“Shoes!” he said.
At the command, Sydney ran over to the corner that was full of Luke’s shoes, found one gray house slipper, and brought it back to him.
“Other foot,” Luke said, and Sydney trotted back to the shoe pile and retrieved the matching slipper, dropping it in front of him.
“No way,” I said. “How did she know which pair—”
“Secret,” Luke said with a grin.
“Good girl, Syd,” he said, bending to set the slippers next to each other in front of Sydney, who stood patiently wagging her tail. “And now for the grand finale ... okay!”
At that command, Sydney slid one paw into each slipper.
“Oh my God,” I cheered, bending down to pet her again. “You’re so good, Sydney. Such a clever girl. Yes, you are.”
Luke and I both loved on her for a few seconds, and she beamed up at us, letting us pet her.
“Think we should take our show on the road?” Luke asked.
“Um, heck yes,” I said. “I’d pay good money to see that. You need to put it on YouTube or something.”
Luke just laughed, standing again, and I remembered that he’d brought me up to his room for something other than watching the tricks he’d taught Sydney.
I stood too, then sat on the edge of his bed, trying but failing not to wonder how many other girls had sat on it. Luke walked over to his closet, pulled it open, and rifled through a bunch of shirts hanging there, and my attention veered back to the fact that I was in his room. In the place where he spent most of his time. Where he slept and dressed and undressed. Based on the number of times he’d come down for breakfast, hair disheveled and in pajama bottoms that hung low on his hips, I knew he didn’t sleep with a shirt on. But were the bottoms only for the sake of modesty, something he pulled on before rubbing the sleep from his eyes and trudging downstairs?
“So, clothes—” he said now, and my body felt warm all over.
“Yep, clothes. A definite necessity,” I squeaked, squirming.
Luke gave me a weird look, but all he said was, “Thanks for doing this. I’d have asked for Mom’s take, but you know how she gets.”
I smiled. “You mean,Forces of the Universe, is it possible my firstborn has somewhere to go on a Friday night?”
“Pretty much,” he said. I thought my impersonation had been pretty spot-on, but from the way he rubbed at his neck, I could tell I’d embarrassed him.
He held out a bunch of shirts.
“Um, so you’d wear them with dark jeans?” I asked, absently inspecting each shirt. They were all so soft. If I had a moment alone with them, I’d bury my face in them.
Luke nodded.
I wondered if he was interested in patenting his smell so girls like me (mostly me) didn’t have to reduce ourselves to sniffing him or his clothes.
“And you said it’s karaoke night?” I said, trying to remember what he’d told me downstairs. If he wasn’t doubting my brain capacity at this point, he soon would be. I pulled out a dark blue T-shirt and a gray Henley that was one of my favorites. And, okay, I was a creep for having favorites from his wardrobe, but it was what it was. I hadn’t claimed to be any kind of saint.
“I have to be honest,” I said. “I wouldn’t have thought karaoke was your thing.”
“It’s not,” Luke said. “It’sreallynot. But I got invited, and I’m trying to step out of my comfort zone more so college isn’t a complete culture shock. I figure I should start changing.”
I glanced up at him, surprised. “You don’t have to change.”
“Yeah, I do. College is a whole different ballgame,” he said. A moment later he added, “And you know what I’m like.”
“What you’re like?” I repeated, not bothering to hide my confusion. He’d already seen me do calculus; there was no way he held my IQ in high regard.
“You know,” Luke said, looking at the shirts hanging off his arm and not at me. “I’m not Ro.”
I did know. Luke wasn’t gutsy and expressive and spontaneous like his younger brother. He never had been.
