AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’s like a large owl, just blinking at me. I would say he’s got a decent poker face, but I’m not sure he’s trying to be this way.
“Anything is fine.” He lets a breath out and looks down at the floor.
“HGTV or ESPN?” I smirk.
His eyes flicker to mine, the brows arching. “ESPN.”
He sits on the couch, legs slightly spread and his forearms on his knees, looking at me before rolling one of his shoulders.
“I’m sorry for interrupting your night,” he says. “Last night.”
“Be sorry for not eating that gigantic muffin,” I say, nodding at it.
Miss Baby seems to need a new diaper, so I take the wrapped muffin, chuck it his way, and then head for the puffy pillow changer thing we’ve been keeping over on top of a window seat between two bookshelves.
I change the diaper, and he’s quiet behind me. I turn around and find he’s got the muffin unwrapped. His eyes are fixed on me. His face is blank. It’s weird blank. Like it’s stuck that way.
I hurry back over to him without acting like I’m hurrying. “Muffin okay?”
He nods once, but he looks like a zombie.
I set Miss Baby up in her living room swing. Then I sit on the couch with him, on the other end. I grab an apple, take a bite, and tell him about how Sky believes that apples should be kept cold. That earns me a small, one-sided smirk-smile.
I try not to look like I’m watching as he picks at the muffin. I can see him swallow. Fuck, I wish I knew what to say to help him. Finally he looks at me. “Can I get a drink?”
“Sure. I’ll get you something. What were you hoping for?”
“Uh, like…a milkshake, maybe? Or…protein shake? If you have that?” His eyes are so damn hopeful. I can see the way his hand is sort of clenched around the muffin, like he hates to even hold the thing.
“Sure. We have that. You want a protein shake? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry?”
I can see the moment when his face relaxes. “Any of them.”
“You want to watch Miss Baby? I’ll whip something up for you, since you don’t know your way around the kitchen.”
He nods, and I can see him exhale as I walk toward the kitchen. I mix him what I hope is the best shake I’ve ever made, and he looks relieved as he takes it from me. I sit on the floor beside the baby swing, checking on Eden and then turning my attention back to Miller.
“How long you think you’re going to stay out this way? Assuming that you’re not from California.”
“I’m not,” he says. He takes a long sip of the shake. “I don’t know.” His face is unreadable. “No more than a few days. I don’t think I want to flunk out of my classes. The bus ride here takes a few days.”
“You took a bus here?”
He nods, his gaze meeting mine then falling back to the floor.
When he doesn’t say more, I fire up the TV. I play ESPN as requested and watch as he drains the protein shake dry. It was chocolate.
“You want to try the strawberry?” I ask, going off an instinct.
His brows rise, and he says, “Sure,” a little too fast.
“Be right back.”
I return to find him sitting by the baby swing. “She was moving,” he says.
His voice is low and thick. He shifts his shoulders like he’s maybe uncomfortable. I hand him the drink, and he gets up and goes back to the couch to drink it.
Man, the guy can barely look at me. He looks at the drink, which he holds between his palms when he’s not drinking it. I can feel the misery oozing off him…a real sense of heaviness. Almost reminds me of how bad I felt after my mom died. Kid just seems like he’s grieving.
“I’m gonna ask you something, okay?” I say, moving to lean against an armchair a few feet from his couch.
“I can’t fix that if you break it.” He smirks slightly, but his eyes are still beaming out pain.
I grin back. “I’m not that heavy.” I blow a breath out, because this shit is awkward. “Okay, cowboy. It’s just us in here, okay?”
He nods. Now he’s looking down again—at the floor. His eyes flicker up to mine, and then back to his drink.
“I’m on your team, okay? As far as I’m concerned, you’re a welcome guest in this house. And I know Luke feels the same. We’re glad you came to us. I just want to know if you’ve been taking anything. Are you coming off something? Something we should know so we can help? So you’ll feel better?”
He sets the drink down on the floor and puts his face in his big hands—and he starts sobbing.
30
Luke
“He’s still greedy with the details,” Vance murmurs into the phone. “But when I asked if he quit something, he just fucking lost it, dude. I bet he cried for almost a whole hour. After that, he took a nap, and then he showered for a while. That worried me, but it was okay. I got him to tell me that he feels sick when he eats. He prefers shakes and shit like that. But then when we went out to grab lunch at the shake and burger drive through gig, he made himself choke down a burger. Like, he’s trying,” Rayne says.
