“You did when I put my mouth on you,” Luke said, his voice dropping. He crawled across the bed to me. “When I was licking your clit, you screamed.” He bit my neck and I convulsed with shivers. “Want me to try it again? You can bite the pillow.”
And he was right, turned out I was a screamer.
The next day, Luke invited Annie and Macdara over, and they spent the day with us in front of a cozy fire as a cold spring rain came down outside. Macdara was equally board game-averse, but was a whiz at cards, so she and Charlie and Luke played while Annie poured out her heart to me about Milos. But while she was truly broken-up, I also felt that she was secretly relieved. It was hard to be apart from someone, but it waseven harder to be together if drinking was involved. I remembered my mom, and her warnings not to let CPS take me. But in the end, I had told on her to my teacher, and being taken from our apartment and sent up north was the best thing that ever happened to me.
When they left after lunch, Charlie lounged in front of the TV, and Luke and I went out onto the back deck. We looked at the waves, the whitecaps stirred up by the storm. He was very quiet. “What’s up?” I asked, running my hand through his thick hair. Man, it was a little unfair to us ladies when men got hair like that.
“I’m worried about Annie.”
“I think she’ll be ok,” I told him. “In the end, I think this will be for the best.”
“No, I agree about that,” he nodded, then hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“My dad has been pressuring her for a long time. First it was to marry Milos and settle down. He and Milos’ dad are old friends from State. Then when he saw the way the wind was blowing, he got all over her to leave Milos and move back in with him. Which would be a disaster.”
“Why?”
“He’s so controlling. Every single thing either of us did as kids, he had a hand in. Or at least a finger. He drove my mother insane.”
I nodded. “Annie told me she moved back to France.”
He looked surprised. “She told you that? Well, Annie and I have different perspectives on my mom. She blames hercompletely for the divorce, but I can see her side. She was twenty years younger than my dad—she never even went to college. He moved her from another country all the way up here, completely isolated, then he controlled her every move. Sure, I wish she had behaved differently, not run off and left us, but I can understand. All Annie can see is that she abandoned her children. I was pretty young, and Annie wanted to protect me.”
I thought of Charlie. “I could never, ever leave my kids. No matter what.” Like Cassie had. Then I realized what I was saying. “Luke, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your mom.”
He was watching me intently. “No, it’s all right. Like I said, I can see both sides, but that doesn’t mean that I would ever run away from the people I love.”
I swallowed hard.
“Emmy, what Charlie said this morning—”
“It’s ok!” I butted in. “You don’t need to say anything. He just has a big mouth. He doesn’t understand that it’s just the kind of person you are, kind and sweet and considerate and thoughtful and protective. That’s why you act…like you do with me.”
Luke smiled. “I can’t imagine how the people I work with would react to hearing me described that way. I think ‘mean SOB’ is more what they’d say.” He leaned and kissed me. “Thank you, but you’re wrong.”
“About what?”
“I act the way I do about you—crazy, worried, horny, clingy, idiotic—” he shook his head ruefully—“because I do love you. I love you,” he repeated, looking into my eyes.
I felt dizzy. So I grabbed his shirt and kissed him, until the rain started again and we went back inside.
Chapter 11
Annie plopped down next to me on the bleachers at swim practice on Monday. She hefted a bag off her shoulder and put it our feet, then engulfed me in a hug. She was a hugger.
“Emmy, thanks so much for giving me such great advice over the weekend! I really appreciate your support.”
After what she had given me, a little advice was the least I could do. “I’m not exactly a relationship expert,” I warned her. That was putting it mildly. “But I’m glad I could help.”
She nodded at me. “You did. You gave me a lot to think about. You’re so tough! I’m going to try to be tough, too.”
I was anything but tough. Every time I had closed my eyes the night before I had dreamed about Cassie. And every noise I heard in the house made me jump up to the ceiling.
“I think what will really help me is a project,” Annie continued. She pulled an ultra-slim laptop out of her bag and woke it up. “I need a distraction. I think we should redecorate Luke’s house. And by that I mean, decorate it in the first place! He doesn’t even have enough furniture for the five of us to sit on in the living room!”
I was instantly wary. I had been feeling a little cautious toward my situation with Luke since he told me…that thing he told me on the deck on Sunday. “Maybe he would want to do it himself,” I suggested.
