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“What's up?”
“I was wondering if you wanted to get together this evening. I want to talk to you about something.”
It was the way that Steven said it, the tone of his voice that made Luke pay attention. He felt alarmed. “What is this about?”
“We can talk about it this evening,” Steven said after a moment. His tone didn’t tell Luke much about what it was he wanted to talk about.
“Look, man. I've had a real shitty day, so you're going to have to tell me what this is about or I'm not agreeing to anything. I mean I have had a real shitty day. If it’s just going to get shittier, you might as well tell me now because I'm not going to take it well.”
Steven paused for a moment and Luke knew that he was about to hear something that he didn't want. It was pretty much the theme of the day and when Steven said that it would be better to talk about it in person, Luke ignored the warning signs going up. He was going to ignore it; everything was going to be fine. That's what Luke had been telling himself all day, but everything wasn't okay. His best friend was walking on eggshells around him, so there had to be a reason. What that reason was though, he had no idea.
When he got off the phone with Steven, Luke then ran into his sister. Cassandra seemed surprised to see him, and he was surprised to see that she was meeting with Nelson. He saw him and Luke wanted to ask about it, but Nelson was already sitting at the table across from her. A part of him, a very big part of him, wanted to go to her and tell his sister what he knew about Nelson. They looked to be getting too cozy. There was no way that he was going to let her go back to him after what he had done. How was he supposed to tell her and then her not be mad that he hadn't said something before?
“How are you guys doing?” Luke asked with a definite question of his own in his eyes. He was looking at his sister like she had lost her damn mind and maybe that's what it was. What else could it be? What was she thinking?
“We are good. How are you? I'm surprised to see you out here without Steven.”
Luke scoffed, “He has $1,000,000 business that he has to run. I have work as well. Is it really that big of a surprise?” He shot back testily. Luke was upset to see them together, and it was coming out in all the wrong ways. He just couldn’t believe his sister. What was she thinking?
Cassandra pressed her lips together and was sure that she was going to say something about how rude he was, but to her credit she did not. She just shook her head. She wasn't happy with him, would say something later, but not in front of Nelson. She knew that admonishing Luke wouldn’t help anything.
“We were just catching up on some details. That's all.”
He didn't want to be around the two of them. He couldn't stand Nelson for quite a while and that had not changed. The only thing that changed was their distance. Nelson would do better to stay far away from him and Hartford. It’s one thing if he wanted to see his kid, it was another if Nelson was there trying to woo his sister.
He got out of there as quickly as he could. He realized then that he was going to have to tell Cassandra what he knew about her husband, just on the off chance that she was considering getting back with him. He was cheating on her, probably actively, and she deserved better. Luke needed her to know that it had nothing to do with the fact that he didn't like the two of them together. It had to do solely with that Nelson being a piece of shit, and he didn't deserve to be with Luke’s sister. He had to get it through her head, without her thinking that he was only saying those things because he didn't like the two of them together. He didn't know if she would believe his concerns, especially since he had made his dislike of him so clear. She would just think it was another controlling move on his part.
Luke could still see the dread in his sister’s eyes when he had seen them. The look she gave him bothered Luke. When had his own flesh and blood dreaded to see him so much?
***
Luke was not so sure about the rest of the day. He had to meet with Steven in a little while, but he was certainly not looking forward to it. He wanted to call it off but knew there was no way that he was going to get out of it. He had to just face it, whatever it was. He went back to his house to get ready, took a shower, tried to clear his head. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen. There was nothing he could do to stop it now.
He was just about to leave to go meet with Steven when there was a knock on the door. Naturally, he went to check who it was and was certainly not expecting to see Nelson standing there. He was pretty sure that he had made himself clear earlier when they had seen each other. He wasn't supposed to be there with his sister, and he certainly wasn't supposed to be standing in front of him now. “What the hell do you want?” He really couldn’t think of a better way to ask.
He got a little scoff from Nelson. He swallowed hard, coupled with a smile that certainly wasn't real. “I came here to see you.”
“See me? You don't have any reason to see me,” Luke insisted.
The grin got a little bit bigger and this time it looked genuine. He looked like he was having far too much fun messing with Luke. It just made Luke want to hit him even more.
“I have something to tell you, something that I know you need to hear.”
Luke groaned inwardly, knowing that he was going to have to hear him out, whether he wanted to or not. That wasn’t a good feeling. “Say whatever the hell you want to tell me, because I got somewhere to be, and I'm not going to be late for you.”
Nelson’s smile disappeared and what was left was a sneer. “I came here to tell you that you are being betrayed once again.”
Luke waited for him to say more, but he just looked at him with the biggest smile he could muster and told him that he didn't care who his sister was with. It wasn’t really true, he did care, way too much obviously, but Nelson would not get the pleasure of seeing him sweat.
“Who’s that, Nelson? You are going to have to spit it out. I really do have somewhere to be.”
Nelson was not handling it very well and he agreed. His eyes were a little glazed over. Luke had taken some of the wind out of his sails. Nelson wanted him to be upset, he wanted to see it, and Luke made sure that he got none of it. That was hard to do, hide his true feelings.
He was just about to leave, was walking to his car, when Nelson caught up. He wasn’t done yet. “It's Steven, you know. They’re sleeping together. You always talked about how he was so much better than me, because he would never do something like that. I thought I should be the one to tell you that he is. He's doing it to you right behind your back, and you're too dumb to pay attention.”
Luke did not look back. Nothing good would come of it, so instead he got into his car and made sure that he didn’t get pulled into whatever Nelson wanted to start. He didn't know if the last sentence true, but another part of him figured that Nelson said more truth than he would like.
Luke was on his way to meet with Steven and now they had a lot to talk about. All he could do was think about what came next. It wasn't going to be pretty.
