Chapter Eleven
Luke had a shitty poker face.
Greer pushed the end button on her cell phone with a helping of regret that she’d played the voicemail out loud. She’d gotten a call last evening but hadn’t listened to the message—a message that turned out to be an extension of her mother’s heads-up that Greer would be getting a job offer.
Denny Klein had called with a preliminary offer, one that had Luke trying to play it cool, though she could see the thoughts rolling around inside that nonstop brain of his.
“You interviewed for that job six months ago, and they’re just getting back to you now?”
She slid her cell back into her purse. She’d interviewed for junior attorney in a moment of huge self-doubt over whether she’d be able to cut it as a paramedic. Funny, she thought she’d get over that doubt after a few months of wearing the rookie shine off her uniform. Wrong. So, so wrong.
“They hired someone else after I interviewed, and I thought that was the end of it. The guy they hired just quit, so they want to know if I’m interested.”
He slowed to a stop for a red light. They’d finished their business and were trying to get back on the highway. He looked at her, his brow deeply furrowed.
“Are you?”
She regretted bringing up the job offer at all. This impromptu trip was the perfect time for some mindless fun with her super-hot bestie. Instead, the mood had changed the moment she’d played the message. His opinion was important to her. Now that they’d reconnected and their relationship had fallen right back into place, plus some fantastic sex, she valued his input even more. Truthfully, she couldn’t imagine making any big life changes without insight from him. The look on his face was unreadable—maybe a little hopeful and yet a little disappointed?
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
He made an “are you serious” face, his hands spreading wide. “They’re offering you almost two-hundred K a year, and a condo.”
“If I was worried about a huge salary, I’d never have drifted away from practicing law in the first place.”
Traffic started at a slow crawl, kind of like the dread creeping over her skin because she knew what he was going to ask next.
“Why did you leave? I mean, if this is the kind of money you’re looking at, and the benefits he listed in the message are standard, why the hell would you give it up?”
It was the question he’d never asked, and she’d been grateful not to have to answer. She’d told him that she’d always felt a connection to his accounts of people he’d helped and calls he’d been on. That she’d been pulled to try it for herself and see if she could get the same satisfaction as he did from the job. Law didn’t give her that warm, fuzzy sensation that she was really helping people in their time of need. Not in the way Luke described his job as a paramedic.
She was sincere in her desire to help people, of course. But the deeper answer to why she’d followed him into a thankless job was one she kept close to her heart.
Rummaging around the bottom of a small white bakery bag for the last cookie, she broke off a piece and popped it into her mouth. His gaze fell to her lips, causing a hot flush to flood her skin.
“Want some?” She pulled out the rest of the cookie. He’d turn it down, of course, because he was a mutant who rarely ate sweets. The look he was giving her said he was craving something sweet, though, and it wasn’t a damn cookie.
“Later,” he ground out. Clearing his throat, he turned his attention to the road and flicked on his headlights. She glanced out her window to try and get her thoughts off Luke and all the ways he’d make her dessert. It was getting prematurely dark outside, or maybe she’d just lost track of time.
Her stomach growled loudly.
“You’re telling me two donuts and a cookie aren’t cutting it?” He quipped.
“I have a high metabolism.”
She didn’t eat like most women. Bring on the calories, and skip the salad. She’d never had a problem being a little curvy, and her metabolism took care of the rest. Squinting, he slowed for another light.
“It’s really getting dark. Look at the trees.”
Branches were leaning heavily in wind that seemed to come out of nowhere. He went a few more miles in touch and go traffic before the clog cleared and they pulled into a truck stop. It was like a mini-town, with a roadhouse style restaurant, a store, and an attached motel.
“It’s not Texas, but we can grab a steak.”
Her stomach growled again. Inside, the restaurant was packed. People were taking handfuls of peanuts from metal pails on their tables, and tossing the empty shells onto the floor. She wrinkled her nose as she crunched discarded shells with her flip-flops. The waitress showed them to a table and offered their own bucket of peanuts. Luke didn’t waste any time cracking one open and tossing the shell at her.
They both ordered New York strip, medium-well with a side of mushrooms and onions. She was glad she’d thrown mints in her purse. She sipped a margarita while they waited for their food. He watched people coming and going. It was calm and comfortable and perfect just sitting together. He had a beautiful profile, with thick, dark lashes and a strong jaw. His hair curled around his ear, giving him an almost boyish appearance—like when he was younger, before the deep lines around his eyes, or the hint of stress he wore like a shadow. Time and the job had changed him into a more serious but just as devastatingly hot version of the stunning boy who used to get off on putting spiders under her pillow.
Luke had been her everything, and in the secret place in her heart that wanted him so much, she told herself that he needed her, too. She held on to that little daydream as he took out a different girl every weekend. When she was never offered a spot on his arm like all the others, she had put the hope to rest. He was never going to need or want her the way she did him.
