Page 50 of Back To You

He stops mid-step in the parking lot and turns to me. I stop walking and find a shocked expression on his face. “Wait a second. No ‘who would ever want you as a lawyer’ or ‘wow, so you are smarter than you look, Lukey-poo’?”

I roll my eyes and keep walking. “I’m not atotalbitch. I know you’re smart. You made it through law school without even an ounce of interest in being a lawyer.”

“How do you know I don’t want to be a lawyer?” he asks, coming into step beside me.

“Are you kidding? You practically died of happiness when you got that hockey scholarship and then six months later you suddenly wanted to be a lawyer? Working with yourdadof all people?”

He reaches his arm behind his head, his hand rubbing his neck as he rounds his car to the driver’s seat. I open the passenger side door, climbing in at the same time Luke turns the car on. “Sometimes I forget how well you know me,” he admits, and my heart skips a beat.

I try to mask the smile threatening my lips. “You’re not that hard to read.” And it’s true. Luke isn’t hard to read. He’s happy 99% of the time, and that 1% of the time he’s mad, sad, frustrated, or feeling any other emotion, it’s written all over his face.

“I like to think I can say the same about you,” he says, and I resist the urge to look anywhere but out the front windshield, feeling his eyes burn a hole in the side of my head.

The words are on the tip of my tongue.

I feel like my lips are about to burst with everything I need to say to him, all the questions I want to ask, all the answers I want to give him.

I want to tell him that we spent seven years apart because I was too scared to face him after I saw the video of him and Devin.

I want to ask him why he did it—why he threw away what we had and why he never told me that he cheated.

I want to give him a chance to explain.

And most of all, I want to promise him that I’ll ruin him for anyone else if he ever even thinks about hurting me, but I want him to see that, in reality, I need him to promise me he’ll never do anything to hurt me again.

But instead, I ask, “Did you tell your dad you’re not taking the job he has for you?”

Luke sighs, leaning his head back on the car seat. “I’ve been putting it off.”

“Shocking,” I deadpan.

He turns to face me. “Telling Daniel Owens what hedoesn’twant to hear is easier said than done.”

I can’t help the protectiveness that overwhelms me at the thought of Luke with his father. The man used Luke as a power play against people who hurt him, keeping the truth from him until it was too late for him to have a relationship with his biological father.

To me, it’s simple. The man doesn’t deserve to call Luke a son.

But to Luke, it’s so much more complicated.

“Then why don’t you tell him to fuck off?”

Luke snorts. “Why don’tyou?” he jokes.

“There’s a lot more I’d rather tell him.” I huff. “Starting with how he barely acknowledged you as a son until he needed something from you. Not to mention how he took advantage of you and your need to gain hisapproval—which, by the way, was completely valid to want as a literalchild—and ending with how much time and energy you put into somethinghewanted. Not what you wanted.”

Luke doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I finally turn to face him. His mouth is slightly parted and his eyes glisten.

“What?” I ask, feeling like I might have crossed a line.

He clears his throat. “Careful, Annie girl.” The tips of my ears heat at how low he keeps his voice. “Your feelings are showing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say instinctively. I cross my arms over my chest, looking back at the front windshield. “So if you’re not going to be a lawyer, what are you going to do?”

Luke shifts in his seat, his head falling forward until he hits his forehead against the steering wheel. He sighs. “I don’t know. I mean, I went through all the schooling, didn’t even have to take the bar because the state of Wisconsin doesn’t require it as long as you meet all the course requirements and character and fitness standards. I have a position at a firm that guys I went to school with would do anything for. It makes me feel like shit for giving that up.”

“Why?” I can’t help but ask. “Sure, it’s annoying watching someone have something handed to them that they don’t deserve, but that’s not the case with you, Luke. You worked your ass off to be deserving of that job for years, and you did it for someone who doesn’t deserve even a second of your time.”

Luke shakes his head, his forehead still resting against the steering wheel. I watch him from the corner of my eye. “I want something that’smine. Something I can be proud of; something I can put the hard work intobecause I want to, not because I have to. I just don’t know what thatsomethingis.”

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