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Luke snorted, and Terri realized she had spoken aloud. “I wasn’t always the calm person you see sitting here now. It took some time to find a balance.” His expression was tight, his eyes trained on the trees as his thoughts turned introspective. “I was hell on wheels, as my mother always liked to say. I got into more fights as a kid than most bouncers see in a lifetime. I refused to hear anything anyone had to say.” He smirked and glanced over at her. “I was a kid, so I already knew everything.”
Kicking his legs out, Luke crossed his feet at the ankle and settled in for a long talk. “By the time I hit eighteen I had been in and out of juvie more times than I could count and the judge was getting sick and tired of seeing my face. So one day, after finding myself in front of the judge again, he and my lawyer concocted a plan: If I agreed to sign up for the military, I wouldn’t be transferred into the adult jail.”
Terri was frozen to her chair, her vision of Luke nothing at all like she had dreamed. “What did you do?” she asked quietly, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“The only thing I could do,” Luke replied, draining the last of his drink. He gathered her empty bottle and his own and lumbered to his feet. “I signed up for the marines.”
Terri was left sitting on the deck, alone, while Luke disappeared inside. She couldn’t believe she could have been so wrong about him. Luke wasn’t the type of guy she would ever have imagined being a hotheaded, law-breaking hoodlum, but then she never had been a good judge of character, as evidenced by her marriage. Now that she thought about it, though, she supposed all the signs were there. Luke was too quiet most of the time, very reserved, and he seemed to shy away from everyone. Even at work, he mostly stayed shut in his office. Did he do that to keep from blowing a fuse? And the few times she had witnessed him get angry, she had caught a glint of barely controlled rage gleaming in his eyes that scared her a little.
Maybe Luke wasn’t the nice guy she thought he was.
When Luke returned, he seemed more relaxed, more himself. He was carrying two fresh beers, and he handed her one. Terri still wanted to know more. She needed to find something about him that told her he wasn’t like Randy, that whatever mistakes he had made were the result of being young and stupid, and not a fatal character flaw that would follow him through life. She didn’t want to deal with another mentally defective person. She just didn’t have the energy.
“So what did you do after you went into the military?” she asked with interest.
“I got into more trouble,” he said with a humorless laugh. “I didn’t even make it a full two years before they’d finally had enough and kicked me out.” This was not what she wanted to hear, but Terri kept listening, keeping her thoughts to herself. “I bounced around, sleeping on friends’ couches, sometimes floors, taking odd jobs that never lasted more than a couple weeks, until I finally grew tired of it all. I went home and begged my mother to let me stay there for a while, until I got my feet under me, and started looking for a serious job.”
“Then what happened?” Terri urged him on.
“I worked, kept my nose out of trouble—mostly—and saved every dime I could until I finally had enough to do something.”
“Is that when you opened the club?”
“Well,” Luke said with a lopsided grin, “there was a lot of boring stuff that came before all that, but eventually, yeah. I wanted to make money, but I also wanted to give people like me a chance to turn their lives in a better direction.” He grimaced, no doubt thinking the same thing she was. That the women there turned tricks in the bathrooms and people dealt drugs on the open floor. “It didn’t turn out exactly as I envisioned, I guess, but my workers are safe and well cared for and, most important, they can choose for themselves what they want to do with their lives. It’s a hell of a lot better than what happens out on the streets.”
When put that way, Terri guessed she could see his point. At least if the women she worked with did things on their terms, in a place where they had some measure of protection, then they were relatively safe. There were no pimps to take their money or beat and drug them, so, at the end of the day, Luke had offered them all some sort of soft place to fall.
“What about you, Terri?”
“What about me?” Terri said, her thoughts still stuck on Luke’s confessions.
“What were you like growing up?”
“Perfect,” she said with a scowl. “I was the daughter of a preacher. I was expected to be in perfect form at all times. There was never a hair out of place, my dresses were perfectly pressed, I was polite and well-mannered. Everything any parent could want in a child.”
“Sounds like a nightmare,” Luke said sympathetically.
“It was suffocating,” Terri admitted. “No one wanted to play with me because I wasn’t allowed to get dirty or stay the night at their house or even go for a walk around the block. I was no fun to be around, so they chose not to bother. Instead, I spent my days alone in my room playing dolls and reading books, anything to pass the isolation a little faster.”
“Jesus, how did you stand it?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know, but eventually I didn’t have to anymore. I was eighteen and I had done so well in my studies and had such good grades that I was able to attend college on a full scholarship.” A small, mischievous smile crooked her lips. “Boy did I go wild.”
Luke laughed. “You? Wild? I can’t picture it.”
“Oh, I did,” Terri assured him. “I went to all the parties, tried every drink, and even made out with some of the boys. I made a few friends, but most of the girls hated me, probably because I flirted with just about every guy that crossed my path.”
“Still can’t picture it,” Luke said, shaking his head.
“Trust me, it happened. So, anyway, one evening, one of my girlfriends talked me into going to this party. By the time we got there the booze was flowing and people were dancing on tables half-naked. I made my rounds, drinking my share, and then everything just stopped.” She couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “I looked up from my plastic cup to find this gorgeous man standing in front of me, his eyes focused directly on me. He was so stiff and commanding as he stood there. Pure authority. Then I saw the uniform.”
“A cop?”
“Yep. Him and about ten of his buddies filed through the door shouting for the person responsible to show themselves. Naturally, everyone freaked. Every window and door in the place became an escape route and in the confusion, I got shoved so hard I fell to the floor. That officer, the one I mentioned, he was the only thing that kept me from getting trampled.”
“Are we talking about your husband?”
“Well, he wasn’t my husband then, but yes, it was Randy.”
