“An apology would be nice right about now.” Luke stared at his brother.
Max stilled and then straightened his posture, cheeks hollow, color faded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m shit at my job, and I’ve screwed up Tiluma for everyone.”
Luke pointed his bottle, wanting to add guilt to Max’s discomfort. “You should have been the one to call Schneider and explain. You’re just damn lucky it would have looked like a cop-out if I hadn’t been the one to do the talking.”
Not that any explanation had swayed Schneider toward ever looking Tiluma’s way again…
Max’s gaze dropped to the ground, and he shook his head. “I know. I’m sorry about that too.” He placed his unopened beer on the counter, lifting his attention. “But I can fix this.”
Luke spat out a brash laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. You made everyone at Tiluma look ridiculous. We’re an industry joke. No investor will come within a mile of our office now. How the hell do you intend to fix this?”
“I’ve spent two days making calls. I managed to get hold of Bret Lowell, and—”
“You mean the infamous party boy, rich kid with the idiotic TV commercials?” Luke dipped his chin, shooting Max a resolute glare, unable to scrub the mental image of Bret Lowell dressed as a koala, while hawking his latest homewares sale. “No.”
Max maintained a stern frown, arms crossed in a show of defense. “I met him the other week while out on the town. He’s actually very clever. I think he could—”
“No.” Luke reveled in his short reply, a good shield against his past pattern of entertaining Max’s harebrained business ideas for far too long. “No more help. You’ve done enough damage.”
Max drummed his fingers on the counter, his jaw stiff, the rest of him unmoving.
“Agathe was right. I’m not suited for the CTO role.” He shrugged, pitching forth a lopsided smile. “I quit.”
Luke’s fingers loosened on the bottle in his hand, and he lowered the glass so as not to drop it. “You what?”
“I quit.” Max shrugged again, his posture suddenly more relaxed, like those two words released him from a world of anguish. “The CTO gig is too much pressure. I want to scale back and enjoy the money we’ve made. I don’t want to play out some role I just happened to fall into. I want to figure out what I really want to do with my life. Besides, you know Daniel deserves the CTO position more than I do.”
Heat rose through Luke’s chest, and a new kind of anger mixed with jealousy spread through his core. Max found it far too easy to cut professional ties—a luxury Luke didn’t have.
“So, you’re just going to leave me to run Tiluma on my own now? A reputation-damaged Tiluma, at that…”
Max’s expression hardened. “You run this show alone, anyway, and you just said you don’t want my input anymore.”
That cold, hard truth seeped through Luke’s temper, dousing the angry heat he’d felt seconds ago. “But we’re a team.”
“No. We’re brothers. And right now, Tiluma is getting in the way of that.” Max swiped up his beer bottle and twisted the bottle top, the lid soon cracking open. “I’ll offer app ideas from time to time if that’s what you want. It’s the only aspect of this job I ever enjoyed, anyway, but other than that, I need to go.”
Luke sank back and plunked his weight onto a nearby stool. “Tiluma won’t be the same without you.”
“No. It’ll be better. We both know that.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
Max huffed out a staggered laugh. “No, your guilt wouldn’t let you, but it’s true.”
Luke startled back at yet another mention of his guilt, as if Agathe’s similar sentiments the other day hadn’t confronted him enough.
“Your guilt is another thing Agathe was right about.” Max took another drink, his stare fixed ahead. The statement made Luke’s stomach lurch, like his brother had dug into his thoughts and wrenched out all the painful bits. “I know you started Tiluma to make amends for my accident, but my accident was years ago, and you’ve kept me on way too long. You don’t owe me anymore, and I don’t want any part in destroying your life. I’m setting us both free.”
“But you had a promising future, and I ruined it.”
Max gave an adamant shake of his head. “You stalled my plans, that’s all. I have more money and stability than any swimming career could have ever provided. Not that I ever expected anything from you, anyway, but you’ve paid me back ten times over. I mean, yeah, you basically talked me into throwing myself off a cliff, but—” He chuckled, then cleared his throat, scrubbing a hand over his chin until a more sober expression took over. “You were messed up at the time, Luke. You didn’t mean anything by it. And we both turned out well enough in the end.”
Luke veered his attention to the glossy counter beneath his right hand, the cold stone seeping a clarifying chill through to his palm.
He couldn’t recall the last time they’d spoken so candidly. Truth be told, he missed this. He missed his brother. Maybe against all odds and his general clownish character, Max had managed to make an accurate point.
“That’s pretty much what Agathe said.” He turned his attention back to Max, his voice roughened, and stomach pained with the sting of his more recent, bitter memories.
Max took a seat next to Luke. “And about Agathe—”
Luke held up a hand, signaling for him to stop right there.
Max shook his head, eyes glittering. “Dude, will you stop interrupting me? Hear me out on this one.”
Luke gave him a narrowed side glare. “You know, for someone here to apologize, you sure are damn bossy today.”
“I’m allowed to be.” Max sent forth a huge grin. “I quit, remember? From here on out, you’re just my grouchy older brother.”
Luke raised a brow, amused and annoyed at the same time. “You forget there are two people involved here. Agathe made her decision.”
