Emily

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It was raining, and it was closing time, which was my job today. The perks of being the manager. Someone had to leave early, and then someone else did too, and I was the only one who had all the keys and could close out the receipts and the booking system. And, of course, I was the only one with nowhere else to be. Pathetic.

As I was turning the lock on the front door, crouching under the small overhang over the sidewalk that kept me out of the rain, my phone rang in my purse. I dug through my bag and rummaged my phone out.

Luke.

“Hey,” I said, answering a bare second before it went to voicemail.

“You done work?” he said.

I leaned back against the locked glass door of the salon, staying out of the rain and the people going by on the sidewalk. Luke’s usual lazy drawl was gone and he sounded almost tense. “Just now,” I said, pulling my summer sweater closer around me. “Why?”

“You hungry?”

At the sound of the word, my stomach clenched and grumbled. It was seven o’clock and I hadn’t had any dinner yet. “Starving,” I said.

“Well, I have steaks. And beer.”

My stomach growled again. The Riggs house had a covered porch out back with a barbecue on it, which sounded better than pulling a Lean Cuisine out of the freezer at Mom’s house while she worked late. “You grilling?” I asked him.

Luke’s reply was deadpan. “Yeah. One for me, and two for you.”

“Shut up, Luke.”

“Em, be honest. You can pack it away like nobody’s business.”

Okay, fine. I had a big appetite. I always had. It wasn’t sexy, but the last I heard it also wasn’t a crime. “You’re not supposed to mention that.”

“Too late,” Luke said. He was definitely tense; this wasn’t much of a seduction. If that was what it was supposed to be. “Steaks and beer, Em. You in or you out?”

I was so in, but I wanted to know what this was. He’d never had me over for dinner before, or even mentioned it. This was something new. I made my voice flirtatious and said, “Perhaps. What, pray tell, happens after the steak and beer?”

“You strip,” he said, “and you get on all fours on my bed. And then we’ll see.”

So totally, totally rude. And inappropriate. This was our game, the one where Luke was boss. I felt the day’s tension drain away and a very happy zap of pure arousal bubbled up through my body, settling pleasantly between my legs. Anticipation, I realized. Because if it was with Luke, I would totally do that. I totally would.

I’d been on plenty of dates, in college and after. To nice restaurants, or parties, or movies. There was nothing wrong with any of them. But steak, beer, and the opportunity to get a taste of Luke’s dick—for the hundredth time—gave me a buzz. I perked up, I stopped noticing the rain and my aching feet, and my breasts felt warm under my clothes. Like his hands were already on them.

I didn’t know what that meant, that my body could light up this way for a guy I already knew so well. Okay, technically I knew his body more than the rest of him, because we hadn’t done a lot of talking eight years ago.

But we’d done some. When you were in bed as much as Luke and I were, it was inevitable that there was at least a little bit of conversation. I knew that Luke was the calm foil to my tendency to overreact. He inexplicably got my jokes, and I always got his. I also knew he was surprisingly serious for a bad boy with a bad reputation. When I thought back on it now, it was clear to me that he hadn’t taken sex lightly. Even though we were having fun, he’d never treated me like someone he could fuck and throw away. He’d taken our fun seriously, so to speak. And suddenly I had a burning question, one I’d never bothered to ask when we were eighteen. “Can I ask you something?” I said to him.

“Sure,” he said, though he sounded anything but.

“When we were… together all those years ago. Did you have other girls, too? Or was there only me?”

There was a pause, long enough to make something feel hollow in my chest. Since I’d been a virgin before him, it was pretty obvious I wasn’t sleeping around. And I’d just… assumed Luke wasn’t. But I’d never actually asked.

“Em,” Luke said, and his voice had tightened, become low and angry. “Sometimes you can be so fucking oblivious. Steak and beer—that’s what I’m doing. You’re in or you’re out. Your choice.” And he hung up in my ear.

He’d never done that before. It was outright rude—he’d hung up on me, in the middle of turning me on no less, and he’d called me fucking oblivious. I should be mad. I should call him back and let him have it.

But apparently I knew Luke better than I thought I did, because I also knew something else: something was wrong.

He’d invited me over for dirty sex, sure. But I realized now that he’d been trying to sweeten the pot by making me dinner. He’d invited me because he wanted company. My company. He wanted me there.

