Chapter Eight
With the day pretty well shot to shit after the meeting with Alex, Cole opted to head home. If he was lucky, Luke and Sierra would be there, and he’d have a chance to have dinner with them both. For some reason, after the conversation he had with Alex, he felt the need to be close to them.
Due to their schedules, they didn’t get to have a lot of down time these days, but he was hoping today would be different. If they didn’t learn to slow down a little, it was likely they were all going to burn out at some point, not just him.
Based on the last real conversation he’d had with Sierra over lunch, he was pretty sure they were rapidly heading in that direction without even realizing it. It occurred to him that they’d somehow managed to stop talking like they used to and that worried him on more than just one level. As much as he tried to convince himself that this was just one of those instances where life gets in the way, and you wake up to realize that the important things were left behind, Cole was worried they were taking some very valuable things for granted.
Maybe his conversation with Alex had affected him more than he thought.
When he walked in the back door, he found Sierra sitting at the kitchen table, a mess of things cluttered in front of her. Leaning down, he kissed her on the top of her head before making his way to the refrigerator where he retrieved a beer and returned to stand beside her.
“Luke here yet?”
“No,” she said, not looking up from the pattern she was looking at.
“Did he say when he’d be here?” It was painfully clear already that he wasn’t going to be getting Sierra’s full attention tonight.
“Late. He told us not to wait up for him.”
Cole nodded his head and turned to walk out of the room. It was clear she was busy, and Luke obviously was too. It wasn’t like he didn’t expect it. There was so much going on at the club, and Sierra had been working with a new client for the last week which kept her plenty occupied.
Foregoing the living room where he normally would find a way to pass the time, Cole went out on the back patio with his beer. The days were shorter, and the sun was going down quickly, but it was still warm for January, so he figured he might as well enjoy it while he could.
Cole had never been big on being cooped up in the house, always preferring the outdoors. That’s part of why he liked his job with Alex because he was always on the go and very rarely stuck inside. Would that change if Dylan went off the deep end and Alex was forced to make some significant changes, he thought to himself.
He had just sat down when his cell phone rang. He glanced down at the screen to see it was Luke and promptly answered. “Hey.”
“Hey back,” Luke greeted, sounding unusually upbeat. “Why don’t you and Sierra come down to the club for dinner? I can’t get away, but I’d like to see you.”
Cole’s stomach tightened, and a chill ran through him. The times when Luke said so much in one instance were few and far between. For him actually to ask to see them was even more infrequent than a sentence with more than ten words in it.
“Will do. I just walked in the door, but I’ll talk to Sierra and we’ll head that way.”
“See you then,” Luke said and the phone disconnected.
Cole finished his beer and then went back in the house to find Sierra in the same spot, only this time there were more patterns and swatches spread out before her.
“Luke wants us to come down to the club for dinner. You up for it?”
Sierra stopped what she was doing and looked up at him for the first time. He knew instantly that this wasn’t going to go the way he had hoped it would.
“I can’t. I really need to get this together. I’ve got a meeting first thing in the morning, and I need to have the design laid out.”
Cole nodded his head, pretending to understand. Once again, life was getting in the way, but there wasn’t anything he could do to change it. Figuring he had nothing better to do, and Sierra would be working for at least a couple of hours, he decided to go down to Club Destiny to see Luke by himself.
Before he left, he kissed her on the cheek, once again not getting a response from her, but he tried his best not to think about it.
Oh hell, who was he kidding? He didn’t think about anything else.
~~*~~
When Cole walked through the door at Club Destiny a half hour later, something deep inside of Luke loosened. Just seeing him calmed the frayed edges of his nerves. Too bad he was currently in the middle of a dramatic conversation with Mistress Serena, which meant he couldn’t go downstairs to greet him.
“Give me a sec,” Luke stated to the woman pacing the floor in front of his desk. He needed to let Cole know that he’d just be a few more minutes.
Shooting off a quick text, he continued to watch Cole through the window, noticing the moment he received the message. Rather than going to the stairs, Cole turned and headed to the bar and Luke couldn’t help but notice the way Cole’s shoulders appeared to deflate instantly.
“Sorry,” Luke turned his attention back to Serena and waited for her to continue. She’d spent the better part of the last half hour giving him a piece of her mind. Apparently she didn’t take too kindly to Trent Ramsey sticking his nose in her club, which, much to Luke’s surprise, he’d been doing as of late.
