Page 101 of Just Like in the Movies

‘Because she’s got some dumb idea into her head that it would be going against Matty’s dying wish.’ Which wasn’t completely a lie. Maybe this situation was more about them than Matty, but his mom did not need to know that. ‘But I figured if you offered to become The Royale’s patron, it’s benefactor, she’d accept that.’ He sunk his hands into his pockets, feeling exposed under his mother’s inquisitive gaze, but determined to make this happen. It would work, it was a great plan. He couldn’t work things out with Ruby if she lost The Royale because of him.

‘You want me to lie to Ruby about your involvement?’ his mother said. ‘You want me to trick her into defying Matty’s dying wish?’

‘What? No, dammit, that’s not it at all.’

Why was he not surprised his mom was going to make this perfectly simple plan complicated?

‘That wasn’t Matty’s dying wish,’ he said.

Just this once. Please don’t let her flake out on me.

‘Ruby’s misunderstood it,’ he continued. Shit, he had to make this happen. And to do that he had to get his mom on board. ‘He left me half The Royale because he wanted me to help her out. And now she won’t let me. But if you help me I can still save the movie theatre for her— For Matty,’ he corrected himself.

Too late.

His mother’s eyes took on a speculative gleam. She’d figured out the truth. About him and Ruby.

She took his elbow, led him to the day bed. ‘I think you better sit down, Luke, and explain everything.’

He perched on the edge of the mattress. He was shaking, he realized, as she sat beside him on the bed and touched his knee. ‘It’s okay, Luke. Everything will be okay.’

The softly spoken words propelled him back in time. To another day.

The smell of perfume and hydrangeas was replaced with the hideous scent of death. Cloying, vulgar, suffocating.

He stared at her fingers on his knee, the heavy rings she wore, the skin still smooth in her fifties but speckled now with sun blemishes, and remembered her sitting beside him that day too, sixteen years ago, in his father’s open-plan living room in Montecito. The patrolman’s questions that he couldn’t answer. The panic tightening around his throat, threatening to choke him. And her voice, like now. Rich, resonant, reassuring, answering the questions for him and dragging him back from the edge.

Funny he’d never remembered that until now.

She had been there beside him through the very worst of that day. She’d arrived like the cavalry, before the cops and the EMTs, minutes after he’d called her to tell her what he’d found.

He shoved the memories back, made himself breathe. In One-two-three. Out one-two-three.

For fuck’s sake, Devlin. Don’t start reminiscing about the worst day of your life. You don’t have time.

He took the breaths he needed to stave off the panic attack. His palms remained clammy, the tension and stress still there punching a hole in his ribcage.

But all he could really feel now was the fear.

That he could never deserve Ruby if he couldn’t give her The Royale.

‘Tell me about Ruby?’ his mother said gently.

He glanced at his mother’s face. He didn’t want to talk about Ruby.

‘There’s not much to tell,’ he murmured, evasively.

‘Are you sure?’ she said, not buying the denial. ‘It seems to me she matters to you quite a lot. Or why would you be so determined to save her cinema?’

She had him there.

If he wanted her help he was going to have to break one of his golden rules – and talk to her about his love life. Great.

He rocked back, the knots in his gut tightening, then stood and paced over to the chair she’d been seated in, buying time, trying to figure out what to say without encouraging too much intrusion. He wasn’t sure there was a way to do that anymore. And maybe talking to her would help. He’d never asked for her advice, but she was the queen of surviving messed up relationships.

‘She’s nothing like any of the other women I’ve ever dated,’ he said, sitting down in the chair his mother had vacated. ‘She’s smart and sweet and so hot it hurts.’ He cringed inwardly. Jesus, he was losing it, had he just told his mom his lover was …

‘How long have you been dating?’ his mother asked.

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