And it was taking all of her will and strength not to give in to false hopes that now that they were older and more settled, there might be a chance for them. Hopes that wanted nothing more than to bloom and grow like vines, wrapping around them both. They’d had sex without promises, and she’d take that again and again until he tossed her aside like the rest. Then, and only then, would she break.
She supposed she was waiting for the fall, had always been waiting for it, so she could hit the proverbial rock bottom and finally move on, maybe with a semblance of their friendship intact, depending on just how badly she shattered.
“Damn, girl. Thirsty?”
He motioned to her drink. She was startled to see it was almost empty. She must have been sipping while she was lost in thought.
“Oops.”
The waitress came with their food, and neither of them wasted any time in digging in. They ate in silence. He kept people watching, something he did when he was pondering something. She couldn’t shake her thoughts, and he seemed to be thinking some deep thoughts of his own. Funny, how they always fed off each other like this.
“You know,” he finally said, “you never told me why you left law.”
“You never told me why you refused to sleep with me that night.”
He stopped cutting his steak. She set her fork down, slightly mortified that she’d said that out loud. Really, what did it matter now? He’d taken her to bed, given her the fantasy and then some.
“We’ve made up for it since then, remember?”
Hell yes, she remembered. She took another bite. A fuzzy haze misted through her brain thanks to the margarita. Luke resumed his meal, blatantly refusing to answer her.
Sher threw a peanut shell at him. It bounced off his chest. “We’re going to call a draw on this conversation, then?”
“If you’re not going to answer my question.”
True, she wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to, either.
They were adults, and this was slightly ridiculous. But she couldn’t see having this conversation in public. What she had to say, if she could bring herself to say the words, was very private. She’d been holding on to it so long, Greer didn’t know how she’d feel while she told him. It should be a simple thing, really, to just come out with it already. But behind the wall she’d put up between her heart and Luke, her emotions were so tender and delicate that it wouldn’t take much to bring her to tears. No way was she going to both spill her secrets and bawl like a baby in a place that encouraged you to throw your food on the floor.
“I was never the man for you.” He pushed his plate to the side and leaned his forearms on the table.
She opened her mouth to reply, but she had no idea how to respond. He leaned in a little over the table and saved her the trouble of thinking. His voice was intimately low, the heated timber of it giving her a chill.
“I want to see you in the future you envision for yourself, with a partner who can give you what you need. What you want.”
The word “want” came out with a pained tinge.
“I shouldn’t want you in my bed, but I do. I fucking do. I could say just one more time and that’s it, and I might honestly think, in the stupid way men do, that’s for the best. But I don’t mean it. One more time will never be enough; not after what we’ve shared.”
Greer reached out and snagged his hand, gripping it hard. She didn’t want him to ever get his fill of her. She didn’t want to let go.
A shadow beside them made them look. The waitress was standing there, clearly uncomfortable to have walked into their conversation. She held out a finger to indicate “I’ll just give you a minute” and darted off.
Luke gave a slow grin and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’d better leave a big tip for putting her through that.”
“Actually, it’s okay.” The waitress had sidled quietly back up to the table. “Considering I mostly wait on men who hold their beards to the side while they eat, this is the most romantic thing I’ve experienced in a while.”
She placed a black holder on the table with the bill and a yellow ticket attached before she left.
It was a pass for one free night at the adjoining motel.
“She’s subtle, huh?”
Luke dug out his wallet and threw down some cash for the bill. Disappointed that the intensity of the moment, and the blatant honesty he had shared, were over, Greer polished off her water to cool the slow burn his words had started inside her.
“Ready?” He waited until she nodded before sliding out of his seat. Something hit the window next to their booth, making her jump. Curious, she pulled the red-and-white-checkered curtain aside. Rain pummeled the glass, highlighted by the outside lights. It looked almost horizontal as it splattered against the building. The overhead lights flickered, causing a low murmur of surprise to go through the room.
He motioned for her to wait in her seat as he walked to the front. She lost sight of him for a moment, then he came back with a shake of his head. Pulling out his cell phone, he tapped around and his shoulders tightened.
“Look at the red. We’re in for it until early morning.”
He showed her the weather radar he’d pulled up on his app. Heavy rain and high winds with the potential for hail, moving through until one a.m. As if to punctuate the prediction, small beads of hail began clinking off the metal roof. Greer watched them scatter like little plastic beads all over the sidewalk outside.
“I hate weather like this.” She rubbed her arms, suddenly nervous that Luke would want to try driving through it.
He leaned past her and grabbed something off the table. He produced it for her view and her pulse ticked up.
It was the motel ticket.
His pupils dilated, the blue of his irises going dark. “Don’t worry, Lucky. I’m going to show you how to have fun in the rain.”