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I sucked in a ragged breath. “I love you.”
She smiled. “And I love you right back. So does Cade. And the club. Forever. No matter what. So just be happy. Just be you.”
I sipped my wine. “I’ll try.”
It was dark by the time I heard a key in my lock. Gwen left after only one more glass of wine, telling me she had a drive to make.
I felt significantly lighter once she was gone.
But then I started to get heavy with worry when Luke didn’t answer his phone, didn’t come back. I started to convince myself that I’d majorly fucked up this time.
The second his large form came through the door, I exhaled, properly. Then I ran, right into his arms. He hadn’t expected it, so he went back on one leg, but that didn’t stop him from catching me.
I didn’t say anything, just clutched him, just inhaled clean air. Not just Luke, the both of us. Clean.
I eventually let him put me down, but he didn’t let me go. He clutched me tightly, eyes stuck on mine.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I said shit I didn’t mean and it was ugly, and I’m sorry. But you’re right, I don’t know how to be me. Not really.” I paused. “Life’s just a big party, you know? A costume party. Most people don’t realize that. They take it so fucking seriously. The little cages they live in. The lines they’ve got to stay between. I’m not a different person every day because I have deep-rooted psychological issues.” I toyed with Luke’s shirt. “Okay, maybe that’s part of it, but mostly I’m a different person because I can be. It’s that simple. People don’t realize it. The little pleasures. Wearing head-to-toe sparkles one day and then black lipstick the next. That’s what life is, the little pleasures. Not the big moments. They take too much energy, too much planning, too much fucking artifice. All those big moments are to show the world you’re happy. The little ones are just to be happy. Not for the world, for you. So yeah, I take pleasure in the fact that I don’t know what person I’ll be in the morning. In the fact that I don’t have to know. Because my life would be a pretty fucking bleary place if I didn’t.”
He leaned forward, face unreadable. “You’re trying to convince me about something that made me fall in love with you,” he said. “I love that I’m going to be as surprised as you are when you decide who you’ll be every day. I don’t give a fuck that you don’t know what person you’ll be in the morning. I fucking love that. As long as that person is someone who wakes up next to me, I’m good, babe. That’s my little pleasure.”
“You can’t keep saying things like that, not after saying nothing at all for years,” I whispered.
“Even when I didn’t speak, I’ve never said nothing at all,” he murmured. “You know that. You owe it to us, to yourself, to do this, Rosie.”
“Yeah, I do,” I agreed.
“Something good did come of this afternoon,” he rasped, moving his hands up to cup my breasts softly.
I sucked in a breath. “And what’s that?” I said, voice heavy.
“We get to experience makeup sex,” he growled.
“Why do we have to keep this a secret?” Luke asked sometime later, after possibly the most fucking amazing makeup sex known to man. “Especially now that Gwen knows.”
I drew circles on his bare chest, my tattooed hand contrasting against the naked skin. “Can you think of any other way, Luke? Think of us reading the paper in the morning, getting brunch with our friends and family? Being that couple? No. We don’t fit that way.”
He moved me so our eyes met. “Listen to you, Rosie, talking about fitting, molding. Wasn’t it you who once told me it was the greatest farce of them all, trying to squeeze into some role? I’m not asking for that. I never fuckin’ would. I’m askin’ to sleep with you, a full night. Wake up with you. Not have snatched fuckin’ moments with you, I need it all with you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What about the club, Luke? I’m a package deal. As much as I sometimes wish Templar, along with Trouble, wasn’t my middle name, it is, and always will be. You can’t reconcile your hatred. Being with me, out in the open, in the daylight, means them too. That’s my world. It’s not yours.” It was what we kept coming back to, what Luke had never really, properly addressed. It was all well and good stepping over it in the romance of the moment, but it was quite another thing living with it.
He cupped my face. “You’re my world, so I’ll come into it. I don’t have hatred for what makes you you.”
