I found the ladies’ room and slipped inside, grateful to find it empty and relatively nice. Guess that explained how Rushmere’s extortionate business rates were spent. Not that I cared. Money came into the shop and left again with a terrifying turnaround. I’d taken to paying little attention to where it actually went and had gifted my accounts to Gus.
“Cheers, sis. Love you too.”
Guilt threatened the Luke-fuelled meltdown I was teetering on the edge of. Gus had been working round the clock for Luke this week, on top of his futile attempts to keep me out of trouble. I’d left him at home with a pizza and Netflix, but I knew he’d pick me up the moment I was done.
And I was so bloody done. Done with this night, done with this town, and done breaking my heart over Luke.
Right?
Snorting, I dumped my handbag onto the counter and rummaged through it for my phone. I came up blank, but found my lipstick instead, and I was tipsy enough to think I was winning at life.
My reflection was less pleasing. With my red-rimmed eyes and smudged makeup, I looked like the walking dead. With a sigh, I set about fixing myself enough that Gus didn’t worry, but it didn’t seem to matter how thick the mask, my misery was plain to see.
Had Luke seen it? Was that why he’d glowered at me with thinly veiled disgust? And could I even blame him when he’d had the week from hell and I was making it all about me?
A prickle of shame lanced my heart. I’d worried about Luke all week, because I knew him. When things got tough, he turned inward. Stopped talking. Thinking. Taking care of himself. Years ago we’d been close enough for me to pull him to safety. To my knowledge, there was no one around to do that now. Not his mother or his brother. No one. How did someone become so skilled at pushing people away?
The irony of my inner monologue was ridiculous. A crazed chuckle escaped me, and I gave up on trying to make myself presentable. Gus would just have to deal with the fact that I was a high-maintenance sister right now. Or maybe he wouldn’t. I’d always been good at pretending. In that, Luke and I were the same.
The door opened behind me and Luke slipped into the bathroom.
“This is the ladies’,” I snapped, resisting the urge to press my palm into my chest, like I could push my stampeding heart back in. “If you can’t find the gents’, I suggest you piss outside.”
Luke leaned against the wall like walking sex in his slim-cut grey suit. “I came to see if you were okay.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. You legged it out of the room.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you—” He stopped and shook his head. “Whatever. Just answer the question.”
I turned my gaze back to the mirror. “You didn’t ask me one.”
To anyone else, Luke’s expression would be inscrutable, but I recognised the flinty gaze staring down my reflection, his clenched hands. I was irritating him, something we’d often got around by fucking. And perhaps that was the problem—why he’d found it easier to leave me than talk to me. To tell me how he was feeling, instead of a brutal cut and run that had left nothing but pain and anger in its wake.
Not that he seemed particularly like he wanted to fuck me right now. Throttle me, maybe.
I dropped my lipstick into my bag and turned around. “Why did you follow me?”
“I already told you that.”
“Yeah, but why do you care if I’m okay? We didn’t speak for ten years, and I’ve been a bitch to you since I came back.”
Luke’s eyebrow twitched. “Did you just admit to being a bitch?”
“Yes. But don’t get cocky. I can call myself whatever I like.”
“You’re not a bitch, Mia. You’re—”
“What?” I demanded.
A ghost of a smirk brightened Luke’s face. “Complicated.”
I snorted, couldn’t help it. “I’m complicated? Wow. That’s some statement coming from you.”
He didn’t deny it. Just pushed off the wall and stepped closer, igniting a war between my heart and my head. My body yearned to meet him halfway, to feel his solid warmth and melt into his arms, but my brain flashed danger signs. We’d already proved we couldn’t be physical without drama, and I had enough bullshit to deal with right now without setting fire to that trash pile again.
Luke licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to be with you anymore.”
“Be with me?”
“You know what I mean.”
Do I? But for once I kept my smart mouth shut and instead focussed on trying not to hyperventilate as he took another step forward.
He backed me into the counter, caging me without laying a hand on me. “Mia.”
“What?”
“What are we doing?”
“I don’t—” My stuttering heart cut me off. “Are we friends yet?”
Luke laughed quietly. “Not even close.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head, helplessness clouding the mirth in his eyes. “Because we never were, I guess.”
“That’s not true,” I whispered.
“No?” Luke towered over me, but he leaned down so his lips were inches away. “I can’t get my head around it. Maybe you really were the best friend I’d ever had, and I’m the selfish git who threw it away.”
“Maybe.” But it caught in my throat. Luke was as flawed as any man, but he was far from selfish. It had been easy to hate him for so long, but I’d come to realise in recent weeks that it was the pain he’d caused I couldn’t bear. Him? He was... Damn, I didn’t know what he was. Couldn’t articulate how he made me feel. All I knew was I was going to combust if he didn’t get the hell away from me.
I put my hands on his chest to push him away. The warmth of his body hit my palms, and a bolt of heat channelled down my arms, sluicing through my veins with such ferocity that I gasped.
Luke put two fingers under my chin, forcing me to look at him. “I want to kiss you.”
“I know.”
“I want to lift you up on that counter, push your dress up your legs, and fuck your brains out.”
“I know that too.”
“Do you?” Luke leaned impossibly closer. “What would you do if I did it?”
I stretched up so our faces were a hairsbreadth apart. “Come like a—”
His lips cut me off, claiming my mouth in a frantic kiss that poured petrol on our smouldering flames.