Page 2 of Puck Daddies
“We talked about Italian restaurants and winter tires.”
“The other thing.” His eyes are bright. He loves when he thinks he’s about to expand my world. He loves being a tour guide.
“The other… Luke.” I keep my voice low because it seems to be the vibe, but also because my throat has gone tight. “This isn’t a—this isn’t a dinner.”
“No, babe.” He grins. “It’s an experience.”
“Luke. I am not into this.”
He tilts his head. “You haven’t even tried. Come on.” He gestures to a side room with velvet curtains where people are laughing. His hand slides to my back, the spot between my shoulder blades he touches when he’s moving me. “You keep saying we’re stale. We’re not stale, Meg. We’re…comfortable. Which is fine. But this—this could be good for us.”
“I said things felt flatafter I moved in.I said I missed us dating, not…this.” I sweep a hand, and immediately worry I’ve been rude. The woman with the sword nails glances at me, expression bored and kind.
“Lots of couples start here,” Luke says. “Same page and all that.”
“I don’t want this.”
“You used to be more adventurous.”
I swallow a laugh because it’s either that or bite him. “I spent Wednesday night blindfolded while you narrated a car auction.”
“And you didn’t like it.” He makes a face that says,see?
“I didn’t like the blindfold. The auction was fine.” I try to smile. “You have a very soothing voice when you explain depreciation curves.”
“This will be better,” he says, sure the way he’s sure about APRs. “You’re safe. There are rules. You always say you like rules.”
“I like the idea of rules. I like knowing we’re on the same page.” I’m stalling; I know I am. My heart is thudding that fast-slow that means my body wants out and my brain is still making a pro-con list.
He leans closer. He smells like whiskey and cedar and the cologne I once told him makes him smell like a library in a snowstorm. He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my jaw, one hand warm at the nape of my neck. My body—traitor—arcs toward the heat I know. “We can just watch. We’ll have a drink. We’ll see if anything feels good. If not, we leave. We can leave whenever you want.” A salesman to his bones.
It’s a reasonable pitch. I know it is. Even if I want to peel my skin off and run. But I’ve been trying to make things work with him, and I’ve invested a lot of time into this relationship. I can step out of my comfort zone for him. “One drink.”
“Atta girl,” Luke murmurs, and the words hit something old inside me, something that likes gold stars, that used to bring Aunt Bea handwritten menu drafts like a report file. He guides me to the bar and orders for both of us without asking, which normally makes me want to pinch him, but right now I need my hands for the glass.
The first sip loosens something. The room grows less sharp, the edges softened by more than just the light. A woman in a mask shaped like a moth flutters near us, smiles, drifts away. A couple at the end of the bar laughs, heads together like the dirty version of a rom-com still has a meet-cute. This is fine, I tell myself.
I’m halfway through the drink when I feel the temperature in the room change the way you feel a storm move over water. The fine hairs on my arms lift. The back of my neck knows before my eyesdo. And then she’s there, like the universe decided I didn’t have enough plot.
“Meg,” she purrs, and I freeze so completely I feel my heartbeat pulse against my eyes.
Callie.
She’s in red satin because of course she is. She smiles at me the way she used to across Bea’s pastry case when we were in high school and she insisted she had “dibs” on the lunch rush tips because she was saving for textbooks. She used to borrow my sweaters and never return them. She used to be the girl Bea called “the daughter I never had,” and I told myself it didn’t bother me because I was the actual daughter (adopted, but close enough).
“Callie,” I manage.
She places a hand on Luke’s lapel like she’s adjusting him, and he looks down at it like it’s an honor. “Come on, Meg,” she says, bright and intimate. “Let’s show our man a good time.”
The words clang in my skull. “Ourman?”
Luke sets his glass down and puts his hand on the small of my back. I flinch. He holds both palms up like I’m a skittish animal he’s trying to calm. “We wanted to tell you sooner. I thought if I told you here, it’d be…you know…a good reason to let loose. You’ve been saying you wanted to try new things, and Callie said you’d always been curious. She thought—well. She thought you’d be into it.”
I look at her. “Did she?”
Callie’s smile sharpens. “I know you’ve always been too good at pretending you don’t want what you want.” She steps closer,slides her hand up Luke’s chest in a way that makes my skin feel like a shirt I want to crawl out of, and kisses him.
Not a peck. Not a test. Deep. Familiar.
