“At eating your ass, or massaging your head?” I tease.
“Both,” he mumbles, squeezing his arms around my waist. “This is nice. I never get to do this after a scene.”
I frown at that. He should always get to have this if he wants it. “Do you, um…do you ever have sex outside of work? Where you get to do this?”
“Not really,” he says after a moment, his voice sleepy. “It’s been…oh, I don’t know…a while, I guess. It always feels like a different kind of work to go out and pick someone up just for aquick fuck, you know? I don’t have the energy for it, and I work a lot, so it’s not like I’m sitting around horny all the time.”
My stomach sinks at that. It makes me sad for him that he’s getting the sex but lacking the care and intimacy that comes with it. “That’s a shame,” I say softly, keeping my voice even. “This is my favorite part.”
Luke is quiet for a long time, and at first I think maybe he’s fallen asleep when he finally whispers, “Me too.”
Oh, my heart.
I run a hand softly down his flank to his thigh, rubbing at the short, wiry hairs there and tracing my fingers over the flowers on his tattoo. “I like this,” I say finally, changing the subject. “I’ve always thought thigh tattoos are hot.”
He chuckles at that and pulls back to look at me. “Yeah? How come you don’t have any?”
I ponder that for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever been able to come up with anything I’d want on my body permanently. I know it doesn’t have to be that deep, that people get tattoos for all sorts of reasons, but I guess nothing ever really called to me. I could just get something cool, I suppose, without overthinking it.”
“That’s what I did with this one,” Luke says, shifting to pull his right arm out from under me and holding it out in front of us. We both study the abstract, geometric patterns that make up his sleeve. “Guys with tattoos seemed to be getting more work than I was in the early days, so I figured, why the fuck not. It’s cool, and I still like it. But I definitely like my thigh piece better.”
“Does that one mean something then?” I ask, tracing from the flowers along the shape of the cactus. His thick quad tenses under my touch, and I quickly realize my misstep. “Sorry, that’s personal, I’m sure. You don’t have to tell me.”
“No, it’s okay.” He rolls onto his back to look at the ceiling, and I don’t like the added distance it puts between us. “I’vealways liked the desert. It’s always fascinated me that plants can survive out there—and not just survive, but bloom, even. It’s a reminder to me that no matter where you’re planted, you can still grow. We don’t get a choice about how we come into this world or how we leave it, but we can control how we spend the time in between. And I guess I figure that if a cactus can bloom…maybe I can, too.”
I don’t trust my voice enough to respond right away. My throat is thick with unexpected emotion at his vulnerability, and I feel the weight and significance of him opening up to me like this. I try to find words, though, because I don’t want him to mistake my silence for judgment or misunderstanding. “That’s really beautiful,” I manage, resisting the urge to pull him back to me and kiss him senseless.
His lips turn up in a small smile, but he doesn’t say anything. An idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for some time now, and before I can stop to think if it’s agoodidea, I blurt out, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
He turns his face toward me, brows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t really do anything for Thanksgiving,” he says, bewildered by my sudden change of subject. “It’s just like any other random Thursday on my calendar.”
“Come home with me,” I suggest excitedly, propping up onto one elbow to look him in the eye. “To Oklahoma.”
He barks out a laugh in disbelief. “That’s nice of you, Ry, really, but you don’t have to do that. I’ve always been on my own. I’m used to it.”
“I know I don’t have to, I want to,” I insist. “I want you to come home with me.”
He narrows his eyes, almost as if he’s waiting for a “gotcha” moment or something. “I couldn’t put your family out like that. I’m sure they have plans, and I don’t want to mess anything up.”
“Oh, trust me, you’d be doing my mom a favor,” I laugh. “ShelovesThanksgiving. Like, even more than Christmas. She will invite anyone and everyone to our Thanksgiving dinner, she loves cooking and having company over more than anything in the world. She would be absolutely thrilled to have you.” Luke still doesn’t look convinced, so I take one last shot and say, “Do it for me? I’d feel a lot better knowing you’re not just home by yourself.”
He chews his lower lip for a moment, expression unreadable. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience…”
“You couldneverbe. Please?” I put on my best pout and attempt puppy dog eyes. It works when Aggie does it to him, I’ve seen it.
Finally, he breaks into a real, genuine smile that makes my heart soar. “Well…I guess I’ve never been to Oklahoma.”
18
LUKE
Ihate everything about flying.
I hate the way the lines are always slow and long at security, the way that people lack complete spatial awareness when they set foot in an airport, the way that a bag of chips and a soda costs eighteen dollars, the way the seats are so small and crowded, the way the pressure builds in your ears when the plane takes off, the way?—
“God, I love flying,” Riley’s voice cuts into my thoughts, full of awe as he presses his face to the window. He looks so young as he watches the ground far below in wonder, and my heart melts a little. When I don’t say anything immediately, he turns to face me with a wide, toothy grin. “Isn’t it amazing? Like, how are we in theairright now? This plane weighs, what, a hundred thousand pounds? Plus all these people? And we’re just soaring through the air, like a bird. It’s a complete miracle, but we just do it every day and don’t even think about it.”
Huh. He’s not wrong. I never really thought of it that way. I’ve never considered myself a glass-half-empty kinda guy, but Riley’s optimism and positivity about everything is unmatched. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
