22
KNOX
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Duke’s voice crooned as he came over to perch on the arm of the couch I currently lounged on.
I groaned. “It can’t be morning yet.”
I’d barely slept last night, too busy chasing my thoughts and memories of Lucy. I still didn’t know what had happened, but it had to be something big, and it had to have been at that damn gallery.
After everything Lucy had done for this rich gallery guy and Lucy’s dad, he deserved some gratitude, not whatever had happened.
But my heart still ached from our fight. He’d wanted me as far away from him as I could get, and it had hurt. It still fucking hurt.
“It is, though.” Duke patted my knee in consolation. “I made coffee, at least, so you can’t be mad at me. Also, you crashed on my couch.”
“You’re my best friend,” I huffed, “aren’t you legally obligated to let me sleep on your couch?”
“When you have a fight with your boyfriend, absolutely.” Duke raised an eyebrow. “So admit Lucy is your boyfriend, and I will allow our impromptu sleepover, especially since you’ve been extra sassy since last night.”
I sighed. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“You broke up then? That would explain the sass.”
I grabbed the pillow from behind my head and threw it at him.
He dodged it, completely unbothered. “But seriously, Knox, are you going to tell me what happened? Why you came here all pissed when you were supposed to stay with Lucy at least one more day?”
I sat up, feeling that heavy sadness fall onto my shoulders again. “Something happened yesterday at the gallery, and he wouldn’t talk to me.”
Duke frowned. “Do we know what it was?”
I shook my head. “I was trying to get him to talk about it, but…things went south pretty quickly.”
I’d had all night to roll the fight over in my head. Enough times to see how much Lucy was trying to push me away. It might not have been because he wanted me gone, but because he didn’t want me to see him break down.
He’d done it the other day, too, hadn’t he? After his sister came by and upset him by doing something that he still hadn’t told me. I could guess that she made fun of his new painting, but he’d skillfully distracted me away from getting the real answers.
Not that I’d minded too much in the moment.
But I fucking minded now, when it had happened again, and he’d pushed me away instead of letting me in.
“Knox?”
I startled out of my thoughts. “Sorry. Got lost in my head.”
“So, you two had a fight?” Duke guessed. “Because you were being your usual charming self and trying to get someone to flay themselves open where they were the most sore.”
I winced. “That sounds accurate, yes.”
“And you, in typical emotional fashion, packed up your stuff and left, thereby leaving him alone to cry himself into a hole?”
I rubbed my hands roughly over my face. “Yeah. He even locked his bedroom door.”
“An interesting choice when I know you would have bulldozed the door down.”
“I wouldn’t have! It’s his home, Duke!”
Duke merely hummed. “Hasn’t stopped you before. I remember you still owe me a treehouse for chopping down my ladder and compromising the integrity of the trunk so my parents wouldn’t let me go up there anymore, all because I put ‘No Knoxes allowed’ on the trap door.”
