“I dunno, it hasn’t bothered me so far. I wouldn’t even issue a traffic violation. I can handle being bumped into on occasion if you’re the one I’m bumping into.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’m thinking of installing a system. Lanes. Arrows. Yield signs, all the yield signs.”What is wrong with you! Why are you doubling down on teasing him? You’re squandering the moment!It would seem my audacity had limited funds to work with and I’d already overdrawn.
“If you want me to yield to you, all you have to do is ask,” he said in a hushed tone, stepping closer into me, pushing back a strand of hair from my face.
Everything came to a screeching halt. This had taken a turn into terrain I wasn’t equipped to navigate. Did he realize the double entendre? Or had it not occurred to him?
Probably the latter. Who was I kidding? Definitely the latter, a throwaway comment, tossed out in jest. Luke was playful, flirt adjacent even, but never consciously. Therein lay the fatal flaw in my plan. I kept expecting his responses to match society’s flirting norms, but Luke didn’t move through the world that way. If I wanted to know whether his actions toward me carried anything beyond friendship, I had to change my approach. So far, I’d only managed to stack questions instead of obtain answers.
When I didn’t respond, he gave me one of his lopsided smiles, squeezing my shoulder, those damn eyes directing their softnessat me, turning me into a melt-pile of feelings right there on the kitchen floor.
“I have to head out. I should be home by six. Have a good day.”
I stood there long after the door shut, hope blazing. When he came home tonight, I’d be ready with a new plan, one that wouldn’t have me chickening out the moment things got real.
Chapter 24
Luke
Ezra isn’t wrong about how oblivious I can be when someone’s showing interest in me. Those social cues just do not load in my brain. I mean, I can spot interest if someone sets off a firework that spells I WANT YOU in the sky. I can spot flirting if it’s Shawn-style—loud, flashy, and painted in neon. But the subtle stuff? And when it’s happening to me? Yeah, I’m clueless. But yesterday and this morning I thought I’d picked up on something from Oliver. The way he looked at me, brushed against me, stood a little too close. But when I tried to respond? It just tanked. Totally flat.
To be fair, that could be my fault. If there’s one thing I’m worse at than noticing when someone likes me, it’s showing I like them back. Last night’s “competent mouth” comment... prime example. Even I knew that was not “the move. Still, I thought I’d been a bit more successful this morning, but Oliver hadn’t taken the bait. It left me confused and off-kilter.
“What’s going on with you today? You seem distracted as hell?” Sarah asked as we were heading to the shelter for an evaluation. “Did one of the residents call last night?”
“No, nothing like that,” I said.
“Well, that tells me everything,” she said. “You going to share more, or are we playing into the whole emotionally repressed, stoic bodyguard archetype today? I’ll play along, but fulldisclosure, I think we should leave that role to Brent. It fits him like Kevlar. Doesn’t quite work on you.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, one emotionally constipated brick wall on this team is enough. I’m trying to sort out if I’m being hopelessly naïve or accidentally arrogant.”
Sarah raised a brow. “Those are two pretty different flavors of confusion. You want to break that down for me?”
“It’s the guy I live with. I’ve recently realized I might like him a bit more than basic friendship.”
“Well, I’ll be, Luke Walker caught feelings?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Rare form. Make sure to log it in the history books.”
“So what’s the deal?”
I appreciated that she didn’t make it weird, didn’t turn this into an interrogation or explanation of my orientation because the team’s only seen me with women. Nobody here plays that game. We all knew assumptions screwed people over. Still, it was nice. She just heard me, accepted it, and focused on what actually mattered: I like someone, and I have no clue what the hell to do about it.
“Well, this morning it seemed like he might be flirting or testing physical boundaries. Something like that.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I thought I left him an obvious opening to like, take the next step, and he didn’t. So now I’m wondering if I made the whole thing up because my brain is an overconfident dumbass.”
“I see. So translation, you responded in a very Luke-esque way, which is to say warm, sweet, respectful, and about sixty percent less obvious than you thought. Walk me through it. What did he say, what did you say, and what did you do?”
Leaving out the embarrassment of my attempts at flirting last night, because I would rather get tased than share what I’d saidaloud to another human being ever again, I told her about both run-ins in the kitchen.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Sarah said when I finished. “Let me see if I got this. This man comes up behind you, wraps his fingers into your belt loop, whispers into your ear, and instead of turning around and kissing him, you handed him a mug?”
“I handed him the mug because he asked me to and I was closer and in his way.”
“Luke, he touched you intimately. He whispered in your ear. You know who whispers? People trying not to wake someone up, villains detailing their master plan, and lovers. That’s it. Those are the categories. He didn’t care about his mug. He manufactured an excuse to touch you and you gave him nothing in return.”
“I told him I’d yield for him if he asked,” I defended, but suddenly felt more embarrassed for myself than I did coming into this conversation.
“Yes, which I’m sorry but that could mean a lot of things. It’s not clear, and you said it after he retreated into a joke because you didn’t respond to his initial flirting. Let me break this down for you. From his perspective this is what happened. He took a risk and made a bold move and you responded with here’s your ceramic vessel you asked for, have a nice day, move along.”