In all the time I’d known him, I’d never known him to do that. To just… ask for me to keep him company. Like a friend would.

He wanted a friend? Well, he was going to get it.

I wasn’t mad. I was in.

Even though I had my car back and wasn’t taking a taxi, I took the same precautions. I parked at the nearby strip mall and walked, even though it was raining and I didn’t have an umbrella. In fact I jogged, but when I got halfway down the street, I stopped.

There was a cop car parked on the street in front of the Riggs house. No lights, no sirens, just a single black-and-white parked there, dark. I could make out the shapes of heads inside, so the cops were just in their car, sitting.

I ducked back and up behind a hedge, making my way through weeds and over a hedge behind the Riggs property, my mind racing. What the hell was going on? And how screwed up was this situation? It was possible I knew the two cops in that car, since I’d been to plenty of Mom’s work functions over the years. In fact I might have said hi to them, whoever they were, at Mom’s ceremony the other night. And here I was sneaking away from them before they could see me, like I was a criminal.

I was uncomfortably wet when I got to the back of the Riggs house, my hair sticking to my forehead and my neck. I stepped up onto the covered porch and knocked on the screen door.

The door opened and Luke stood there in jeans and a tee, a plaid shirt thrown over the tee, his feet bare. He scowled at me. “What the fuck, Em?” he said.

“Did you know there are cops out front?” I asked.

He took my arm and pulled me in the house, banging the door closed behind me. “Did they see you?”

“No. What the hell are they doing here?”

He looked me up and down. “You’re soaked.”

“The cops would have seen an umbrella,” I pointed out.

“Bullshit,” Luke said. “You don’t own one.”

“They’re annoying.”

“Take your shoes off and stay there.” He walked into the kitchen, which was right off the back door, and came back with a handful of tea towels. “The cops were here when I got home,” he said, handing the towels to me. “I would have warned you, but I thought you weren’t coming.”

I scrubbed a towel over my face, another over the ends of my hair. “What do they want?”

“To scare me and to piss me off,” Luke said. “I walked up to their cruiser and asked them, and they told me they’re doing a security check of the neighborhood. Then they just parked and sat.” He took back the wet towels and my soaked sweater, which I wadded up and handed to him. I was left wearing jeans and damp tank top. “They’re here because I went to visit Dad in prison today.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh Luke, I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, the movement tense. “I don’t think I was followed, so I think one of the guards must have tipped the cops off.”

“Why? Why do they care if you visit your father in prison?”

“Dad is into some serious shit, and he’s dropped me in the middle of it. With Dad in jail, it looks like I’m the new punching bag.” He blinked, probably remembering he was talking about the Westlake PD. “Sorry.”

I sighed and pushed my damp hair from my face. This was such a mess. “You said you have beer.”

He led me into the kitchen, where I took a seat on one of the breakfast stools. There was a basic single guy’s dinner layout happening: steaks in butcher paper, salt and pepper, a fresh loaf of bread, a six pack of beer. Nothing fancy, and no vegetables. My mouth watered.

Luke picked up the steaks in paper and grabbed a pair of barbecue tongs. “I’ll be right back.”

He put the steaks on the grill and came back through the screen door. I opened my beer and watched him, I hoped covertly. I’d never seen Luke in a kitchen before. He looked ridiculously good, of course. He wasn’t wearing a ball cap, and his dark hair was mussed. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while, and with the wet weather he had curls. With the dark scruff on his jaw and his amazing body, he was quietly spectacular. If I wasn’t so hungry, and craving steak, I’d probably skip straight to the naked part if he’d let me.

He didn’t seem to notice. He washed his hands in the sink, the cuffs of his shirt pushed halfway up his forearms. “So I take it the answer to my question was no,” I said to him.

He shut off the water. “What?”

“My question from before. About whether you had other girls when we were seeing each other before.”

He shrugged and dried his hands, not looking at me. “You really need it spelled out? No.”

I ignored the relief that warmed my chest. “You could have just said that.”

“I’m in a pissy mood.”

I could see that. Visiting your father in prison, then coming home to find cops parked in front of your house, would put most people in a pissy mood. “Okay, it was kind of a dumb question. I just realized I never asked it.”

