“Say it once more like you mean it,” he teased.
“I’m having a hard time mustering up the kind of enthusiasm for the project that I think I need,” I admitted. “It feels shitty that he’s putting the blame on me, ” I said.
“He’s playing the victim. It’s all he’s done since Whitney left.”
“But that was months ago, even before Dad got sick. Did he act like this the whole time?”
“Not the whole time. It’s gotten a lot worse recently. But before you think it’s your fault, it isn’t. It started right before you came home. It was like he couldn’t believe that she took off and really wasn’t coming back. Then I guess the idea of your homecoming maybe taking attention away from him kind of made it worse.”
“My mama used to call it the Ryan Show when he got to carrying on about things. I just wish she was here. She knew how to make him feel—important, I guess. Smooth his ruffled feathers. She really had a gift for making people feel better.”
“She was a good lady. I know you miss her something awful. I just wonder, didn’t she ever lose patience with Ryan?”
“Not really. She just wanted him to be great. She always said that, Ryan’s going to be a great man.”
“He could be. He still can be, if he can see past himself.”
“He’s got all that influence in his big bank job. He could really help out the community. Maybe when things settle down… I don’t know. Maybe we have too much faith in him. Maybe he’s just decided to be a disappointment, and my mom’s not here to change his mind,” I said.
“That’s something he has to do for himself. We can’t convince him his life isn’t over. All we can do is let him know we’re here for him. And move out of the way the next time he takes a swing at me,” he said ruefully.
I reached out and touched his face gingerly. One side of his face was perfectly chiseled, but the other side had a puffiness over his cheekbone and around his eye. There was already a dark bruise forming. His eyes drifted shut at my touch, a crinkle between his brows.
“Am I hurting you?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“I’m just trying not to make any more mistakes with you,” he said, his voice rough.
I leaned in closer. I couldn’t help myself.
“What mistake would that be?” I asked.
“Kissing you,” he said simply.
His words knocked the wind out of me like a ten-foot drop onto my back. I took my hand away from his face, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Luke caught my wrist and held it.
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to make another mistake with you. Our mistakes have always been…”
“Fun?” I ventured.
“Beautiful,” he said.
Then he kissed me. This was nothing like spin the bottle in the back of the bus. It was almost exactly like the first time he kissed me way back in high school. I knew then you were supposed to shut your eyes when a boy kissed you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to miss anything. I’d kissed him with my eyes open, seeing the play of his unfairly dark lashes fan across his cheek, the line of his jaw and the way the hair curled just a little bit behind his ears. Back then, I had thought he was the cutest. Now we were grown, and cute wasn’t a word that came to mind. Come to think of it, no words came to mind at all.
Then he took my face in his hands and kissed me deeper. My toes curled up in my sneakers, and I slid my arms around him. Then the words surfaced at last.
This is going to be a big problem.
Here were his lips fitted perfectly to mine, his tongue in my mouth, hot and sure. Feeling like this was where I belonged, my lips opened to his tongue, my face in his hands, my arms around him. My palms were flat on his muscular back. I felt his arm come around me, drawing me closer so our bodies met. The heat off of him, just the warmth of his body felt so right, so good. I could’ve sunk into his arms forever, could have begged him never to stop kissing me like that. I gave myself up to it, just shut my eyes at last and surrendered to the sensations that rippled over my skin, that tugged at my nipples, heated and twisted in my belly. I rose on tiptoe, slid my hands around to his chest and up until my arms circled his neck. I sighed with satisfaction, because it was the rightest feeling I’d ever known.
Luke kissed me passionately. I was lost in it. Borders between us drifted away, my fingers in his hair, his arms strong and sure around me. There was nothing beyond that moment or that room. Nothing else mattered to me but that kiss.