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.”
A single tear escaped. “I know,” I whispered. “And maybe that’s harder than being alone. I don’t know. I’m so fucked up right now. Even more than usual.”
The men chose that moment to walk back in, but Keltan and Lucy’s living room was large and open plan, which meant they were out of earshot, loitering by the kitchen, as if they sensed the lady powwow wasn’t over.
That didn’t stop my eyes from locking with Luke’s, finding home there.
Lucy smiled. “Despite popular opinion, babe, love doesn’t make you feel good all the time. Fuck, it doesn’t make you feel good most of the time. You’re handing another person your heart, you soul, your sanity.” She paused and raised her brow at me. “Not that you’ve got much left to give, but you’re giving that all to one person to look after. To treasure. And there’s pain that comes with that. And fear, constant fear. It doesn’t feel good to hand yourself off to someone else. It makes you more vulnerable. You just need to find that right person who treasures you enough to forsake themselves to take care of what you gave them, even on your worst days. Even when they don’t particularly like you, they should treasure you.” She paused, glancing up to her husband. “They’re rare, those men. Not everyone gets them. Definitely not enough women who deserve them. So don’t do the ones who are never going to have that a disservice by throwing it away because of fear. Because that love isn’t recyclable. He isn’t going to use it on another woman, just like you would never go through all the pain and suffering you’ve gone through for anyone but Luke. You’re it for each other. I know it. And you sure as shit know it, so quit screwing around.”
I blinked at her. “Wow,” I said. “You’ve gotten really deep since I’ve been gone.” I looked her up and down. “And bossy.”
She grinned. “Staring death in the face will do that to you.” She looked back to her husband again, her gaze like a magnet, never wavering from the thing that tethered it for too long. Keltan was already looking at her. “Staring life in the face will do that to you too.” With great effort, she moved her eyes back to me. “And you’ve looked at both of those things. Don’t go looking for the former anymore. We’ve had enough.”
I looked back to Luke, then back on our history. To all the separations and hurt and drama that came with love for my family. I was making it so much fucking harder than I needed to. Of course, I couldn’t realize that myself. Luke couldn’t even make me realize that. There were some jobs in life that only girlfriends, true soul mates, could do just right.
I didn’t know what to say. Mostly because there was nothing to say. I was getting educated.
And I didn’t have time to say anything.