AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s not happening,” I countered at the same time Luke said, “Of course I fucking would.”
I sipped my cocktail with a frown. Almost didn’t just mean awesome. It meant babysitting.
“You’ve been lucky so far,” Keltan said, “not to be caught by the authorities. Despite the fact that you’re doing society a favor, the laws don’t like favors done by civilians. Especially when they highlight what a fucking farce law enforcement is. Can’t hurt to have people making sure you’re not arrested. Or killed.”
He was talking to both me and Luke.
“Am I missing something?” Lucy cut in, her eyes narrowed on me. “What the ever-loving fuck have you been doing that could get you killed?”
I shrugged. “Existing.”
She scowled. “And you didn’t even invite me.”
Keltan lost his easy demeanor pretty fucking quickly. “And she never fuckin’ will,” he growled.
Lucy poked her tongue out at him, and he yanked her into his embrace, as if to make sure she was real, as if the mere thought of her in danger changed the past so she didn’t survive that day on the sidewalk.
I glanced at Luke, who was intent on me with a similar look Keltan had.
Fear.
Pain.
“Okay,” I said immediately, hating to be causing that.
Luke blinked in surprise.
Keltan pulled back. “Really?”
I nodded. “It’ll be a step in the right direction to you equalizing your workforce. Feminism happened, you know.”
He smirked. “I’m aware.”
“And I’ll have to demand equal pay. Oprah says so. You have to listen to her.”
“Of course,” he agreed.
“And I make my own hours,” I continued.
Keltan smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of telling a Fletcher where to be and when.”
I smiled back. “Smart man.”
Luke leaned forward, likely with something to say. Likely with a lot of things to say.
Keltan’s eyes went to him. “How about we take a cigar?” he asked, kissing his wife and standing.
Luke frowned at me. “I don’t smoke fuckin’ cigars.”
“Bro, it’s gentleman speak for ‘let’s let the woman talk and let’s let me talk you off the ledge.’”
I resisted the urge to giggle.
Luke was far from giggling.
“You’re not to leave this fuckin’ house without me,” he declared.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied sweetly. Despite my sarcasm, I wouldn’t, actually. I was tired of fighting. Against I didn’t even know what anymore.
I was plain tired.
I just wanted Luke.
So I would stop with this shit.
He stared at me long and hard before he got up and followed Keltan.
Lucy didn’t waste any time crossing the space between us to sit right next to me, much closer than Luke.
“Bitch, you’ve been holding out on me,” she snapped. “Spill. Now.”
“Well, I was bored, so I decided to call a few LA friends, ask them who the dirtbags were, teach them some lessons,” I began.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Not that,” she said. “That’s just another day in your life. I’m not surprised. What I need is the goss on you and Luke. Now. No more evading, no more lying. Something’s going on. Something has been going on. For years. I respected your silence, didn’t like it, but I got it. Guessed you’d tell me when you were ready. But I almost died without knowing. You’re obliged to tell me.”
I raised my brow to conceal the stab of ice that mention of her almost death dipped into my heart. “You know you’re only allowed to use that card once,” I said. “Sure this is the time? Don’t want to wait until we fall in love with the same pair of shoes?”
Lucy gave me a look. “I’m sure.”
I thought it’d be hard to talk about something I’d kept so close to my heart all these years. That I wouldn’t be able to explain it properly, that there wouldn’t be enough words.
Two cocktails and a lot of tears—all Lucy’s—later, there were enough words. Too many maybe.
It was a weird thing keeping secrets from the women who were meant to know all of your secrets. It was an uncomfortable feeling, like a pebble stuck in your shoe. Unnatural. Hard to walk normally on.
Telling her was releasing that pebble from my soul.
“So now we’re… I don’t even know what. We can never really be, because I don’t want my family to kill him. Because I’m too scared of having to choose between the two things I love most in this world.” I sucked down the last of my drink. “Wow, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you, I’m sorry.”
Lucy glared in the face of my apology. “How many times, in the decades since we’ve known each other, have you whined to me about a guy, asked for my advice, bathed in happiness and heartbreak at the same time?” she asked.
I screwed up my nose. “Is this a trick question?”
“Yeah, that’s right, none,” she said, nodding. “So don’t rob me of one of my most important friend duties of talking you through a relationship. Being a shoulder. I might not give the best advice, and you don’t even have to listen to my advice, but I need you to let it out, Rosie. You’ve had enough of the silence, of being stubbornly determined that you’re going to do this alone, feel this alone, when you don’t have to. It’s written in our rulebook. We don’t let our girlfriends go through this alone.” She squeezed my hand. “You’re not alone.”
