That sounded exactly like Helen.
I laughed. “She’s a terrifying woman.”
“Very.” Luka’s gaze drifted back to the window. “She wanted meto know I would have somewhere to go.” After a while he said, “I didn’t realize how much of my hesitation was tied to that.”
“To housing?”
“To arriving with nothing.” Luka rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “If I choose this…”
I let him take his time.
“Helen made it sound manageable.”
“That’s her job.”
He let out another quiet laugh. “I think her actual job is making impossible things sound routine.”
“Also true.” His smile lingered for a second. Then I took in his stiff posture, the way his teeth still worried his lower lip. “She said I wouldn’t be alone.”
My chest felt constricted.
I reached for his hand. “You won’t be.”
Luka looked down at our joined fingers, then back at me. “I know.”
“But like I told you yesterday, you can stay with me. I have my own place.”
He expelled a slow breath. “Should the situation arise, I think I would take her offer of an apartment.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment that a small part of me had apparently been imagining him turning up at my house with a suitcase.
Luka glanced at me, his face tightened, and I knew he’d seen something cross my face. “Dean…”
“It’s fine,” I told him.
“No, it isn’t, not if you’re disappointed.”
Yeah, he’d seen it, all right. The annoying thing about Luka was that lying to him had become almost impossible.
I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “Okay, I am, a little.”
Luka looked down as though he was trying to find the right words.
“I wanted to say yes.”
That got my attention.
His gaze met mine again. “I still want to say yes.”
My chest was so freaking tight. “Then why aren’t you?”
Luka was silent for a moment.
“I’ve spent most of my life belonging to something. My federation. My partnership. Other people’s plans.” He stared at his hands. “IfI decide to go to Colorado, I need one thing that’s mine.”
I understood that. I’d watched him fight for the right to speak, to choose.
“If I move in with you immediately…” He let out a soft sigh. “I think part of me will always wonder whether I built a life or simply stepped into yours.” He shifted closer. “I need to know I can stand on my own feet.”