He dropped the towel on the counter and braced himself on his arms, looking at me. “Is that what you’re asking about now?” he said. “You want exclusivity?”

His look was a little wild—he really wasn’t in a very good mood. Still, his question was so absurd that I laughed, which would probably poke the beast. “Luke Riggs,” I said, “if you’re fucking some other woman right now, you’re never getting in my pants again. Ever.”

“And who would I be fucking?” Luke said. “The woman who runs the gas station and has no teeth? Or the women on the other side of the tracks, who look at me like I’m dogshit?”

That sobered me a little. “You’re sort of good-looking, Luke,” I said. “Women like you.”

“They just don’t like to admit it,” he shot back. “Face it, Em, I’m a Riggs. That’s all I’ll ever be.” He walked to the door again, going outside to flip the steaks.

I’d never seen him like this, prickly and spoiling for a fight, but for some reason it didn’t bother me. I almost liked it. It was honest, the real Luke. Seeing his father had obviously upset him, and with good reason, so I saw no reason for him to push those feelings down and cover them up. I was the last person to give advice about suppressing your feelings.

So even though he was mad, I just slid off my chair, found a bread knife, and sliced up the bread while he grilled. I pulled out plates and even found steak knives in a drawer—they weren’t part of a set, but they would do. I found a roll of paper towels we could use for napkins, and a small sliver of butter in the fridge. When Luke came back in to get the salt and pepper, I handed him an opened beer.

“Thanks,” he grumbled and left again.

I let him simmer it off until the steaks were on plates, along with fresh bread and butter. We sat at the stools at the counter, not bothering with the kitchen table, which was covered in unopened mail. “You want to talk about it?” I asked when we had dug in.

He shrugged, but the flash of anger had gone. “My father is an asshole,” he said. “So is my brother.”

“Which one?”

That got me the ghost of a smile. “Dex,” he replied. “Dex is an asshole.”

I cut another bite of steak. It was delicious. “You went on this little trip with Dex?”

Luke put his fork down and massaged the spot between his eyes as if he was in pain. “Yes,” he said. He didn’t elaborate.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No.”

Okay then. If he wasn’t going to talk about the fact that he might be running his father’s stolen car business, then neither was I. I took another bite. “So the whole trip was already awful, and then you came home and found cops at the end of your driveway. And all of it sucked so much that you called me.”

He was still massaging the spot between his eyes. “Something like that.”

“It was a sex call,” I said, gesturing with my fork, “and yet it wasn’t. I figured that out after you hung up. I’m a little slow sometimes, Luke, but I do catch on.”

He dropped his hand and opened his eyes. “Catch on to what?”

“You wanted company,” I said. “You wanted me to come over and hang out. The sex was just the icing on the cake.”

His gaze went dark, flickered down me and up again. My tank top was damp, and so was my hair. I had no idea what my makeup looked like, but it probably wasn’t good. I was also stuffing my face with food, but he said, “Em, sex is not the icing on the cake with you. Ever.”

My body gave a happy little shiver at that: Okay then! That’s all I need! Let’s do this! But I shushed it and said, “You wanted to talk to me. Admit it.”

He was quiet for a minute. He picked up his bread and pulled it apart in his big hands, his gaze trained on it instead of on me. “It bothers me,” he said slowly and clearly, “that I never got to take you on a date.”

I nearly dropped my fork, I was so shocked. “What?”

“A date,” Luke said again. He put the bread down. “I never got to take you on one. I always thought you were the kind of woman who would like that. Get dressed up, go somewhere nice. I never got to do that.” He sat back in his chair, looked at the meal in front of us. “This was the best I could do.”

I just stared at him, frozen. I was honestly so surprised that I was absolutely speechless. A date? That’s what this was? A date?

An hour ago, I’d been thinking that I’d never been on a date that was all that special. Why was it that when Luke mentioned a date, I felt like sweeping all the dishes aside in a big movie moment and jumping into his lap?

“What?” he said, frowning. I’d been quiet too long.

“That—” I found my voice. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” I paused. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He rolled his eyes, but his skin was a little flushed. “You’re being dramatic again.”

I took a swig of my beer, still watching him. God, he was adorable. “I don’t put out on dates,” I told him. “That’s why Trevor Halbersen dumped me in high school, remember?”

“His loss was my gain,” Luke said.