Not that Luke cared that Trent was suddenly taking an interest in the club, but he’d have preferred the man talk to him first. As for Serena, well, she was being just a little dramatic. At least in his opinion.
“I don’t want him there,” she stated adamantly, turning to face him with her hands on her hips.
Luke stared back at the woman, forcing himself not to smile. He had a pretty decent idea that there was something going on between her and Trent, although she might not even be aware of it. It seemed that the man was sparking a reaction in her and based on what he knew of Trent, he was probably doing it on purpose. He got the impression the two of them didn’t care much for one another. Not that it surprised him. There was no way in hell that the two of them would make a good pair because they were both the dominant, type-A personalities that would absolutely clash if they were to go head to head. Sort of like now.
“I’ll talk to him,” Luke told her. “I can’t make any promises though. You know as well as I do that he’s a member of the club as well as an owner. If he wants to weigh in, you’re just going to have to humor him for now.”
Serena’s incredulous laugh made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Quite frankly, Luke wasn’t sure why Trent would be trying to piss her off, unless of course, he just wanted to see her like this. Luke, on the other hand, did not want to have to have these conversations on a daily basis. Considering the club was closed for the time being, he wasn’t even sure how the two of them were even having this type of contact.
“I will. I’ll talk to him,” Luke reassured her, moving toward the door, hoping to give her a hint.
Serena followed him, but she didn’t say another word. A single grunt was all he got as she made her way through the doorway and toward the doors that would lead down to the bar. Grabbing his phone, Luke quickly sent Cole another text.
Figuring he probably had a couple of minutes, Luke took a seat at his desk and pulled up his email. By the time Cole finally arrived, he was in the middle of sending a response to one of the reports Kane had provided on a recent application.
“Give me just a minute,” he told Cole when he walked in the door. “I’ve got food being sent up in a few minutes.”
Cole didn’t respond, and Luke didn’t look up. He finished typing his email and hit send before turning in his chair to face the one man who had the ability to distract Luke like no one else.
He still remembered the days when he tried to convince himself otherwise. The times when he managed to suppress the deep rooted desire that sparked inside of him whenever Cole was near. He much preferred the way things were between them now, the way just seeing Cole, being in the same room with him even, managed to shift his seemingly sideways world back on an even keel.
“Is Sierra doing ok?”
Cole had called on his way over to let Luke know that Sierra was working against a deadline on an important project. He wasn’t all that fond of the idea of her at home alone, but he was glad that Cole had come down to the club. During their brief phone conversation, he had sensed something in his lover’s voice that concerned him.
To his surprise, Cole didn’t turn to face him when he finally spoke. “She’s busy.”
There was an edge to Cole’s tone that caused Luke to stand, slowly moving closer. “Have you heard any more about Dylan?”
“No. Alex hasn’t said anything else, but I do know he hasn’t been in the office either.” For such an impersonal answer, Luke sensed that Cole’s irritation level was rising, but for the life of him, he didn’t understand why.
“Is that why he has you running your ass off these days?”
He had noticed how much Cole was out and about lately, and they’d had a brief conversation about a week ago after Cole mentioned he’d called Alex on it. Although Cole didn’t share much about what he and Alex talked about, Luke was under the impression things were better. Or at least that’s what he thought. Based on Cole’s body language and the edge in his voice, he was beginning to wonder whether he’d imagined it.
It didn’t escape him that Cole didn’t answer his question.
He moved closer until he was standing directly behind Cole, letting his chest brush against his back, noticing the rigid way his muscles flexed when their bodies touched.
There were days that Luke found this was enough, just being close to Cole after the exhaustion of the day was like a balm to his ever increasing anxiety. Between him and Sierra, the two of them managed to keep him on a level playing field and he had reached the point that he didn’t know what he’d do without either one of them. Despite the constant concerns waging a war in his brain, Luke looked forward to those rare moments when he could let down his guard. That only seemed to happen with Cole and Sierra.
“Are you ok?” Luke asked, gripping Cole’s arms with his hands.
Damn.
He felt the tension in Cole’s rock hard biceps, saw the strain in his shoulders. But even then, Cole made him burn from the inside out at the mere feel of his body beneath his fingertips. The feeling still took him by surprise most of the time.
Although Luke had come to terms with what he wanted, it still seemed somewhat surreal that a relationship like the one he had with Sierra and Cole actually could work. There were times when he knew they were all confused about what they were supposed to do, about what emotion was the right one or the wrong one, but at the end of the day, Luke knew whose bed he wanted to be in. And that was the one that belonged to Cole and Sierra.
