He nodded once. “I went by Reid’s last night. She’s still there. She didn’t really say much though. Thought I’d get the story from you.”
“What’s for breakfast?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Breakfast burritos. Eggs don’t generally travel well, so Sheila figured this was safer.”
I pulled two mugs from the cabinet and poured us each a cup of steaming hot coffee before the carafe had finished filling. It was scalding hot and too strong, but I didn’t care. Ididn’t care about anything.
I dug into my burrito while Luke shoveled home fries into his mouth. We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Had Lydia already had breakfast? Maybe I would save half of this for her in case she came back this morning.
“How’s Colt?” I asked. It had been a few days since I’d seen him. At three weeks old, he was still so small, but really damn cute.
Luke grinned like the proud father he was. “He’s great. Getting bigger every day. He’s definitely going to be a redhead like his mama.”
“Poor kid,” I joked with a laugh. Luke chuckled too. His smile slowly faded, and he ate the last bit of his burrito.
“So, you want to talk about it?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know, man.” I pushed myself back into the wooden dining room chair. “We had a fight, I guess. She wanted to post something on my accounts that I didn’t agree with. It was barely a fight. But next thing I know, she’s telling me I’m just like her fucking ex and walking out the door. Haven’t heard from her since.”
“Have you tried to reach out to her?”
I leveled a hard stare at him.
“Stupid question, okay.” He lifted his hands in front of him in surrender.
“I’ve called and texted. I don’t want to overdo it. She already thinks I’m like that jackass; I don’t want to feed into it. But I can’t just sit back and not try either.” I drummed my fingers on the table, debating whether to say the next part or not. “I may have driven by Reid’s house… a couple of times.”
“Has she answered you at all?” Luke got up and took our biodegradable containers to the trash, putting the forks inthe sink while he was up.
“Not once.”
“Okay.” He turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms over his chest.And here we go.I braced myself for the lecture that was about to come. “What exactly did you say to her?”
I told him about how Lydia wanted to post my recent financial success, specifically how I took SD Ink from near bankruptcy to thriving.
Luke’s arms dropped by his side. “Was it really that bad? Closing up entirely?” he whispered.
“Luke, I got a foreclosure notice on this house because I was so far in the hole. I couldn’t even buy you a round of beer—my account was negative.”
“I knew you were struggling, man, but if I had known how bad it was, I would have helped. We all would have.”
“That’s the point though. I didn’t want you to know. Or Wyatt, Reid, or Wes. All three of them are running successful businesses. Wyatt’s had to turn customers away. Reid’s getting more and more major renovation projects—he’s killing it. Wes takes on multiple cases at a time. And you’re out there, saving the town from literal murderers. I didn’t want any of you to know that I couldn’t keep a simple tattoo shop open. I overextended my credit and found myself in a hole that I couldn’t get out of. It was fucking humiliating. And Lydia wanted to post it on the internet for the world to see? I flipped.”
Luke watched me. He opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything. When he scrubbed his hand over his jaw, I knew he had something on his mind.
“I didn’t lay a finger on her, so don’t even ask,” I told him.
“I know that,” he said without hesitation. The weight on my chest lifted incrementally. After being compared to her abusive ex, I was afraid he would think the worst. But Luke knew me better than almost anyone else. He knew that I would never hurt her, but still, it made me glad to hear him say that.
“What, then?” I asked more harshly than I intended. “You want to say something.”
“It’s just, that doesn’t seem like a major fight. What am I missing?”
“I agree. It was an argument,” I huffed. “I told her she was crazy if she thought it was a good idea to post that, and I would never admit that it was ever that bad, even though it was.”
Luke tilted his head like a dog who just heard his favorite word, except instead of excitement, it was confusion on his face. “You told her she was crazy?”
“Not like that. I just meant…” I trailed off. Didn’t I though? Tell her she was crazy. “Fuck.”
