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‘A Stella, I guess,’ he said.
‘Not a Sam?’ Jack asked, surprising Luke by remembering the brand of bottled beer he drank. He shook his head. The last Sam Adams he’d had was in Brynn’s, with Ruby crooning to him.
He cut off the thought. Not going there.
‘They don’t have the Boston Lager here,’ he murmured, knowing that wasn’t the real reason. He was avoiding anything that reminded him of her. Unfortunately, that was turning out to be pretty much everything from his empty minimalist penthouse in the Meatpacking District – because it wasn’t her cramped apartment above The Royale – to his favourite craft beer.
‘Such a purist,’ Jack mocked, then ordered from the waitress. His brother bantered back and forth with the punky girl in perfect French for a moment, then she headed off to get their order, all the time grinning at his brother as if he were cuter than Ryan Reynolds.
‘Looks like you scored,’ Luke mumbled, as Jack pulled out the chair opposite, flipped it round, then straddled it. What was it about Jack that he could never sit on a chair properly?
Jack watched the woman leave, his gaze lingering on her butt. ‘Nah, she was just being friendly.’
‘She wasn’t as friendly to me,’ Luke said.
‘You speak any French?’ his brother countered.
‘Not a lot,’ he had to concede.
‘Then there’s your answer, French women prefer to converse in their native tongue. Go figure,’ his brother replied.
They both knew that wasn’t the reason for the girl’s attentiveness, but Luke had to admit that was one of Jack’s few endearing features. He loved women, but he never took for granted all the attention he’d been receiving from the opposite sex since hitting puberty.
Unlike you.
Luke dispelled the unpleasant thought. And the memory of Ruby’s devastated face on their last morning together when she’d told him she loved him. And he’d had no reply.
Not your responsibility. She told you so.
‘So, what you doing in Paris?’ Luke asked.
‘Looking for a job,’ his brother replied as he popped an olive in his mouth from the dish the bargirl had brought to their table.
‘Do you need any money?’ Luke asked, out of habit as much as anything else. ‘Or a place to stay? I’ve got a company apartment a couple of blocks from here?’
Jack’s smile became rueful. ‘Nope. I’m good.’
He bristled at the easy refusal. He had no idea how his brother survived. As far as Luke knew, Jack hadn’t had a steady job since he’d dropped out of art college age eighteen. He didn’t own any property or have any possessions other than what he could fit on the back of his bike. But he hadn’t asked Luke for money for years now. So whatever he was doing, it must be working for him.
‘Still no plans to settle down and live a normal life?’ he asked, not quite able to stop himself from needling Jack anyway.
His brother just grinned some more, then thanked the bartender for his beer.
‘Nuh-uh,’ he said, after the girl had left. He took a long gulp of the cold beer, then smacked his lips, still smiling. ‘I left that to you, remember?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Luke snapped.
How the hell did his brother do that, look super smug and super could-not-give-a-shit at the same time? It was a gift his brother had possessed which reeled in women by the dozen and allowed him to be rootless and without a care in the world. And while he had always tried to take Jack’s attitude problem in stride when they met up, today it was bugging him. Big time.
‘You did the settling down thing so well, bro, I’d feel kind of outclassed before I even started. And I’m just not the competitive type.’
‘You mean you’re not the mature type,’ Luke countered, knowing he was going to lose this argument, but unable to let it drop.
‘That too.’ Jack took another sip as if he’d just been complimented not insulted. Another of Jack’s irritating life skills: to piss on criticism with charm and bonhomie. ‘So enough about me,’ Jack said easily, because he was well used to deflecting Luke’s attempts to get him to grow up. He dumped the bottle back on the table and stabbed another olive with a cocktail stick. ‘How’s tricks in the world of property development and gazillionaire-domination?’ he said before eating the olive.
Luke gave a strained laugh. The distraction this meet-up had offered yesterday wasn’t looking so good anymore.
He usually enjoyed hanging out with Jack. Jack was the original good-time guy, who could make any problem seem small and unimportant. But all he felt was irritable and out of sorts. And Jack seemed to have picked up on it.
