by J. D. Mason
There was no way Luther was letting her leave town without seeing her. She’d been dodging his calls for months, but she was here now and the two of them needed to close the loop on this—relationship.
“When are you leaving?” he asked with a shrug.
“Day after tomorrow.”
She looked like she’d dropped a few pounds. Not that she needed to, but he just noticed. Terri’s curly natural hair had been straightened, loose curls framed her beautiful face.
“How’ve you been?” Luther finally asked.
“Good. You?” she asked, coolly, folding her arms, defensively across her chest.
“Okay.”
It was still there, that pocket in space that Luther felt drawn to every time she was close enough.
“You made it to Texas?”
She smiled. “I did.”
“Houston. Right?”
“Yep. Big, old, gigantic Houston. Feels like, I don’t know, Jupiter, compared to this place. I got used to small town living faster than I anticipated. I’m going to miss it.”
“Then don’t leave,” Luther blurted out without meaning to.
Terri gave a slight shake of her head. “I think we’ve covered the small talk, Luther,” Terri said. “Let’s wrap this up. Please?”
Ouch!
“How are you and Nick?” she asked, sounding almost as if she actually cared. Curious was probably a more accurate assessment.
Luther took a deep, contemplative breath and released it slowly. “We are—” Hell, Luther didn’t know what they were. The last conversation they’d had a day ago was nothing more than clarification.
“We are. The issues he has with me go beyond anything that happened between you and I.”
“The situation between us didn’t help.”
“It didn’t. I love him.”
“Of course, you do.”
“And that’s it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Luther.”
“Don’t be. I take full responsibility for my relationship with my son. I hurt him a long time ago, but I can’t ever be that father he needed as a kid. So when and if he’s ever ready, we’ll have to learn to try and build a different type of relationship. He’s a grown man. One I respect.” He paused. “So, what’s next for you?” Luther asked, still feeling awkward and lost, and still very much enamored with this woman.
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Still trying to figure it out. I don’t see myself making Houston home, though.”
“Then where?”
“Hard to say. I’ve lived in half a dozen cities in my lifetime, and I really am ready to settle down.”
“You found a home here,” he suggested.
“I just closed on my house,” she said. “And, well, you live here.”
She was cute when she was being insulting.
“Well, I mean—”
“Redemption and me don’t see eye to eye?” Terri interjected, surprising him with his own, corny song lyrics. “Forgiveness don’t know my name?”
He smiled. “Wow. You actually listened to my messages?”
“It’s true, Luther. There’s no redemption for you or me. We blew it. We blew it with Nick and each other. You and I were a huge mistake and there’s no changing that.”
There was nowhere to sit in this place. All the furniture was gone, and boxes littered the floor. The scene was set for him to say his peace and leave.
“What do you want to say to me?” she asked, taking a step closer, as Luther hung his head. “What could you and I possibly say to each other, now?”
Luther met and held her gaze. “I wanted to say that I was sorry.”
Terri shrugged. “Me too. I’m sorry, too. For everything that happened between us and for what we did to Nick. There. That’s it, Luther. There is nothing else.”
“I’m sorry for things I said to you, things I didn’t mean,” he continued. “I’m sorry for hurting my kid and my wife.”
She nodded and offered a slight smile.
He huffed. “I’m sorry for doing shit that I always have to be sorry for.”
Goddamnit! Luther was sorry for his whole fuckin’ life. This shit was getting old, saying it—hearing it, feeling it.
“I get it,” she said, her demeaning softening.
“But I’m not sorry for any moment I spent with you,” Luther admitted. “I’m not sorry for what I feel for you.”
Terri leaned her head to one side. “How do you think you feel for me? We talked. We fucked. Was anything either of us thought we felt for each other even real?”
“I can’t speak for you,” he told her, inhaling the familiar scent of Terri Dawson. “But I’m old enough to know real.”
“Real what, Luther? Love?”
Love. What he felt wasn’t simple enough to be summed up in one word.
“Can you love anyone as much as you love your music?” she asked. “Ava. Nick. Me?”
“What’s music got to do with this conversation?” He suddenly felt defensive, the way he always did when that part of his life came into question.
“I’ve seen you play, and it is magical.”
Luther tried to recall Ava ever telling him that. She never did. His music was never a part of their lives together. When he was home, his guitar stayed in the closet most of the time, except for family gatherings when someone would ask him to play. Ava stopped asking, probably that moment she realized he loved that guitar more than he loved her. At least, that’s what she believed because Luther failed to show her different.
