Occasionally, it was the other way round, but right now, two days after some moron broke into my shop, I was tuning out a well-meaning policeman while daydreaming about Luke’s magic fingers.
“Break-ins around here are relatively rare,” the officer said. “But there are still a number of steps you can take to make your premises more secure. The new window is a good start.”
I shot Gus a look.
He ignored me, apparently fascinated by the policeman’s sermon. Perhaps it was the uniform.
A little while later, Gus saw the officer out, then returned to the backroom with a murderous scowl.
“What’s the face for?” I demanded.
“Are you fucking serious?” he snapped. “That geezer just spent half an hour of his own time inspecting your security system and you pretty much ignored him the whole time.”
“Did not.”
“Yes, you did. What’s the matter with you? Do you want whenever scoped the place last time to come back and lift all your stock?”
“My stock? Jesus, Gus. You think someone’s going to make off with a van full of petunias?”
“No. I’m being optimistic, because the alternative is that some nut broke in to get to you, and you won’t tell me enough about your arsehole ex for me to know if it could be him.”
I dropped the knife I was trimming rose stems with. “It’s not him. Why on earth would it be? I signed the papers.”
“You said he always gets what he wants—”
“Well, that’s not me, is it? He left me, remember? Fuck, I’m sensing a theme here.”
I turned my back on Gus and went back to prepping the roses I’d need for tomorrow’s wedding. I sensed him staring holes into my back, but eventually he sighed and left.
Relieved to finally be alone, I finished my prep and moved on to the bridal bouquet. The design I’d sketched was creative and consuming. For a blessed while, my world narrowed to dusky pinks and floral scents, and I forgot about the clusterfuck my life in Rushmere had become.
A knock at the back door startled me some time later. I jumped a mile, then dragged it open.
There was no one there. Just an envelope on the step, addressed to me in handwriting so perfect I cried.
* * *
I’d buried my phone under a pile of clean washing. Dirty clothes got on my nerves, but folded laundry could sit around for days before I got round to putting it away, a habit that had infuriated my mother and Luke equally. They’d bonded over it. She’d liked him before he’d broken my heart. That boy doesn’t know what he’s lost, child.
I hadn’t argued with her at the time, but I should’ve. Luke had lost his whole life. As dysfunctional as his family had seemed to outsiders, they were everything to each other.
In an effort to distract myself from the letter burning a hole in my pocket, I lay back on my bed and thought of Billy. I hadn’t needed Luke to tell me he’d gone off the rails. He’d been well on his way before I’d moved to Paris, but the disassociation I’d seen in Luke the other night bugged me. Billy had always been difficult, but as children, he and Luke had been so close that people often mistook them for twins. Was this who adult Luke was? A man who could cut himself off from people he loved without a flicker of emotion? “Emotion is dangerous.” They’d been my words, not his, but I wondered if Billy still had the same number.
Idiot. What are you going to do? Call him up and tell him to fix his shit?
The hypocrisy of the mere idea was galling enough for me to roll over and shove my head under my pillow. I couldn’t work out why I cared so much, or why the aborted conversation I’d had with Luke under the stars didn’t feel like anything. I’d waited a lifetime to throw those accusations at him, to rain fury on him for his bland response, but the rage I’d counted on hadn’t come. Instead I’d been ambushed by the burning desire to reclaim his hand and swear to him none of that mattered anymore. That our scars belonged in the past.
Storming to his van and demanding he drive me home had seemed a fair compromise, the vow to never meet with him again a double lock across the stable door, but the sensation that the horse had already bolted wouldn’t quit.
Groaning, I gave in to the temptation I’d been resisting all evening. I fished the hand-delivered envelope out of my pocket and opened it, smoothing out creases that were as old as the hurt lancing my heart.
Mia,
This isn’t going to reach you, but I have to write it all down, or I’m gonna fucking explode, I swear.
I know you’re never going to understand, but I have no choice. My mum needs money, and if I don’t do this, Billy will leave school and do it instead, and I can’t let that happen. He’s wild...you know he is. If he gets out there too young, he’ll never come back.
And it’s not just that—it’s me too. I love you, Mia, but I see my dad around every corner and it’s suffocating me. I can’t spend the rest of my life climbing his ladders, using his tools, wearing his fucking boots... I just can’t do it. The Navy ain’t what I want either, but it’s a way out, and I need that... I wish I could explain how much. It’s different for you. You speak a whole other language—there’s another side to your life you can escape to whoever you want.
It’s not like that for me. Rushmere is all I have and it’s killing me.
I don’t want to leave you. I love you, but I don’t know what else to do.
I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me forever, you’re worth so much more than that...you’re worth so much more than me.
I love you,
Luke xx
The paper crumpled in my fist, but I didn’t realise it was damp until a tear trickled onto the back of my hand. I stared at it, my heart swelling and deflating with every second that passed. He’d never told me he loved me—never said the words aloud—but in the weeks leading up to his father’s death, part of me had believed it, had bought into the emotion lacing every kiss and touch, to the intensity in his gaze as he’d moved inside me. When I’d woken that morning to find he’d left me, I’d cursed my stupidity, my naivety, and cynicism had grown inside me like a cancer. The notion that I’d been right the first time round left me dizzy.
He loved me.
God. I wished he hadn’t. All these years it had been so easy to hate him.
I pried the letter from my clenched fist, rolled over, and spread it out on my pillow, tracing the words with my fingertip. Luke had never been much of a writer. For years, we’d swapped homework; he’d done my maths while I’d fudged his English enough to make it look like his own work. Who’d have thought I’d be pushing twenty-seven and weeping over his scrawled words?