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“Oh, babe. I know. And I want that for you, too.” I feel useless. There are no words I can say to make her feel better. Avery is caught in the middle of her life and her family. Either path she chooses means she’ll give up something important to her. All I can do is be here for her when she needs me.
She takes a deep breath and as she does, she wipes away the anguish in her eyes. In its place is a sparkle of fun. “We need to dance.”
“Hell yes!”
We finish our drinks and make our way to the dance floor. It’s been way too long since we’ve done this. I soon lose myself to the beat of the music, and all my thoughts are soon forgotten.
* * *
At just after 2:00 a.m., I wander into Elixir. Thank goodness I stopped drinking a couple of hours ago in favour of dancing. I’m definitely drunk, but nowhere near as bad as I would have been. Avery dropped me off here in a cab so I could go home with Luke.
The bar is still busy, but people are starting to leave after last drinks have been called. Luke is nowhere in sight, though, and I head to his office to see if he’s in there. The door is closed so I knock and wait, hoping he’s here.
He opens the door almost straightaway and my legs wobble a little when he comes into view. My man never fails to make me swoon and tonight is no different. I step forward to move closer, but my damn heel causes me to stumble. Or maybe it’s the alcohol. Either way, I end up falling against him.
His arms stop my fall and a moment later, I’m in those arms with his eyes focused intently on mine. “You’ve had a good night,” he murmurs.
“Bloody heels,” I mutter.
“I thought you were going back to my house?” No smile. No sexy voice. He almost sounds mad, which just confuses me.
“Why are you cranky with me?”
“I’m not.”
Gah, still no smile.
He’s giving me nothing to go on here and my alcohol-muddled mind can’t work fast enough to figure him out.
“Luke, you’re being weird. Please tell me what I’ve done. Unless of course you’re still mad at me for this afternoon. I’m sorry I upset you, bu—”
He places a finger to my lips. “Stop thinking, Callie, because you’re adding two plus two and getting five. All I said was that I thought you’d be at my place now.”
“Yes, but you didn’t use your Luke voice.” God, now I sound like a whinger.
“What the fuck is my Luke voice?”
I push against his chest to move out of his hold. He doesn’t let me go. Doesn’t even loosen his grip on me. I do the only thing I can—I kind of smack his chest. Well, you couldn’t really call it a smack, because he’s not giving me much space between us for that to happen. “Don’t use that tone on me!”
His eyes flash with frustration. “Jesus, what tone am I using?”
My brain still hasn’t kicked in fully, so I struggle to explain myself. “It’s the one you used to use on me all the time. Your frustrated one.”
He rakes his fingers through his hair. “That’s because I am frustrated with you. I asked you one question, which you still haven’t answered, and we’ve ended up discussing voices and tones.”
“Let me go,” I demand.
“No.”
“Oh, my God, Luke, you are so infuriating sometimes!” I want to stamp my feet like a petulant child, but I refrain.
“I’m infuriating?”
“Yes! I came here so you could drive me to your house. So we could have some time together. And you just stand here arguing with me.”
“If you’d just said that we could have avoided all this.”
I frown as my brain begins to put shit together. “Did you think I wasn’t coming back to your house?”
