12
Luke
I wasn’t the kind of guy who did drama. I didn’t say crap like ‘shaken to the core.’ I didn’t call a good cheeseburger ‘life-altering’ or refer to anyone as ‘the GOAT.’ I knew guys like that. I worked with some at the fire station. Men who liked to overstate, just to make a good story. I was more of a straightforward type. I would describe my encounter with Ryan as “He was complaining. I called him out on it. He got pissed off and punched me. The end.” No ranting and raving or whining about it. It was what it was.
Which made it difficult for me to describe the kiss precisely as it was.
Because that kiss left me shaken to the core. It was every over the top, Fourth-of-July fireworks adjective there was. Incredible. Amazing. Earth-shattering. Multiplied by about one billion. I was reeling from it. I released her, lifted my mouth from hers. As she almost staggered back from the impact of the kiss, I took her hands in mine. I held them, kissed them.
“We can’t,” I said, hating every word of it for being true.
“I know,” Sarah Jo agreed sadly. “Ryan’s such a mess right now. He’s already acting out.”
“If we acted on our feelings, on this attraction, it would be devastating for him,” I said ruefully. “I’m not sure what he might do, but we can’t risk it. He’s already drinking too much.”
“Yeah, I’d never forgive myself if he got behind the wheel and had an accident,” she said miserably.
“That would not be your fault. It would be his choice, but we can agree that we don’t want to make his situation worse. And he has been very clear with me that I shouldn’t so much as look at you.”
“That’s just stupid male posturing. What I’m concerned about isn’t his approval—it’s his reaction when he’s so out of control,” she said.
“Well, I couldn’t give a shit if he approved or not. I’m my own man. But I’m also his friend, and when you see your friend running toward the edge of a cliff, you don’t shove him off.”
“It pisses me off that I have to consider his feelings right now when he couldn’t be bothered to consider mine. But I’m just the annoying little sister, right?”
“You’re much more than that. But I know this isn’t the time to pursue anything with you. Because he’s off the fuckin’ rails over the divorce. We can’t keep him from self-destructing. But there’s a difference between trying to control him and just trying not to hand him a lighted match when he has firecrackers strapped to his ass.”
“Did you watch a lot of Road Runner cartoons when you were a kid? Because you’ve talked about running off the edge of a cliff and strapping firecrackers to your ass and I’m just getting a really strong Looney Tunes vibe from the whole conversation that’s distracting me,” she said. We both burst out laughing. It felt so good to laugh with her. It was a release of tension, and there was so much tension between us.
“So what do we do? Do we try and forget about this? Because I’m voting against that,” she said.
“Well, me, too,” I said, “I don’t want to hurt Ryan. I’d never want that. But I’m no martyr either. If you think I mean to turn my back on you again, go on like this was nothing, then you’ve got me figured wrong,” I said.
“Remember that one summer?” she asked.
I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Of course I do. Best and worst summer of my life.”
She smiled almost sadly. “Mine too.”
“I’ve never apologized for that, have I?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t need an apology Luke. We both knew we couldn’t go on sneaking around like that. We were bound to get caught and all hell would’ve broken loose.”
“I know, but we’re adults now. And I don’t know about you, but I’m much better at covering my tracks than I was back then.”
She nodded. “Me too.”
“So meet me at the willow tree. The one behind the baseball field,” I said. My heart was pounding. I felt like I’d run at the edge of the cliff and, with a whoop, leaped off. It was excitement mixed with a spike of hope that she would say yes. It was exhilarating.
“You run in the mornings, right?”
“Yeah. How do you know?” I teased.
“Well, it’s definitely not cause I look out the window over the sink and watch you go by between 6:40 and 6:45 every morning but Sundays.”
“Good, cause that might be stalking,” I said slyly. “If you happen to be looking out that window and head for the willow tree about that time, I’d be there right at seven. In case you wanted to accidentally bump into me,” I said.