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“Dear freaking chicken nuggets. How can you tell me this?” I’m about to go full-on waterworks here. My nose is burning, and my throat feels like someone jammed a whole box full of nuggets down it faster than I could swallow. Must not let the tears out. Don’t get emotional. Emotions are bad. Emotions triumph over reason. Don’t lose your reasoning.
Unfortunately, my reasoning is fading fast. I can already feel myself softening, and no, not toward being a nanny with benefits. Oh no. I just feel bad for Luke. He’s confused, alone, empty, and hurting. He had a life he had to keep up and a son he had to care for. He had to be normal when his whole world was never going to be normal again. He lost all those little things he was talking about, and he lost the biggest thing of all. He lost part of his heart, and that’s really, really sad.
I’ve never really truly loved someone that way. I mean, I’ve cared about guys—guys who turned out to be assholes, guys who wanted my money, guys who just wanted to get laid, and guys who lost interest. But I’ve never loved anyone. I can’t imagine losing anyone, but I can kind of imagine the hurt and the pain, and it makes me soft, even though I don’t want to be.
“I…Luke… I think the whisky was pretty strong, and you’re not acting like yourself right now. The kiss happened, yes, and it may or may not have been a mistake, but we can’t continue on. If you’re lonely, then reach out to me as a friend. I can get to know you and learn to care about you, and it doesn’t mean we have to do the bedroom stuff. Uh, that’s just…that’s really complicated, and if you know everything, then you already know I have enough complications going on.”
“I know your parents want you to marry a complete stranger. I could save you from that complication. We really could have an arrangement.”
“Okay, that’s crazy. Goodnight, Luke. Seriously.”
“I’m sorry. That was crazy.” He runs a hand through his hair, now messy and disheveled as all hell. But still hot as all hell too.
This is just further proof that the universe hates me.
All of this.
“Okay. Well, maybe let’s just forget about the bad parts of tonight and go with the good parts. I’d be happy to be a friend. I hope you can talk to me when you need someone to listen, and that you won’t feel so lonely. I hope I can talk to you too, seeing as how you know all about the crap I have going on, and you’re right. It is hard. We both care about Shade, so that’s a common interest at the very least. I…err…I don’t know. I just can’t let it become anything more than that. Okay?”
“Yes, I agree, and you’re right. I’m sorry. Maybe it is the whisky. No, it’s definitely the whisky. I never drink. I don’t know why I did it.”
“Because you’re fucked up, it’s a fucked-up time, and everything is fucked?”
“What happened to the chicken nuggets?”
“Fuck ‘em.”
“Yeah.” Luke sighs. “Everything is fucked. It is. But while I’m still buzzed and having extreme lapses of judgment, can I convince you to—”
“No!” Why do guys never get the message? Are they just completely deaf? I just said I wasn’t going to—
“I was going to ask if you’d like to play a round of racing with me. Shade’s asleep, and I could use a good game with a lackluster competition I can easily beat.”
“Thanks. Thanks for that.”
He grins at me. This might be the first actual smile I’ve ever seen from Luke, and it’s like someone plunged a red-hot blade that simulates instant ovulation, straight into my ovaries. I feel buzzed as if I had some of that whisky. I feel…I feel like I’m riding some strange kind of high. Like an afterglow kind of high, except I didn’t have the after or the glow. Maybe I’m glowing.
“Okay.” It would be smarter to go to bed. Tonight’s already been the wildest, craziest, and most bizarre night of my life. Other than when my parents had the talk about me marrying a total stranger because that was also pretty weird. “Yeah. Alright.”
Luke sighs like he’s relieved. “Maybe Christmas isn’t so bad after all. Thank you for the gifts you picked out for Shade, for covering for me when you weren’t sure if I’d get the job done, for the tree and the decorations and the rice, and…and everything else, for picking up the groceries, chicken, and the beer for the chicken, for not letting the opossum die, for all of Shade’s smiles today, and especially for not getting weird tonight when I told you all that stuff about Brittany. Just…thank you.”
