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“There’s an amateur fight this weekend,” Damian said, glancing to the man on his right.
Luke looked at him too, taking in the squinted eyes and dark demeanor. “I’m not interested in entering a fight.”
“Why you here training every night then?” Damian took an aggressive step forward.
“Just working out,” Luke said coolly. If he told his dad how the guys at the gym treated him, he’d get them to straighten up. Luke would never do such a thing, though. He was thirty-two years old, for crying out loud. He wasn’t going to go running to daddy because some guys at the gym weren’t nice to him.
He started to walk away from Damian, hoping the man wouldn’t find him disrespectful. He said nothing, but Luke felt his eyes on him all the way to the locker room. His heart pounded as he ducked around the wall and pressed his back to it.
He took a deep breath in, and then pushed it all the way out. “You’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered to himself. “You’re not going to find yourself here. You’re only going to find trouble.”
* * *
The next morning,Luke found his parents sipping coffee at the breakfast bar. “Morning,” he said.
“Hey, honey.” His mother looked up at him with warm, milk-chocolate-colored eyes. Luke had gotten a tad darker features from his dad, but he could see his mother in him when he smiled. “Sleep good?”
Luke usually lied and said yes. Everything was fine. Another day. Another five miles through the neighborhood. Another day of selling homes. Happy, happy, smile, smile.
He shook his head. “Can I talk to you guys for a minute?”
That got his father to look up from his tablet. He glanced at Mom, and Luke sat at the bar too. He hadn’t gotten himself a cup of coffee yet, because his adrenaline buzzed in his teeth as it was.
“I don’t think things are working out here,” he said slowly, trying to find the right words. “I’m trying to like the job, Dad, but I don’t. I want to stay in shape, but I can’t keep going to that gym.” He shook his head, so many scenarios running through his head, the same way they had last night.
“I’m going to find myself right back where I was before I went to prison,” he said quietly, imagining himself to be the strong, quiet Nathaniel Mulbury for only a moment. Nate never said anything that didn’t need to be said, and the words were always precisely in the right order. “I don’t want that.”
Mom reached over and touched his hand. “You’re not the same person.”
“Exactly,” Luke said, looking up at her, almost begging her to understand. “Ican’tbe that person again. I can’t. I’m not going to prison again.” He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
Silence fell over the breakfast bar, until finally Dad said, “Real estate isn’t for everyone.”
“What will you do?” Mom asked.
Luke shook his head, wishing doing so would make his thoughts spark like lightning. Then maybe an idea would emerge. “I’m not sure.”
“There’s always something to do in Beeville,” Mom said. “I can call Uncle Casey and find out if he needs someone.”
Luke nodded, though he didn’t see himself running one of the resorts his family owned. He wasn’t the friendliest of guys, and customer service didn’t seem like one of his strengths.
“What do you want to do?” Dad asked.
“I liked the ranch,” Luke admitted, the words flying from his mouth without him thinking too hard about them. “All my friends are there…” He let the words trail off, because he didn’t know how to finish them.
“Wolf Mountain is near there,” Mom said. “They have horseback riding, Luke. And cabins. It’s almost like a cowboy experience.”
Luke looked at his mother and smiled. “Mom, it’s a five-star resort. Just because it’s in Texas doesn’t make it a cowboy experience.” He laughed, because his mother had no idea what a working ranch looked like. Hope Eternal wasn’t even the ranchiest of ranches. They did a ton of commercial activities with school children and the community to make their money, where some ranches literally raised cattle and sold the beef.
She laughed with him, and even Dad joined in with a chuckle or two.
“I don’t know,” Luke said into the new silence. “I just don’t feel…right here.” He hadn’t told his parents about the conversation with Damian from yesterday, and he wouldn’t. He’d made a decision, and he’d stuck to it.
His phone blinged with a tone that went from low to high, and that signaled that one of the boys from prison had texted.
He flipped his phone over and swiped on the message from Ted. The picture loaded and came into a perfectly clear portrait of Ted…and his brand-new baby.
“Oh, wow,” Luke said, something warm and electric flowing through him at the same time.
