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And it’s mine.
Luke walks me to my car.
He falls into step without asking. Behind the door, Bo is losing an argument with Dottie about bedtime. Out here it’s just the two of us.
“Thanks for coming,” he says. “Dottie already told me you’re invited back. That part’s not up for debate.”
“I had a good time.” Plainer than the truth. I had the best time.
We reach my car. I should get in. I put my hand on the door and leave it there.
“You going to church tomorrow?” he asks.
“I am.” It comes out easier than it used to. “You?”
He shakes his head. “On shift. Station all day.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’ll just sit with Dottie and Bo.”
Sit with Dottie and Bo. Like they’re mine to sit with.
“Oh. I mean.” Heat floods up my neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume, I just...”
Luke steps closer.
He lifts a hand and touches my cheek. Barely. Two fingers and the side of his thumb, just enough to tip my chin up so I have to look at him, and every word I had lined up scatters.
I go still.
He’s giving me the third smile.
“You can sit with Dottie and Bo. They’d love that.”
His thumb moves. One slow pass along my cheekbone, unhurried, like he’s learning the shape of it, and my carefully kept composure goes right along with it.
Neither of us breathes.
He’s close now.
Somewhere in the last minute my back has found the car door, cool metal against my spine. He’s just in front of me, near enough that I have to tip my head up, near enough to watch him decide. Close enough that if either of us leaned in half a breath, that would be that, and friends would be a word we used to say.
I’ve gone still. Every part of me. The kind of still where you’re suddenly aware of your own breathing and working to keep it quiet so it won’t give you away.
His eyes drop to my mouth.
Mine drop to his.
He doesn’t look away after. That’s the thing that gets me. He isn’t dodging this, isn’t pretending it isn’t happening, isn’t finding somewhere safer to put his gaze. He holds it, steady, right on me, and lets me see him want it, and for one suspended second I am certain he’s about to close the space.
Then he doesn’t.
He takes his hand back. Slow this time. Reluctant, in a way he lets me see, which is almost worse than if he’d hidden it. He steps back to a safe and friendly distance and pulls in a breath like he’s resetting himself to a version he trusts more.
“Sorry,” he says, and clears his throat. “I’ll let you get home.”
He isn’t being cold. That’s the part that undoes me. He’s warm the whole way through it, like stepping back cost him something and he’d do it again anyway, because he won’t take a thing before it’s his to take.
He opens my door.
