Page 53 of Professional Consult
While she’s tending to the other customers, Barb slides in across from me, her expression going from warm to concerned when she sees my face.
“What’s wrong, darling?”
“It’s…complicated.”
Tiffany slides next to Barb. “What’s complicated?”
I couldn’t have stopped the flow of words if I’d tried, recalling the night of our dinner, the subsequent role-playing—yeah, I gave the deets—and how he’s acted afterwards. I don’t spare a single detail, because I know these two aren’t like Hollywood women. They won’t sling it in my face or make snide remarks. They’ll listen, offer sympathy and support, and tell me just how I’ve fucked up.
Tears well in my eyes, overflowing down my cheek.
How could this have happened? How could I have fallen so hard for a man I barely know? A man who hates me?
And yes, I’ve totally fallen. Head over heels fallen.
It’s why it’s so easy for me to hate him now. Every feeling I have for him is just too strong.
“Maybe he thinks I’m a slut,” I choke out. “I don’t know. I just…hate that it’s gotten like this.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not you,” Barb says, her expression grim.
I snort a sardonic chuckle. “I guess you were right and I really should have laid off Luke.”
Tiffany and Barb exchange glances, then look back at me.
“Lexi, it isn’t you.” Tiffany looks conflicted. They both do.
“I don’t understand.”
“We usually don’t like to gossip about our kin,” Barb starts, “but you’re beginning to feel like family, so you might as well know what you’ve stepped in.”
“Stepped in?”
Tiffany purses her lips and sucks in a breath. “Luke’s had a hard run at life.”
“How so?”
“Life just ain’t been fair,” Barb adds.
“He’s handsome, has a good job, the town loves him. What’s not fair?”
Tiffany’s hand folds over mine. “He was a big deal in high school. A local celebrity. A football God. Prom King. All of that. He got a full-ride scholarship to more than one university. He was gonna make something of himself.”
I think back to his home that has no medals or trophies. Nothing indicating he’s even a sports fan.
“What happened?”
“His parents died in a car crash just after a game. Luckily, Luke was out with friends, and Clint, who was nine at the time, had stayed with a sitter that night because he’d recently broken his arm.”
My stomach twists in knots. “Oh, Jesus. That’s terrible.”
Barb nods. “He blamed himself and vowed to take care of Clint, and since he was eighteen, he could. He graduated high school and started working odd jobs. His parents didn’t leave him a lot of money, but the community stepped in when they could. He couldn’t keep the house, but what he made off of selling it, he put into the one he owns now.”
“You mean to tell me that at eighteen, he raised his kid brother?”
“And he’s never once complained,” Barb said. “He eventually became a police officer and did what he could to give back to the community that he feels got him through the worst of it. He did the best that he could with Clint, but they argued all the time. They were just so different.”
I snort out a mocking laugh. “Will someone please tell me why the world’s most amazing man hates me?”