“And college…” I sighed. “College sex was so complicated. Everyone is stuck between high school and actual adulthood. No one knows if they’re just having fun or trying to find The One and settle down. Some people are getting married and having babies already, and some are just screwing around, and everyone else is in the middle somewhere, and you never know whether the other person is going to try and marry you or dump you in an hour.”

“Yeah?” Luke dug back into his steak. “Anyone try and marry you, Parker?”

“No.” I watched his face carefully, but it was impossible to read. “No one was that serious.” Still nothing. I poked the bear further, because I could never help it. “I don’t know why, really. I’m the whole package—looks, brains, killer body. Someone should have definitely tried to put a ring on it.”

He was amused now, which made me relax. I was pulling him out of his tense mood. “You think?” he said.

“Sure,” I said. “My theory is that most men are intimidated by me. One guy broke up with me because he said he felt like he was disappointing me all the time.”

Luke actually laughed at that, a low sound that thrilled me because it was so rare. “Jesus, Em, what did you do to these guys?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I had been hard on the guys I’d dated. I’d expected a lot—everything, really. I’d expected easy conversation and anticipation and mind-blowing sex and physical closeness that was effortless and thrilling at the same time. I’d expected a wild zing every time a man put his hands on me, a fizzle of tension that never quit. I expected orgasms that made me forget everything else in life, put me in the moment and made life fun.

Like with Luke.

I had gone off to college expecting every guy to be like Luke. And I’d been terribly, horribly wrong.

But I didn’t want to say any of that, so instead I said, “They didn’t hire me at my last internship because I wasn’t nice enough.”

That surprised him, his dark eyes rising to mine. “What?”

“They gave me a performance review and said I didn’t smile enough. They said I had too many opinions and I talked too much at meetings. So they didn’t give me a job.”

The burn of it was, they were right. I had done all of those things. It wasn’t that I thought I knew everything, or that I was trying to show off. I was just me. I put myself out there, said too much. And in the corporate world, that was a total embarrassment. Interns were supposed to shut up and look nice and get coffee.

I should have read that, should have obeyed the unwritten rules. Should have changed myself to get that job. But I hadn’t managed even that much, even with my career on the line.

“That’s bullshit, Em,” Luke said. “You don’t want to work for a place like that.”

I blinked at him. “I failed, Luke.”

He shrugged. “You failed at being a corporate suit. So what?” He gave me the ghost of a smile, wry and a little sad. “You’re a good girl, Emily, but you’ve never been that good.”

Because I’d been with him, he meant. No girl who was that good would be with him.

No girl who was that good would be with him right now, while cops were parked at the end of his driveway, staking out his father’s stolen car operation.

I had that feeling again, that unease in my stomach. This was the way of things, right? I was good, and Luke wasn’t. Except no one who thought they knew Luke Riggs saw the guy I was sitting across from right now.

And I hadn’t been happy in that internship. I’d gone to college, and I’d worked so hard, and I’d thought I’d be a CEO. And instead, I hadn’t liked the corporate world at all. If I’d gotten that job, I’d have a paycheck right now, but I knew in my gut that I’d also be miserable.

Something shifted inside me, cracked a little. I hadn’t let myself think about Luke in eight years. I hadn’t let myself miss him. Because I did. And I had. Being with him now, with the guy who’d been my first and had actually gone to the trouble to make it good, was like opening a door I’d closed a long time ago. Things were neater with the door closed, but there was a whole room you couldn’t see.

I wanted to kiss him. Just the way he did it, with his mouth making me crazy and his hands on my skin. He always gave me his full attention when he kissed me, like no other woman ever existed. He’d go slow or fast, go deep with his tongue or drop lazy kisses along the edge of my mouth. Luke could kiss for hours without sex—I knew from experience, the nights we’d made out when I was still a virgin. That was one thing I knew about Luke Riggs: he was a champion, world-class kisser, the best of the best.

Had he kissed other women like that? I didn’t know, and right now I didn’t care. It was me he’d called tonight, me who was sitting here with him while the rain lashed the windows. Me who he’d tried to give a real date to. I’d known him for so long, and we’d done so much, but it turned out Luke and I had unfinished business.

I wanted to finish it. I had to.

Even if, in the end, it would wreck both of us.