“Oh, thank god. Because I was ready to get on my knees and beg you to take me back,” Luke laughs, the worry fading from his face. Then he goes pensive again. “I had this whole plan and everything. When I asked you to come over, I didn’t know what was happening between my mom and Pete in the dining room. I couldn’t have cared less about their fighting anymore. But then I heard a gunshot….”
My brain fills in the rest, the picture of that night seared in my memory like a cattle brand, and I flinch. It doesn’t go past Luke’s notice.
I clear my throat, banishing the unpleasant thoughts. “You wouldn’t have needed to beg.”
Luke grips my hand in his, squeezing it tightly. “I feel like Istillneed to beg.” He looks at me sincerely, like he knows how much stress and anxiety this whole ordeal has put me through, and he can’t atone enough for being part of the source. It’s almost too difficult to look him in the eye. Still, I put on a smile.
“If that’s what you get off on, I guess,” I tease.
Luke laughs, his cheeks flushing. “Fuck, it’s incredibly difficult to be serious and apologize to you when you won’t stop looking at me like that.”
I quirk a brow. “Like what?”
“Like you love me.”
I smile, leaning forward, and I clasp Luke’s hand between mine, leaving a delicate kiss across the backs of his knuckles. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Did you really fall in love with me that quickly?” Luke shakes his head in disbelief.
“I was infatuated with you from the beginning. No one had ever piqued my interest like you did. I’d never felt those feelings quite so vividly before, either. It scared the shit out of me with how fast it happened, but I knew for a while.”
Luke smiles at me, and I could forget how to breathe all over again.
“What about you?” I ask. “Mr. ‘I said it first.’”
“Honestly?” he muses, thinking back. “It was the garbage spaghetti.”
“You’re joking.”
“No.” Luke chuckles. “That day, when you didn’t come to work, I was absolutely miserable without you. It was the first time I had a conscious thought that life was unbearable without you in it. When I came to check on you and found you in that awful headspace, something in me just took over. Like this possessive need to be there for you. And even though my cooking was adisaster, the fact that you still ate it was the end for me. That whole thing really solidified it.”
“Glad to know my poor mental health brought about something good.”
Luke laughs. “I can’t even begin to explain why that was the moment for me, but it was.”
“Why didn’t you say anything after you figured it out?”
“Are you kidding?” Luke scoffs. “I felt like that was too soon formeto even be feeling those things. In no reality of mine was there a chance you’d have already fallen for me, and I wasn’t about to scare you away with that so soon.”
“Meanwhile, I was so in love with you that I bought a house before I’d even had the courage to say the words.” I swallow hard. “That didn’t go as I’d planned. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the money or ask you about the house first.”
“I don’t care about the money, Ethan,” Luke says seriously. “I mean it. You could lose it all tomorrow, and it wouldn’t change anything.”
“You’re not mad?” I frown.
Luke purses his lips slightly before he grins. “I mean—” he drags the word out. “I know I may have been mad at the time, but like…I’m notmadmad about it.”
“Oh, no?” I shoot him a steely glare, arching a single brow. “Because I couldn’t possibly keep the house knowing how upset you were. I’ll turn around and sell it if it’ll make it right.”
“Let’s not be too hasty,” Luke adds quickly. “Some words may have been thrown out in anger that I’d now like to officially retract.”
I smile, rolling my eyes. “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re happy I bought it?”
“Emphatically, yes.” Luke laughs. His whole face lights up. “Ethan, you bought a house in New York City.You. Who hates cities! You stepped outside your comfort zone to go there with me when I was at my lowest point even though you were so uncomfortable.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” I grumble. “Mostly because I was there with you.”
“And I’d be an idiot not to see how stupidly sweet that is.”