“Yeah, and I might not have a reputation for being the brightest person ever, but I saw the look on her face when she walked away.” Max’s forehead creased, as if he pleaded for Luke to listen. “She cares about you, and that counts for something.”
Luke did his best to rein in his temper. It rose like hot lava all the same, not because of this confrontation, but because of Agathe, herself. “She walked away. She stone cold left.”
“Did you see her tears? And she didn’t walk, she ran away heartbroken.” Max leaned in, leaving Luke nowhere to escape. “There was nothing stone cold about her exit, and I have more reason to dislike her than you do. She’s been hard on me from day one, but being hard isn’t the same as being unkind. Everyone at the office loved her. Some were more upset about her leaving than Schneider falling through.”
Luke slumped forward and pressed his palm to his forehead. Max’s unlikely praise of Agathe offered more evidence that a good woman had slipped from his grasp. But what else could he have done? He’d loved her. Invited her into his world. And none of it had mattered.
“When I asked if I meant anything to her…” He eyed his brother, his voice husky at the memory of how this whole landslide had started. “She said nothing. She committed to nothing.”
“Man, you must put in some serious effort to be this bleeding stupid. Agathe didn’t have to say a damn thing just to bolster your fragile ego. The woman thought herself too damaged for a relationship, so she broke her heart and yours, just to protect you from what she thought would be worse than her leaving.”
Luke squinted, shooting Max what he hoped passed as a look of suspicion.
Max rolled his eyes again, this time throwing in an expletive under his breath. “Jesus flippin’ Christ, Luke. She didn’t want to leave. She just didn’t want to drag you down with her. Any pea-brained numbnuts could see that.” He paused, like he awaited a reply, then swore under his breath again when he got none. “Of course she cares about you. Hell, I’d say she probably loves you. Leaving was her ultimate sacrifice, you idiot.”
&nb
sp; Luke jolted. No one had called him an idiot since he’d been about sixteen years old and an actual idiot, but for the second time in as many days, that word was used with blunt force in reference to him. First, when Agathe had called him out for toying with a hundred livelihoods, and now Max.
Luke rose from his seat; he’d had enough and wanted to be alone now. “Time for you to go.”
Max blinked up at his brother, but otherwise didn’t move. “Only if you promise you’ll get your shit together and get Agathe back.”
Luke prowled forward, each tense step twisting his dwindling patience tighter and tighter. “I’ll think about it.”
“If you don’t do something, I swear on our sister’s psych degree that I will.”
Luke gave a half-hearted glare, at least glad Max hadn’t sworn on their mother’s life or something, still not for a second taking his brother’s threat seriously. “I said I’d think about it. Now, get out of my house.”
Getting Agathe back wouldn’t be as simple as Max seemed to think. She wanted her distance, and far be it from him to get in the way of those wishes.
Perhaps she’d been right about the impossibility of their relationship. If she couldn’t be totally onboard, then their future together would only ever be an unstable one, anyway.
“Fine, I’ll go.” Max stood, eyes glinting like he relished the idea of maybe having influenced his older brother in some way. “But is everything good between us now?”
His smile grew, like he knew Luke would never cut him out over anything as small as money or business. The little jerk also knew he’d turned this supposed apology on its head by getting all insightful about Agathe. But then again, these lively quirks were part of what made Luke love his younger brother so much.
Luke gave Max a playful shove on the shoulder, expediting his journey out the door. “I’ll think about that too.”
28
Two months later
Agathe peered out the train’s scuffed window, the click-clack of metal wheels setting her heart to flutter. Roseford Station loomed just ahead, its red-tile roof hovering above a black asphalt platform. She veered her gaze to her phone in her hand, half to deny her arrival, half to browse the list of recent messages sent from Luke:
We need to talk.
I can’t stop thinking about you.
I’m an idiot.
She frowned at that last one, so unlike him, but perhaps an indication he wasn’t doing so well these days. He hadn’t contacted her in two months, but over the past two weeks, she’d received five messages. Five messages she hadn’t responded to, even though she’d put herself on this train to see him.
Please, Agathe. I’m a pain in the ass without you.
The wording in that message was a little off also, but some people didn’t handle breakups well. Maybe Luke was one of them. God knew she’d had more than her fair share of “moments” over the years. Maybe she could find relief in knowing she wasn’t the only unstable person in this non-existent relationship.
I’ll be in Roseford this weekend. Alone. This message had prompted her to catch this train. Please come see me. I’m sorry for all the messages, but I need closure. I won’t bother you anymore after this.
The finality of that last message had left her miserable for days; it was a glimpse into how he’d felt in the wake of her abrupt exit. She’d broken her heart in walking away, but he’d been the one blindsided. She’d known her true motives. He hadn’t. She owed him this visit. She owned him an explanation.
Besides, she’d essentially used him for sex and walked away. The guilt over her actions tore shreds off her every night, and the chance of a civil face-to-face encounter fueled her journey now. She had to heal the rift. Had to have the frank exchange she’d never given him. The one he now asked for.
