Page 56 of If This is Love

I’d never recover from this. Because even though she wasn’t mine and might never be, I was already hers. My battered heart belonged to her now. There was no undoing that. No taking it back. Even if nothing ever came of it and she moved on from this phase of her life and disappeared forever, it would still be hers.

And she probably still wouldn’t ever even know.

15

RUTH

FRENCH QUARTER, NEW ORLEANS

“Fuck, man, JesusfuckingChrist,” Luke grumbled from where he was seated at Skye and Brennan’s large, long dining room table with the rest of us while we all stuffed envelopes. “I fucking got another fucking papercut.Fuck.” He shoved his chair back from the table and held up both hands at Skye, who was sitting across from him. “Why don’t y’all have a team of grunts to do grunt work like this yet?”

Skye looked at him and smiled with a whole lot of playful snark. “Do you need another bandaid, Luke?”

He held up his bleeding fingertip and hand with at least two more bandaids on it. “Yes.”

“Awww, honey,” Chloe cooed, standing up from the table and grabbing his finger to inspect the cut. “Your hands are shredded. Maybe you should switch to sealing the envelopes.”

“And papercut mytongue?” He arched an eyebrow at her. “I really don’t think you want that, Chlo.”

I snorted to myself, reflexively casting a glance at Gabe, who was seated at the far end of the table, dutifully stuffing his stack of envelopes. He subtly rolled his eyes but otherwise didn’t say anything.

“Goddamn, Corporal,” Connor snorted under his breath, eyeballing Luke with one squinting eye while he methodically folded paper and stuffed envelopes in a process that was now such an exact science for him that he didn’t even need to look at what he was doing. “How the hell did you ever survive four years in the Marines?”

“Um, I’msorry, but inmyopinion,” Luke retorted while Chloe was standing next to him, opening a bandaid, “a papercut is way friggin’ worse than even getting your friggin’ leg blown off,andI have a buddy whose leg was blown off, and even he says papercuts are way worse.”

“JesusChrist, Luke,” Gabe grumbled. “Have some fucking respect for guys who sacrificed way fucking more than you.” He cut his eyes toward me and then flicked them back down to his stack of letters. “Pardon my French.”

I smiled.

“Andalso… thereasonwe don’t have grunts yet,” Skye cut in, still full of snark, “or as I like to call them,employees, is the same reason we’re doing this at our house. We don’t havemoneyto pay for things like extra administrative staff and offices yet. We’re still working on basic fundraising.”

Luke waved his free hand while Chloe patched up his newest papercut. “Y’all literally have abillion dollars.”

“No,” Skye clipped, pointing toward one wall, “hehas abillion dollars, and we’re not taking the easy way out with this. I want to build this from the ground up. The only money we’re taking from his pot is to make sure all these folks can have an actual salary for all the work they’re doing before we have real funds coming in.”

“Okay, fine, I get that,but…” He gestured with his free hand at the stacks of paper and envelopes. “You can literally hire college kids as unpaid interns, andthey’ll do tedious-as-fuck stuff like this for you just for the work experience.”

Skye cast him a deadpan look. “Let me just focus on the only two words you said that matter and hopefully you can figure this out on your own.” She lifted her hands, fingers splayed delicately like she was about to conduct a symphony. “Unpaid… work.” She clasped her hands together. “What doesunpaid worksound like to you, Luke?”

He whimpered, holding up his bandaged fingers after Chloe finished. “Iknow, but look, Skye. Papercuts are the worst injuryever, and I’ve got like seven.”

“For fuck’s sake, someone give him a different job,” Connor groaned, dropping his head backward for a second before lifting it and looking at Chloe. “Your dude is a handful.”

Chloe snickered to herself. “The most wonderful handful in the world.”

Luke waved his hands again. “The mostinjuredhandful in the world, you mean.”

“Okay, okay,” I cut in, pushing my chair back to stand up. “Luke, you’re going to switch to sealing the envelopes,butI’m going to get you a damp sponge.” I patted his shoulder as I crossed behind him. “It’s not a good idea to lick envelopes anyway. It can spread germs.”

“Thank you,” he gushed, slamming his hands together like he was praying, then immediately recoiled. “Ow!Fuck!”

Gabe shook his head just as I was passing around the back of his chair, and I set my hand on his shoulder for a second.

“Hey, friend,” I said quietly. “Can I get you a water or something from the kitchen?”

He didn’t look up at me, but he did absently hold his hand on top of mine on his shoulder for a second. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“Okay.” I wanted to sigh listlessly as I stepped away, but that wouldn’t help anything, and it would only make our well-meaning friends wonder, whisper, and ask about what was going on between us.

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