“How’s things going?”
“Living here? Noisy,” I said.
“Ha. Seriously though, you okay? It’s been six weeks since you’ve been home. You haven’t mentioned making this permanent, and you haven’t mentioned leaving. I’m guessing you’re not with that guy anymore, what was his name?”
“Blake. And no,” I answered harsher than I intended.
His hand clenched around his mug, but he was otherwise completely cool, the tightness in his voice giving away that he’d picked up on my anger.
“What happened?”
“We broke up.”
“Lydia,” he warned, not liking my vague answer.
“Luke,” I mocked back at him.
“You can talk to me, Lyds. You can tell me anything. I’ve seen it all. I’ve had my own relationship troubles. I’m here for you.”
I played with the rim of my mug. If I wanted to rebuild my relationship with my brother, all of my brothers, I was going to need to make the effort. I had been vulnerable before though, and it didn’t work out well.
But this was different. This was Luke. If I had to start trusting someone at some point, Luke was the best first step.
“It wasn’t good,” I hedged with a small shake of my head.
“How not good?” His voice held a cautious edge.
“Lots of fights, lots of flowers. Lots of crying, lots of apologies. I needed to get out, so I did. And I just happened to land right back where I started.” That seemed like the right amount to say. A part of me was still too ashamed to say the whole truth of it out loud. Embarrassed that I fell for it. That I let someone treat me the way Blake did for as long as I did.
“And you’re good now?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’m good. I can take care of myself. You know that. Plus, fighting with Seb every day helps me get my mojo back.” I smiled. “Best gift ever was getting me that job.”
He chuckled like I hoped he would. “I still don’t understand what your deal is there, but glad I could help.”
Luke drained the rest of his coffee before getting up and putting his mug in the sink.
“Okay. I’m off to work. If you need anything—”
I cut him off before he could finish his sentence. “Call someone else, yeah, I know.”
“Smart-ass,” he grumbled on the way out the door.
I smiled to myself. Sometimes it was good to be home.
* * *
I tied the bottom of the last pink balloon and paired it with one of the blue ones, attaching it to the back of one of the dining room chairs.
“What else do you need?” I asked Maeve. She seemed to be in charge of the coordination, directing Scarlett, Claire, Sheila, and me to what needed to get set up.
“I think we’re good. Oh, can you get the cheese plate out of the fridge and set it up on the counter?”
“You got it,” I said. I went to the fridge and found it stocked with items that weren’t there this morning. Platters of food, pitchers of different drinks, casserole dishes, finger sandwiches. There were things everywhere, and of course, the prepared cheese plate was under half of it. I moved someof the things onto the counter to make room and tried to finagle some other dishes around to pull it out. I had some sort of a mashed sweet potato dish in one hand, the heavy cast iron bending my wrist uncomfortably, while I tried to tug the plate free without knocking the container of dip to the floor. “Come on, you stupid…”
“Not even the food is safe with you, is it?”
The casserole dish was lifted from my hand before I could even turn my head. Seb reached into the fridge and pulled out the dip that was blocking the plate, giving me free access to finally get it out.