And if the encounter went badly, she could always catch a cab to Uncle Raymond’s. At worst, she’d reacquaint herself with his collection of booze and cheer herself up. The man was a killer cook, so it wouldn’t be a totally wasted weekend. Plus, her family had been right from the start. They’d done nothing wrong, and she’d reached a point in her recovery where she wanted to let them into her world again. What they hadn’t been right about was the timing.
But now, two months of therapy and hard-won self-healing had her looking at her future through a completely different lens. For the first time in years, she had moments where just being alive was enough.
The train ground to a halt, and she jumped to her feet. She gathered her one bag and hurried out the sliding door, willing her nerves to give her heart a break. This visit wasn’t just about closure or healing. She needed to finish what she’d started. She needed to see Luke, needed to know he was okay. Heck, maybe “need” wasn’t the right word. Maybe she just plain wanted him…
But you ruined every hope months ago, remember?
Hope. Ha! What a ridiculous word. She chuckled that even her therapist pushed for her to find hope in just about everything, to embrace the possibility of positive outcomes, as if hope were the key to living versus being merely alive.
Part of her therapy meant that positive thinking was supposed to become her natural compulsion, but try as she had, she wasn’t convinced that would ever happen. Still, her pessimism no longer stopped her attempts at hope altogether, so maybe she was making progress all the same.
And what positive light can you cast on your current predicament, Agathe?
Hmmm… Well… Luke had asked for this meeting, so there was that. In fact, he’d asked to talk numerous times. It wasn’t like she was showing up in Roseford uninvited.
A yellow cab waited outside the station, the only one in the designated taxi rank. She waved at the driver, a woman in her mid-forties, and the driver gestured for her to jump on in.
“Where to?” The woman peered through the rearview mirror, her blue eyes lively, as though she had no worries and no real hurry.
“Ninety-three North Road.” Agathe buckled her seatbelt.
The car picked up speed, and her pulse raced faster than the vehicle she rode in, the same vehicle now entering the main road. This meeting with Luke was the culmination of two months of soul searching and time spent alone. She’d done the things he’d said she needed to all along. She’d adopted a slower pace, a pace that mostly brought on one ugly day after another.
There’d been days upon days where she raged, and got lost in her anger, and let her house fall into neglected disarray. Days where she cried until her eyes were so swollen, they refused to open, and she pretty much lived in her bed and ate microwaved leftovers. Days where she’d been reduced to a weak puddle of a sobbing woman folded on her bathroom floor. And there were days where she felt nothing, where she didn’t regret ending things with Luke at all, not when the reflection in her mirror showed a puffy-eyed and bedraggled representation of all she’d kept inside.
She’d needed those days.
Each day brought on a battle against her dependence on distraction, distraction she’d created with work, and then Luke, and then sex with Luke. She’d needed time to stop. To face her past alone.
And then one day, the rage lifted. As did the sadness.
Little by little, she felt better.
And as much as her healing remained a work in progress, she’d gotten better at handling her grief. She found herself wanting to make space for those who cared about her, to accept acts of warmth. Just as Luke had said. But all of that had been impossible, back when she’d believed herself unworthy of kindness.
She scoffed, loud enough for the taxi driver to give her a frown through the rearview mirror. While Agathe had found some peace, she’d alienated all who cared, and now she had a lot of atoning to do.
What hope did she have that her family would want her back?
And what about Luke?
Rocks crunched under the taxi’s tires, drawing her attention to a narrow path and a wide veranda to her right. Her chest tightened, and she struggled for the next few breaths.
F
or Frigg’s sake, woman, get yourself together. You have to be here, whether you want to be or not.
After all that had happened, she couldn’t simply ignore Luke, or pretend he meant nothing. That his presence had made no impact on her life.
He’d been the impetus to her sorting herself out, and she’d messed with his life in the process. For that alone, she could dust off her bravery.
A green metal letterbox peered back at her, the number ninety-three announcing Luke’s rural home. She dug through her large, yellow tote bag.
“Do you mind waiting until I give you a signal to leave?” She handed the driver more money than due. “I don’t know if anyone will be home or how long this will take.”
The driver gave a jovial laugh and waved the wad of cash in the air. “Sure thing.”
Agathe pushed open her door and slipped onto the gravel path. Her few steps to Luke’s veranda felt like a long, slow death march, her heart thundering with each labored step.
A familiar, hollow feeling opened within her chest, the same feeling that plagued her for days after each soul-baring counseling session. There’d been months of solitude, of unearthing regret, pain, and bitterness, but she’d also learned.
She held her fist to the pine-green door, ready to knock. She’d need all the help she could get with whatever happened next.
Luke glared at his laptop screen, unable to focus on the dry content of yet another financial report. Why he’d brought his work to a relaxing weekend in Roseford, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d known his troubles would follow him, because frankly, that’s all they’d done for the last two months straight, follow and taunt him.
Maybe, just as Agathe had, he hoped work would chase away his darker thoughts. Then again, unlike Agathe, he maintained zero focus and muddled through his hours with little productivity.
He groaned and buried his head in his hands.
The public showdown with Agathe had changed how everyone at Tiluma saw him. Though Max’s exit and Daniel’s promotion meant things were looking up, there was no mistaking that Luke currently struggled with some major professional issues.
The Last Heartbeat Page 21