Page 42 of See You There
“I do like steak,” Luke confirmed, “but red wine gives me a rash. I discovered food trucks when I was at UGA. The best thing the administration ever did was organize Food Truck Day.”
“You went to the University of Georgia?”
“Yeah, James and I both did.”
Dahlia chewed another bite before asking. “What’s it like to work together? Are the two of you close?”
Luke considered for a minute. He didn’t normally talk about his private life, and certainly never with clients. However, Dahlia seemed genuinely interested, and he wanted to give her an honest answer.
“We’re twins, so we’ll always have that connection. But this is the first time he’s lived in Atlanta since we graduated high school.”
Dahlia's forehead puckered. “Really? I just assumed…” she trailed off, giving him a small smile. “Sorry, I don’t mean to pry. Family can be tough, and siblings close in age make it even more complicated. Everyone always competing for attention.” Her lips turned down a little. “But you work together now, so you must have made up.”
“We didn’t have a fight or anything like that.” That wasn’t completely true. He had been extremely angry with James when he told Luke he’d enlisted. “Our paths just went different ways. He was in the military the years I was in law school. Then he got out and went to law school himself.” Luke took a long swig of his beer. This wasn’t a subject he liked to dwell on, much less talk about. Crazy chemistry aside, he wasn’t sure why he was sharing it with her.
Now, ten years later, Luke understood his brother’s need to carve out an identity separate from his twin—they’d always doneeverything together—but at the time, all Luke could see was that he had been abandoned. Luke was especially pissed that James had made such a huge decision without talking to him.
Dahlia cocked her head at him, one of her thick tendrils brushing her cheek. Luke realized he’d been quiet too long.
“I was working in Atlanta, and James was working for a prosecutor in Miami. It took a while, but I lured him back to Atlanta to join the dark side.” He waggled his eyebrows, hoping to lighten the mood.
“I don’t know,” Dahlia said, cutting another precise bite. “A few days ago, I assumed the only people who needed a defense attorney were criminals. But now I can see how a person could get caught up in things out of their control. Without someone like you, they could be in real trouble just for making a mistake.”
Luke paused with his taco halfway to his mouth, her words doing funny things to his chest. “Hazard of my job is that people will always think the worst. It doesn’t bother me,” he said, his voice rough. “What about your job? What made you want to be an actress?”
Dahlia looked over his shoulder at the family seated behind them. “I’m from a tiny town, but I’d always dreamed of being a movie star. You know, the excitement, the glamour…”
It sounded like a Lia response.
“Not the speech you give reporters. I’m genuinely curious. What made you want to be an actress?”
Dahlia blinked at him for a moment, her mouth falling open with surprise. “That is why!”
He stared at her until the little line between her eyebrows smoothed, and she gave him a rueful smile.
“I enjoy becoming other people. I like the idea of crawling into someone else’s head and seeing the world through their eyes. Figuring out what their life looks like—who do they love, who loves them?” Her voice was wistful. She shook her head,the hoop earrings bouncing against her chin, and chuckled uncomfortably as she picked at the corner of the beer label. “That sounded pretentious, didn’t it?”
She studied the bottle as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen, and an embarrassed flush crept up the ivory skin of her neck.
“Not at all. I’m glad you didn’t say you wanted to wear someone’s skin like a suit though. That would have been creepy,” Luke teased, wanting her to smile again.
She laughed and took a sip of the beer. “Thatwouldbe creepy. I don’t actually want to wear their skin. I just want to know what makes them tick. People are interesting to me.”
“How did you break into the business? It’s a tough industry.” Dahlia’s gaze grew guarded, and he sensed Lia trying to slip back in. “No bullshit,” Luke said, spreading his palms wide. “I’m your lawyer—good old confidentiality clause.”
Dahlia was quiet for so long Luke didn’t think she would answer. But when her eyes finally lifted to meet his, the vulnerability he saw made his chest constrict.
She hesitated a moment more before saying baldly. “I hated living in that small town. The small opinions, the small way of life, and how everyone knows your business. Nobody ever forgets which family you belong to. I wanted to get away from all that. Become something… someone else.”
Her words slammed through him. He recognized the angry frustration behind them. The last name, Bloom, had shaped his entire life.
“In a small town, you’re one of three things,” she continued, ticking off points on her fingers, oblivious to how her comments affected him. “The family that barely gets by and keeps their head down, the family that does something wrong and gets away with it, or the family that gets blamed.”
Luke noticed she’d shredded her napkin. “Which one were you?”
“A little of all three,” she said, closing her box. Dahlia huffed a laugh, but her chest rose and fell rapidly, betraying her agitation. She gulped the rest of her beer before setting it down too hard. “What about you? Diane seemed to know a lot about you. What did she call you? Atlanta’s most sought-after bachelor? That’s an impressive title.”
Her eyes glittered in challenge, and while Luke recognized her need to shift the focus from herself, he wasn’t ready to let it go. “Atlanta may not be a small town, but my father’s last name made it so the entire world knew who I was. I know all about being judged because of who your family is.”
