Page 108 of The Mechanics of Lust

Five months of laughter and fun and spectacular sex. And of waking up to Luke more often than not and realising how fucking lucky I was.

Not that it had all been plain sailing.

Because it had been five months of me discovering how to be in a relationship for the first time as well. Five months of us working hard to hold on to that promise to keep talking things through, keep trying to listen, to adapt, to compromise. And it hadn’t come without its curly moments.

Learning to trust that Luke was staying around was one of those. That particular concern was helped by his signing off on the partnership with Gary and watching the two men work so well together. Learning to believe in myself was another. That one was still a work in progress. The third big one—learning to protect and prioritise our relationship when the outside world pressed in.

Caught between wanting to help Jules, my shepherding job, building kennels, working with clients and their dogs, and trying to lay the foundations for a business—I’d been run ragged to the point of exhaustion and began blowing off dates with Luke. He’d called me out on my bullshit, sat me down, and helped me see what I was doing to myself... and to us. I realised I couldn’t do it all. Go figure. And so we came up with a plan that saw him working with me to get some of it done, sharing the load. Fucking teamwork. Who’d have guessed?

But Luke was determined to avoid the same mistakes he’d made in his first marriage, and I was learning by watching his example, his readiness to apologise and change and do whatever it took to not go to bed angry with each other. We weren’t always successful, but the percentages were on our side.

But most important of all, we were learning how to pilot our relationship through those shadowy times when Luke became cool and uncommunicative, staring off into the distance, lost in his grief. When it was hard for him to see beyond the hole in his life and soul that a bubbly ten-year-old girl had once filled.

Learning what to do when he was in that space hadn’t been easy, and I’d had to dig deep and find a way to let him know that I wanted to be there for him in those times as well, that it was part of the deal, holding him or keeping guard from a distance—whatever he needed—but shutting me out wasn’t an option. Never that.

We’d had some missteps along the way navigating my insecurities and his pain, but slowly, Luke began to open up about Callie and she became this real person to me, not a ghost locked in Luke’s memory. He shared warm and funny stories. Sad stories. Hopeful stories. All the stories. And slowly over the five months, the time between those shadowy spaces stretched. Not gone. Never gone. The loss would always be there. But Callie was back in Luke’s life in a different way. In a way that wasn’t handcuffed to that singular horrific day.

Maybe the new life we were building together helped.

Maybe it was just Luke finding his way.

Luke said it was because of me.

But we both knew it was a lot more than that. It was another team effort.

Allof us.

Luke, me, and Callie.

Because like Luke himself, Callie was never far from my thoughts. She was a third presence in our relationship, something I hadn’t been sure I’d know how to deal with at the start. But I’d always known that Luke came as a package deal, and getting to know Callie through his eyes had turned out to be a real privilege. Hearing her voice for the first time on that message he so often played had almost broken me. But after a while, it had me smiling instead. She sounded like such a happy girl. A firecracker. I liked to think she and I might’ve gotten along pretty well.

Luke drew a deep breath, lifted my hand to his lips, and kissed my knuckles before mumbling something that sounded like, “Good morning.”

I smiled and kissed his back. “Morning to you too. Go back to sleep. We don’t need to get up yet.”

“Good.” He kissed my hand again and held it against his chest. “I love you.”

Barely a morning went by that those words weren’t the first or second thing out of his mouth and they still hit me in the heart every time. “I love you too. Now go back to sleep.”

I love you.

Damn, those words hadn’t come easily to me. The trust that Luke wouldn’t run, that he wouldn’t find me wanting, that he wouldn’t suddenly decide he didn’t love me after all or fall for someone else like Holden had. But I’d finally gotten there.

I loved this complicated man more than I’d ever believed possible, more than I thought I was capable of. Andfinally, two months after we started dating, I found the courage to tell him so.

We’d been snowed in at the station, my tiny couch pulled in front of a raging fire, Luke’s feet in my lap, mine in his, the latest John Connelly novel in his hands, in mine a tablet open to a website listing of sheepdogs for sale. The moment seemed perfect. Then again, so had the dozen or so previous moments I’d thought about telling him only to totally chicken out.

And through it all, he’d never once pushed. Never done anything except tell me as often as he could just how much he loved me. That, and show me in every way it was possible to show someone that you loved them without saying the actual words.

In short, he’d dated the shit out of me. Turned up at the cottage with flowers, which I still hadn’t lived down after Charlie ran into him in the driveway and spread the word. Then we’d both had to endure Gil’s disbelief and good-natured teasing about the fact Luke had never broughthimflowers. And if I’d happened to smile a little smugly at that fact, it was nobody’s business but my own.

There were picnics bundled up in our winter woollies with the dogs for company. Surprise flights over the winter wonderland landscape of the Southern Alps in Luke’s new chopper. A romantic weekend holed up in some luxury villa accommodation run by a gay couple just out of Queenstown, one who roasted the best coffee beans this side of the Tasman.

And finally, on that snowy night in the cottage, I’d crawled into Luke’s lap, the heat of the fire prickling at my back, Luke’s hands resting on my hips, his expression soft and warm as always. I’d cradled his face and stared into those beautiful blue eyes, and then I’d kissed him, long and slow, putting all my love into that single point of connection.

The sex, the lust, the craving of each other’s bodies had always burned so brightly between us. But it was no longer enough. I wasn’t sure it ever had been.

It was time, and I wanted Luke to know how I truly felt.

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