely uncomfortable position on the couch. My cream cardigan was half off my shoulder, but I stumbled to the door anyway, stubbing my pinky toe in the process.
Once I swung it open, cursing my throbbing toe, I was blinded by the sunlight bouncing from behind the person standing in front of me.
I shut my eyes again and then opened them, trying to focus on who was at my door, but all I could make out was the black outline of a head.
Wait…is that?
&
nbsp; “Hi.” The voice had my eyes un-blurring themselves pretty quickly.
Anger bloomed within. “Aren’t you at the wrong house?” I sneered. Ash had some fucking nerve. I stared at her, and then my eyes traveled to her now smaller stomach. I only let them linger there for a few seconds before looking at her face again.
She was still pretty. Pale skin, jet black hair that was pin straight and framed her face. Her eyes looked a little tired, deep bags formed underneath, but nonetheless, still pretty.
“I’m not at the wrong house. I came to talk to you.”
I pulled my sleeve up onto my shoulder. “Why?”
“Can I come in?” she asked softly, but I wasn’t buying her shit.
“No.” Her shoulders slumped. I took a deep breath. “I’ll come out there.”
Ash’s light blue eyes showed a sliver of hope. I stepped outside, glancing towards Luke’s. His car was gone, so he must be, too. Had she come to see him, also? Were they getting back together? No, they weren’t. I knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t take her back. I mean, days ago he had told me they were nothing, so I shooed away the thought.
“Listen,” she began. “I was a total raging bitch to you.”
Yep, you sure were.
She laughed. Oh shit, did I just say that out loud?
“I can see why he likes you…you definitely don’t put up with bullshit.” So I did say that out loud.
“Did you really come all this way to say sorry?” I inched my eyebrows up. “Because that seems awfully nice of you…”
She blew out a breath. “No. I came to make things right.”
I wasn’t really buying it. Ash was a complete stranger to me—plus, Luke and I weren’t technically together so I wasn’t sure why she was even here. What? Did she have a baby and then realize, “Oh, I suck as a human being. Let me try to make it better?” I was not falling for it. Nope, and I didn’t really have to, because a loud, rumbling engine and squealing tires suddenly grabbed my attention. Luke’s car flew into park and he was out of it in seconds, stomping towards my porch.
He was enraged. His face was reddening and his chiseled jaw was clenched. Ash straightened her shoulders as soon as he was inches away from her.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Ashley?” he yelled. I took a step back and watched her roll her eyes.
“I came to make things right, per your request.”
“Bullshit! You had your chance.” He pointed at her. “You aren’t allowed to be here!”
Now, that had my head spinning. Allowed to be here? What was he, her father? We really did belong on Jerry Springer, I’m tellin’ ya.
“Jesus, calm down. I just came to tell her that you were telling the truth.” Ash’s face was relaxed, as if she couldn’t care less that Luke was trembling with anger.
“If you don’t get off this porch in less than five fucking seconds, I’m calling the police.” My eyes widened and my mouth slowly fell open.
Ash rolled her eyes again and looked over at me. “Good luck with this one…”
I grimaced and found myself wanting to punch her for the seven hundredth time since meeting her. That’s saying something, because both times I had encountered her were for less than five minutes each.
Luke was breathing heavily when I looked over at him. He watched as his ex-wife lazily walked down the porch steps and opened her jeep door. She looked back and forth between the pair of us before she zeroed in on me.
“He was telling the truth. We’re done, and I’m sorry for causing problems.”
Then she got in her jeep and shut the door. Luke watched her all the way until her red taillights faded around the corner. Once they were gone, he turned around. Worry was etched on every part on his face.
“I’m sorry, Cammie. She isn’t supposed to come near you.”
“What do you mean?”
He briefly closed his eyes and then opened them again, showing the beautiful color that I may or may not have had constant dreams about. “I had my lawyer take out a restraining order on her after I got your email in Afghanistan.”
My mouth formed an “O,” but I was at a loss for words. Was she really that dangerous?
I finally regained the ability to speak again. “But why?”
He snarled, “Because I know how fucking psycho and conniving she is. I wouldn’t put it past her to do something crazy to you.”
I wrapped my arms around my middle and tried to stop the pull at my stomach. My eyes raked down Luke’s frame. He looked so strong and so much like a man I could lean on when times were rough. Hell, I had leaned on him when times were rough.
“I’m sorry, Luke.”
His head snapped up to mine. “For what?”