“I don’t understand what music has to do with this,” he repeated.
“You and music. Me and acting. Can I love you or anyone as much as I have loved my career? See, that’s what I think we had in common. A love so compelling that it blinds us to everything and everyone around us. Obsessions. You and me connected on that one real fact about ourselves and that’s all.”
“That’s not all,” he argued, determined not to let her diminish what he felt. “Not for me.”
Terri took a step back. “Do either of us really know how to love another person?”
“We know how to love each other, Terri,” he surprised her and said. “Better than anyone else ever could.”
Terri shook her head and turned her back to him. “I don’t love you.”
“Fine,” he added. “But you understand me. Like I understand you. You see who I truly am and not who you think I should be.”
Terri turned to him. Maybe Terri didn’t love him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t. She was hurt, despite trying to hide behind this don’t give a shit façade. He knew her, too. And Terri wasn’t fooling him.
“I see you, Terri. I mean, I really see you and I know you, better than any other man ever could. Is that love? For people like you and me, what the fuck does that even mean? Acceptance. Appreciation. Applause. Admiration. Consideration. Creation.”
Terri’s eyes widened because Luther spoke her language. His life had been a rollercoaster of passion and regret, joy and guilt. Since Ava’s death, it had just been him, standing still, trying not to ripple the water. And then Terri came along, and all he wanted to do was make waves. Luther never wanted to hurt Nick, but Nick was never meant to be in the middle of this.
“I don’t want you to go,” he finally admitted, taking hold of her hand.
Terri wiped the rogue tear streaming down her cheek. “I don’t know how to stay, Luther.”
“You just do.”
“And what about Nick?”
“Nick is—not a part of this anymore, Terri.”
Did he feel like shit for still wanting this woman who’d been with his son? Hell yeah! Enough to let her go? Not anymore.
“But he was. And that’s hard for me, Luther. Not because I loved him, but because you do.”
“More than he’ll ever understand, Terri. More than I can ever say, but the damage is done between me and Nick. He made that clear.”
“So, you just let him go? No,” she shook he
r head and pulled back her hand. “I won’t be a part of that. I won’t be responsible for the two of you not working this out and coming back to each other.”
She didn’t understand. Frustration ballooned in his chest because Terri believed that a reconciliation between him and Nick had anything to do with her anymore.
“You sacrificed him once for your music, Luther,” she continued. “Don’t do it again for me.”
She was right. Luther hadn’t learned a damn thing. He was doing it all over again, choosing his own selfish happiness over someone he said he loved. If he really wanted to be a better man, he’d let her go.
Neither of them spoke for several moments before Terri finally broke through the fragile silence.
“I have to go back to Houston. I can’t stay here.”
Luther took hold of her hand again, raised it to his lips and kissed it. “Then you go,” he said, his voice cracking.
A moment of truth rose to the surface in Luther. Staring into her eyes, he knew that when she left, she’d take a big part of him with her.
Luther raised her hand and pressed her palm to his chest, over his heart. “You are here, Terri. And somehow, someway—someday,” he grinned. “We’ll find a way to meet up in the middle of some goddamn where.”
With tears streaming down her cheeks, she surprised him and managed a nervous laugh.
“Deal?” He asked, hoping and praying she’d say yes. He could never promise her perfection, but Luther could guarantee his attention… his devotion. She could leave town, but, Luther couldn’t let her leave him.
Terri shrugged. “Can I think about it?”
It wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, but it was the one she needed to give him. He released her hand and took a step back.
“Yeah.”
Terri hadn’t packed a thing since he’d left, hours ago. Luther and Terri were pieces of the same puzzle. She wasn’t the woman for Nick. Never had been. Luther, obviously wasn’t the father for him either. Dr. Hunt had been collateral damage in a collision he never should’ve been a part of. Luther and Terri recognized themselves in each other and were drawn to their reflections. If either of them could ever stop feeling like shit about it, maybe, just maybe they could make this work.
“Hi,” she said, sitting on the floor of her empty bedroom, hovering over her phone.
“Hey,” Luther responded.
Was this phone call a mistake? It wouldn’t be the first one she’d made and damn sure wouldn’t be the last.
“Maybe you could come visit me in Houston?”
After a long pause, Luther finally answered, “I can absolutely come visit you in Houston.”