Chapter Ten
Luke
“You’re an idiot.”
I spared Gus a glance. “Hmm?”
He jumped down from the conservatory we were refurbishing. “You measured the panels wrong.”
Bollocks.I sighed and fished my battered notebook from my back pocket. “You sure?”
“Positive. And it’s the third fuck-up today, so it’s your turn to buy lunch.”
I pretty much always bought lunch to make upfor the fact that Gus, despite his terminal foot-in-mouth tendencies, was the best wingman a reluctant roofer could ask for. Especially one who apparently couldn’t count. “What do you want?”
“Noodles from the market.”
“Shocker.” Of course he did. Every damn Tuesday. Not that I was complaining. It sure beat the soggy ham sandwiches we’d grabbed from the petrol station for breakfast.
Muttering, I left him to fix up my mess and drove into town, ditching the van on some double yellows by the chemist. The Thai food stall was busy, so I scribbled my order down for Kanok and made a run for the bank. The bank next door to Mia’s shop, obviously, because there was still more scope to fuck up my day.
I hadn’t seen her since I’d fucked her in my bed. I’d barely slept either and thefew people I had around me on a regular basis were starting to notice I didn’t have my shit together. Fran rang me as I was queuing in the bank.
“You looked traumatised when I saw you yesterday. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”
“Ma, there’s a difference between PTSD and a hectic weekend.”
“Do you have PTSD? I’ve read about that. It can come on years after people leave active service—”
“I don’t have PTSD,” I snapped. “I spent all my time refuelling helicopters on a ship so big I hardly saw the fucking sea, let alone anything else.”
There’d been a little more to it than that, and Ihadseen things I’d rather forget, but in the grand scheme of war experiences, mine was pretty tame. It was hooking up with my long-lost ex I couldn’t handle.
I deflected Fran with a whitelie about being three storeys off the ground, and hung up. It was my turn at the counter. I paid in a couple of cheques and made my escape. I was halfway to the door when Mia appeared.
She had nowhere to go, and neither did I. We met in the doorway, and she sighed, as though my presence was at the top of her shit list.
No change there. I started to step around her, nodding in greeting.“All right, mate?”
“Mate?” She raised a perfect brow. “Since when do you call me that?”
Since never. I tried for a smile. “What’s wrong with calling you ‘mate’? Friends, aren’t we?”
Mia snorted; a delicate, annoyed sound that riled me up more than it should’ve. “Luke, we’ve never been friends.”
She stepped around me and moved on into the bank. A growl built in my throat, couplingwith the urge to drag her back and demand she tell me—showme—what we were to each other, if not friends. But I swallowed it all down and left because she was right. We’d been lovers, partners, and now we were strangers who had the kind of sex that was still keeping me up at night.
Super.
I collected lunch and returned to work in a worse mood than when I’d left.
Gus eyed me like hehad something to say. I gave him my food too to keep him quiet, and climbed back up the ladders.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of glass panels and wood glue, which pissed me off even more. I hated conservatories—glass coffins that were freezing in winter and volcanic in summer. Give me a thatched roof that meant something any day of the week.
“Luke?”
“What?”
