I squeeze onto my thighs harder, pathetically grateful that he didn’t have some perfect romance with Jamie’s mom… maybe that means I can be his perfect romance.
Silly, ridiculous, a thought I shouldn’t even be close to having…
And yet I can’t kill it.
At first, I don’t think he’s going to expand on this, but then he sighs heavily.
“It’s understandable that Jamie would want to idealize his mother. You know how she passed?”
I nod. “Yeah. The car accident.”
“She sped off an icy road. Our best guess is that an animal jumped out in front of her and that’s why she ended up crashing. But sometimes I’ve wondered…”
He pauses again, glancing at me. His features are even tighter now. It’s like there’s this whole maelstrom of pain flowing beneath the surface, but he’s doing his best to hold it back.
Pain at Jamie’s mom’s passing, or something else?
“Sometimes I’ve wondered if she did it intentionally,” he finishes, his voice cold. “She was never happy in our life. We got together when we were young. She was a ring-card girl and I was an up-and-coming boxer. But Kendall, she always wanted more… More money, more fame, more anything. I was satisfied with trying to make a career and do right by Jamie, but I don’t think she ever really wanted to be a mother. You can’t repeat any of this to Jamie.”
“I won’t,” I say quickly.
Part of me wonders if I should tell Lukas to stop, that, as Jamie’s best friend, I shouldn’t be hearing this without his permission.
But I remain quiet.
Anything that gets me closer to Lukas, anything that gives me a peek behind those steely eyes of his… it’s irresistible. I can’t look away.
“She cheated on me several times,” Lukas says. “I found out a few days before the crash.”
I cover my mouth with my hand. She cheated on him?
The idea of cheating has always sickened me. Maybe it’s from the example mom and dad have set, or maybe it’s just who I am, but I’ve always hated the idea of cheating. The concept of it makes me sick.
Once I pick my partner, I will be loyal to them. Forever.
“Jamie was young, so I guess he didn’t sense the tension between us toward the end. I was trying to work out what I was going to do. She was a good mother, for all her faults. She was good with Jamie, good for Jamie. But I hated the idea of staying with someone who cheated.”
“Loyalty is important,” I mutter.
“Exactly,” he growls. “When a man claims a woman, he should claim her, every part of her.”
My insides sizzle as I wish he was talking about me.
“But that’s not the worst part.”
“No?”
“The worst part is, part of me was glad when she told me she’d cheated. Maybe she had reason to cheat. I tried my best, especially after she got pregnant. I wanted to be a good man, a good partner. But I never felt the way about her, I don’t know… the way a man should feel about his woman. I never felt…”
What he feels for me.
I mentally fill in the blank, but he trails off, leaving it open. And he wasn’t going to say that anyway, nothing even close to that.
“I don’t know why I unloaded like that. I never talk about this.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Sometimes it’s good to talk. And there’s still time… to find the person you’re talking about. The person who really makes you feel.”
He keeps his eyes on the road, his expression not shifting. Maybe I’ve gone too far.
I spend the rest of the ride watching the city flit by, fighting off wave after wave of possessive emotion, of something deep inside telling me I can be the woman he’s looking for.
Finally, he pulls up outside my house. I stare at it for a moment, remembering what dad said before I left.
He was half asleep on the couch, where he’s been spending a lot of his time lately. As I rose softly to leave, he groaned and sat up, his eyes still blurry. “I want you to find someone, Lori.”
“What?” I said, caught off guard.
He rubbed at his eyes. “I want you to find someone, someone who appreciates you, who makes you happy, who loves you. I’d like to know you’ve found someone before…”
He didn’t have to finish. The word before hung in the air. We both knew what he was talking about.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say, reaching for the door handle. “And for everything else. The job and the car. You have no idea how much you’re helping me, Lukas.”
“Don’t mention it,” he says tightly. “It’s nothing.”
I walk across the street, stopping to wave goodbye.
But by the time I turn around, Lukas is gone, as if he couldn’t get away fast enough.
Chapter Eight
Lukas
“She honestly loves the job, dad.”