Page 133 of The Hookup
This pleased her. If he could heal over his past, he could move on. She wanted that for him, she wanted the man underneath to be more like the man she had first come to know—sexy and nice, and hard to ignore.
“We went out for dinner with Kyle.”
“Oh,” she cried, pleased to hear that. “The couples dinner, you mean?”
He nodded, the tiny movement stabbing her with something she couldn’t define. He’d said ‘we’. Who had he gone with? The question buzzed around her head like a noisy mosquito, hard to ignore and as irritating as hell.
“I…” He cleared his throat. “I have something of yours still lying around at work.”
“Something of mine?”
“I bought you a gift, I just forgot to give it to you that time when I gave you the lingerie. It was still in my jacket pocket.”
“You don’t have to bother with that,” she said, waving her hand, dismissively.
“I bought it for you. I’d rather you have it.”
“It’s not necessary, now. But, if you insist…”
“If you really don’t want it, I’ll return it.”
Now she was curious. “You could return it and…”And buy something for your new girlfriend.
She wondered what this new woman was like. Lucky woman, obviously, to be enjoying the fruits of all that counseling.
“If you really don’t want it, if you feel that strongly about it, I’ll return it, but I’d like you to have it,” he said.
“If you feel that strongly about it, if you really want me to have it, then I guess you can send it to me, but you didn’t have to buy me two gifts. You didn’t even have to get me the one.” She was rambling. “I don’t give to—”
“To get,” he said, finishing her sentence for her. “I know. Truth was, I felt so lousy when you got me the cufflinks, and I got you nothing,” he pulled out one of his shirt cuffs to show her the key-shaped cufflinks he was wearing.
Her heart opened up like a sunflower. “You must really like them,” she said, feeling suddenly happy.
“They remind me of you.”
They were smiling at one another, not the big flirtatious smiles-that-would-lead-to-something, type of smile, but a more relaxed one. As if they were getting used to and enjoying being together again.
She remembered the Luke she had glimpsed on the island, in the sultry heat of the night, underneath the starry sky, when he’d made her his variation of a cocktail, and she’d told him her fears about men. He’d been a good listener then, and he'd cheered her up. Already there was a shift in how they were around one another, and this felt easy, like the night after the wedding, when they were just talking, nothing too deep, but finding out about one another.
Seeing him again had brought back all those memories, and it felt new, and pleasant, and touched with a tinge of regret.
“Also,” he continued, “I didn’t want you to think that I was with you for one thing only. The lingerie was an impulse buy. It’s what most guys buy their girlfriends. I wanted to buy you something meaningful, because by then…” he shrugged, then stared at the chandelier again
“By then?” she said, softly, her ears straining.
But he pretended not to hear, and didn’t finish his sentence.
People walked past, but she couldn’t look away. It was only when she heard the knock, and “Are you decent?” in Millicent’s clipped tones, that she was suddenly jolted into awareness. Her eyes widened and she looked from Luke to beyond him. Millicent had disappeared.
“I have to go,” she said, rushing off. “I’ll be back...” She wasn’t sure if he heard that last bit.
She knocked on Savannah’s door and then walked in before Savannah could answer. Her cousin was sitting in the rocking chair, while Millicent paced the room with a crying baby in her arms. “There, there,” she said, as she tried to soothe him. Kay couldn’t tell which of the twins it was. Miraculously, only Savannah seemed to be able to tell the difference between her boys.
“Oh, hey, Millicent,” Kay said, plastering on a fake smile. “Lovely pearls.” Millicent acknowledged her with a smile that was just as fake, before asking Savannah if she was going to feed the baby.
Savannah looked as if she was going to explode, prompting Kay to say the first thing that came to her. “Uh…Arnold uh… he was looking for you, Millicent.”
“Me?” Millicent looked puzzled. “Whatever for?”