Cole turned, facing him, his cobalt blue eyes swirling with something Luke couldn’t pinpoint. He waited to see if he would say anything, but in typical Cole style, he didn’t. It dawned on Luke that, in recent days, there hadn’t been a lot of talking going on between the three of them. Not that there was much time to talk, but it seemed to be getting worse.
Unable to resist the urge, Luke reached up, sliding his hand on the back of Cole’s head, twining his fingers roughly in his silky blonde hair, pulling him closer, never taking his eyes off of him. The tension between them was palpable, but then again, it usually was.
“Talk to me,” he whispered.
The way Cole held his gaze, Luke knew he was expecting something entirely different from him. As much as he wanted to take him right then and there in his office like he’d done on more than one occasion, he sensed that Cole needed something more.
It might not seem like it most days, but Luke didn’t miss the obvious. It wasn’t like he was oblivious to the fact that they weren’t spending a lot of time together, but he thought they’d reached a point where they were learning to live day to day without the reassurance that even he seemed to need from time to time.
It wasn’t easy for him, but he was making an effort. Luke was working to ensure that both Sierra and Cole understood just how committed he was to the relationship, and not just the sex portion. Or at least he thought he had been.
Cole pulled away, stalking to the other side of the room, thrusting his hands through his already ruffled hair. Luke waited, anxiously awaiting a single word from Cole. This wasn’t like him. He wasn’t the one who normally retreated, yet here he was, closing himself down when Luke least expected it.
As his own walls began crashing into place, – a conditioned response – Luke found his temper was getting the best of him. “What the fuck is the problem?” he barked, unable to control the anger that surged inside of him.
He’d been working on this side of himself, the part of him that feared losing everything he had and moments like this brought out the worst in him. He didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know even what to think and with Cole not talking, he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere.
“Are there issues between us?” Cole finally asked, and Luke simply stared at him.
Was that a trick question?
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Sierra mentioned it. She said she thought something was coming between us.”
It was Luke’s turn to thrust his hand through his hair as he turned his back on Cole. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He had an idea, but he didn’t want to bring it up at the moment. This wasn’t the time, and it damn sure wasn’t the place to have this conversation.
It just so happened that he and Sierra had been talking the other night about the baby and Luke might’ve said a few things he shouldn’t have. It couldn’t be helped. He was worried. Confused even. He still didn’t understand the dynamic of their relationship, and sometimes he couldn’t even picture how their relationship would work once the baby was born. How were people going to react? Were they going to wonder how two men could be fathers to one child? What about Sierra? Would people look at her funny? Would they treat her differently because of the situation they were in?
It wasn’t like Luke had any experience in this and although they’d made a commitment to one another, it still felt shaky at times. Like they were hovering on the edge of a cliff, and one wrong move would send them crashing to the rocky edges below. The last thing he wanted was to be impaled with a jagged edge piercing his heart.
“So you want me to talk, but the second I ask you a question, you shut me out as well?” Cole blasted him, his voice edged with anger and frustration, the same mix that was welling up inside of Luke at a rapid rate.
This was a strange conversation and one that Luke honestly wasn’t prepared for. He was seeing an entirely different side of Cole from the laid back man he was familiar with. Something was obviously bothering him, and he was lashing out, but Luke couldn’t seem to control his own emotional reaction.
“It’s a two way street here, Cole. You brush off my question, acting like it’s impossible that I actually do care whether something is bothering you. But you don’t answer me. Is it fair that you ask me to pour my fucking heart out, yet don’t think I deserve to hear it once in a while?” Luke was fast approaching destructive.
“Hear it? You’re telling me I don’t tell you that I love you enough? Is that what you need to hear? You need me to announce it to the world, Luke? I fucking love you. I love you with everything that I am, and if I recall correctly, I tell you repeatedly. Can you even remember the last time you told me that you loved me?” Cole’s voice was loud, the deep rumble reverberating off of the freshly painted walls.
Cole’s question shocked Luke, and as he took deep breaths, turning away from him again, trying his best to rein in his temper before it got too far out of hand, he tried to remember the last time he had told Cole that he loved him.
Fuck.
“That’s right. It’s going to take you a while. So, I’ll leave you to think about it.” When he turned to look at Cole, Luke’s heart ceased its steady beat for a moment or two. As he stood there, gearing up to say something, he was met with Cole’s back as the other man walked right out the door.
This was not how he wanted his fucking night to go.
Damn it.