Sarah, the server, walked by our table, leaned in, and said, “He so had that coming. Well done, girl.”
“Did he evict you too?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “He comes in here plenty. He thinks anyone who serves him a drink is beneath him.”
That sounded about right. “He’s the lowest of the low,” I said before she hurried off to the kitchen.
“Sadly for her he’ll probably be back,” Luke muttered. “Like a cockroach.”
“Like a cockroach,” I agreed. “But I doubt he’ll be back in my life.”
Luke held up his pilsner. “Cheers.”
I picked up my glass and clinked it to his. Then we both finished our drinks.
“Do you want another, or are you ready to get out of here?” he asked quietly.
“Do you mind if we go? Everyone keeps looking at us.” I was fine with the attention while I aired Felix’s shame, but now I just wanted to be alone…with Luke.
“Let me go take care of the tab. Then I’ll take you home.”
With my eye on the lobby in case Felix came back, I nodded. Once alone, I played over the scene with him, for once not wishing I’d had a better comeback. I’d said the things I wanted to say. My words wouldn’t do anything to change that hateful, pathetic man, but he was no longer part of my life.
Luke returned and held out his hand. I took it as I slid off the stool. When he slipped his arm around me as we exited the bar and walked through the lobby toward the hotel door, I didn’t object. I liked it. I liked him. I wasn’t ready to say good night yet.
As we made our way toward his truck, I belatedly said, “I owe you for half the bar bill.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do,” I said, grinning. “That was a business meeting.”
“Ah, Mags. That”—he squeezed me closer to his side—“was a date.”
I laughed. “That? A run-in with Felix that nearly turned into a brawl? Luke, we need to work on your dating game.”
He laughed too. “The night’s not over. I’m still angling for a good-night kiss.”
With my emotions all over the board from the evening, chances were decent I was going to give him that good-night kiss.
When he helped me up into his truck, his hands trailed over my body, drawing a reaction from deep in my core, and I thought, Maybe even more.
Chapter Seventeen
Luke
Magnolia had been through a lot tonight.
I was so damn proud of her for giving Felix James a piece of her mind. Her words had hit him like well-aimed bullets. That piece of shit deserved every bad thing that came to him.
I was still reeling at the discovery that he’d known Magnolia and I were involved back then. We’d always been careful, staying in the shadows on their property, away from the line of sight of any windows, which made me wonder if he had secret cameras.
None of it mattered much now. His attempt to keep us apart was in the past. I didn’t know where we’d end up, but that son of a bitch would not be what came between us again.
The drive from the Marks to her apartment wasn’t long, and she let me hold her hand the whole way. I was counting that as a victory.
In the alley behind the shops on Main, I pulled up to the back of The Lily Pad. Magnolia’s car was in the single parking spot, but I angled in as close to her vehicle as I could get.
“I’m walking you up,” I said, intent on that kiss.