“For not hearing you out.” I sighed. “And for her being a cheating whore.”
He chuckled and I grinned. Then we just looked at each other. For a really, really long time.
My heart was begging to be near him. My entire body was begging to be near him. Everything about Luke pulled me in like the eye of a tornado. I’d been caught up in the Luke storm since the moment I first met him, and for every second after.
“You know I meant it, right?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
I narrowed my eyes. “Meant what?”
“When I asked you to marry me.” My heart stopped and my eyes grew wide. “I was only half joking when I emailed you that. I really think I would have married you.” He looked down at his feet for a second. “I think I…” He stopped himself and an awkward silence filled the air.
Was he going to say he loved me?!
I broke the silence quickly, my heart pounding in my chest. “You don’t want to marry me, Luke.” I paused. “And after everything you’ve been through with Ash…how could you ever want to marry someone ever again?” If I were him, I wouldn’t want to marry ever again. Let alone me, someone who had given up so easily.
He turned his head toward the road, taking a deep breath. “Well, after I got the news about Ash on my previous deployment, I wanted to kill her and kill the guy who knocked her up. I was so fucking angry.”
I felt sick knowing she’d done that to him. I wanted to kill her, too. How dare she hurt him? Didn’t she realize what a worthy man he was?
“Then, after I got over the shock and started to hound her for a divorce, I went back into my Marine ways and set a rule for myself. You know us Marines, we love structure.”
I laughed. “And acronyms.”
Luke chuckled. “And acronyms.” He swallowed and I watched in awe as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I made up this rule that I would never marry again. Actually, I think my exact words were, ‘I will never be committed to someone, ever again.’”
Oh. Okay, then.
“But… life’s all about bending the rules, right, Doc?” He turned away. “A certain somebody taught me that.” My head was spinning. He gave me a smug smile and my heart all but exploded. Before I could wrap my head around what he had said, he walked down my steps and over to his house. I watched him the entire, agonizing time.
The second he was through his door, I melted onto my porch floor. I was caught up in the Luke storm, once again.
Except this time, I was welcoming it with open arms.
Twenty-Eight
“JoJo, why are we doing this tonight? You’re not getting married for another nine months!” I shouted over the dubstep music pounding loudly in the background.
Tonight JoJo had insisted we celebrate her bachelorette party, even though I told her I already had it planned for Vegas in six months.
JoJo ignored me, pounding back another shot. “What has gotten into you?” I asked, sipping on my whiskey sour.
“I just wanna have fun tonight!” JoJo jumped up from the table and grabbed Natalie, one of her employees whom she had also conned into going out tonight.
She tricked us! This was in no way her bachelorette party. I had the entire thing planned. Male strippers, booze on top of booze. We were
staying in one of the classiest casino hotels in all of Las Vegas. This was nothing compared to that!
The night started off like normal: me turning into a peeping Tom and gazing at Luke’s house. It’d been pretty quiet since our last conversation, but I felt like we had begun moving in the right direction again. I thought it was pretty clear that there was still something between us, but now I wasn’t so sure.
He’d been normal, but he’d been too normal.
Something seemed off.
He had started running with me again in the mornings. But we didn’t really talk a whole lot, especially since it was always time for him to go to work and for me to go to sleep. He did flirt with me a little, sneaking in small touches and flipping my ponytail randomly—no doubt just to irritate me. Which it didn’t. The only thing it did was make my heart grow a little bigger in my chest. Other than those small encounters, things had been uneventful.
I thought about pulling a prank on him again like old times. I thought it would break the ice. I even bought several boxes of plastic wrap for the ol’ toilet seat prank. I had done that to my brother once and it was epic, except that my mom made me clean up the mess he had made and he laughed his head off the entire time.
But, instead of actually following through with my plan this time, I chickened out.
JoJo even started to “bock” at me like a chicken. She and Ryan both confessed to me that they had a running bet on which one of us would finally break down and profess our love for the other first, but Luke and I were both stubborn. I think he was even more stubborn than I was. Me? I was just a big fat chicken. That was my excuse.
Looking around the buzzing bar, I half-yelled, “Can you make sure she gets home safe?” to a few of the other friends JoJo had tricked into coming out tonight.
Amanda nodded her head and then we both laughed when we saw JoJo doing a poor rendition of the sprinkler in the middle of a disco-like dance floor.
I hopped off my bar stool, texting for an Uber to take me home, and pushed past the tipsy dancers surrounding my best friend.