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“Morning,” I said, walking up to the stove.
Luke turned toward me and my eyes fell to his contoured chest. I’d seen his bare chest before, but it was like gazing at The Mona Lisa. It impressed me every time.
His lips turned up into a smile, and his eyes softened when they rested on my face. “Morning. How did you sleep?”
“Pretty good.” Then, recalling my wet pillow, I asked. “Did we sleep together?”
“I’d like to think if we did, you’d remember it.” He waggled his eyebrows. “But to answer your question, no. I slept in the guest room.”
“Oh,” I said, unsure if I was relieved or disappointed. Why would he sleep in the guest room? Maybe he was still upset with me. We hadn’t talked about what happened, but when memories started flooding in, an image of my mother lying in a hospital bed, deathly pale with tubes coming out of her nose, hit me and I stepped back.
“What’s wrong?” Luke asked, dropping the spatula and rushing toward me. I held up my hand. “My mother. I have to go to the hospital.”
For a moment, I prayed it had all been a terrible nightmare and my mother was back at home with Lorna.
“I spoke to Theo and Laura this morning. She’s stable now, which is great news.”
I knew he meant to reassure me, but his words confirmed the nightmare, and I winced. “I need to go. Can you take me?”
“I will, I promise. I just need you to eat first.”
I was just about to argue that I wasn’t hungry when my stomach growled.
Luke filled my plate with pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. I wish I could have been more delicate about it, but I sucked back my breakfast and scraped the last bits of eggs with the edge of my fork, and ate the crumbs, too.
Luke leaned over the breakfast counter and smiled. “I love to watch you eat,” he said.
I watched him skeptically, waiting for him to burst out laughing at his joke, but he just continued to stare at me with this strange look in his eye.
“Luke, we need to talk about what happened between us…” I started.
“I know,” he said, straightening up from the counter, his smile disappearing.
“But I just can’t right now,” I said. “My head is overwhelmed with what’s happening with my mother and wondering how the hell I’m going to pay for dialysis let alone transplant surgery and I just can’t think of the right words for you right now. I need some time.”
“I understand,” he said, solemnly. “Your mother’s health is what’s important. There’s time to talk about us later.”
I nodded. “Thank you.” Rising from the kitchen stool and placing my plate inside the dishwasher, I turned to Luke. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”
“I’ll meet you out front.”
After figuring out how to turn on the shower system, I washed up quickly and met Luke in the driveway. He stood next to a red, shiny sports car checking his phone. He looked up, “Ready?”
“Yes.”
He drove down his street, and for the first time, I noted the neighborhood. The other homes were as large as Luke’s, but none had the charm of his home. The old, stoned walls, the manicured trees, and shrubs alternating in red leaves, orange and green. It was perfect.
It was another reminder of how different this Luke was from the boy I remembered. I looked down at my stained red sweater and black tights and winced. For a second, I wished I had worn something else, but then I shrugged it off. I wouldn’t feel bad about who I was. I snuck a glance at what Luke wore and he was in a relaxed black t-shirt and blue jeans. I guess that was something else I loved about him. He never made me feel uncomfortable about who I was.
Luke made a right turn at the main intersection and I did a double take on the street name. “Luke, I think you made a wrong turn. The hospital is the other way.”
Luke ran a hand through his hair and clutched the steering wheel with the other. “Don’t get upset. I’m not trying to overstep you, but some decisions needed to be made last night, rather quickly, so I made them.”
“You what?” I said, my eyes nearly bugging out of my face. “Why didn’t you wake me? You had no right to make any decisions. How did the hospital even accept you as the decision-maker?”
“The hospital your mom was staying at gave me a hard time, but I transferred her to another hospital.”
I shook my head and inhaled deeply. I didn’t want to yell at him. He’d been so kind to me last night and this morning. “How did they allow you to take my mother without my permission?”
