Luke Carter,he thought.I’m gonna prove I love you, no matter what it takes.
CHAPTER 31
LUKE—2015
After Luke set out his terms for Brenda and Mikey he went back to the cabin, but nothing quite settled him there. Even Duke could clearly tell something was wrong, and so the two of them were restless together. The horses were, too, and so finally he decided he was just going to have to live with being uncomfortable.
Which was, of course, a lot easier said than done.
To make matters worse, his further encounters with Mikey during rehearsals were as strained as he’d feared they would be, and though the music didn’t suffertoomuch, it was still missing the certain something that would help it really soar. On some level Luke knew he could make all of this easier by actually talking it out with Mikey, but that just wasn’t something he was willing to do. Mikey had already shown his true colors, and not all of the calls trying to let him explain further were going to change his mind. If the music suffered, so be it.
It ate at him, though.
The other thing eating at him was the situation with Aunt Patty. As Katrina had made clear, it was past time for him to deal with that particular issue. The longer he put it off, the more it was going to eat at him from inside.
And so, after spending far longer than he should have mulling it over, he did what he should have done a long time ago.
He sent her an e-mail.
I wish I had cell service up here,he thought.It’d be a hell of a lot easier to text than send an e-mail. Gotta love West Virginia.
It was a very simple e-mail, just asking her if he could come by, if they could talk. Even so, it was the hardest message he’d ever sent.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before she responded and, to his surprise, she said yes, she was available to talk, and would he like to stop by that afternoon?
Well,he thought,here goes nothing.
The whole drive to his aunt’s place he kept rehearsing in his mind the tack he was going to take. He knew it was probably useless to try to plan out their whole conversation, but it was the only way he knew to deal with the level of fear and anxiety curdling in his stomach. If he had at least an idea of what he was going to say, he could go in feeling prepared.
When he pulled up in front of her place, though, he found all of his talking points going right out the window.
This is going to go horribly, I just know it,he thought.She’s going to make me feel even shittier, and which is literally the last thing I need right now.
Regardless, he was going to see it through, no matter how much anxiety it caused him, and no matter how much he wanted to run.
His feet felt like they were weighed down with lead as he got out of the truck and started up the gravel driveway toward the front door, where his aunt was already waiting for him.
By now Patty Carter–she’d taken back her maiden name when her husband divorced her–was in her mid-sixties, though she still could’ve passed for someone a decade younger. ToLuke’s surprise, she had a kindly smile on her face, and he started to think things might turn out alright.
“Hey, Aunt Patty,” he said. “It’s good to see you.”
Her eyes, always so full of kindness, twinkled.
“It’s good to see you too, sweetie. Come on in.”
He did, and as soon as he was inside the house he was hit with a wave of nostalgia so intense it was all he could do to keep his composure. Aunt Patty’s house was filled with the smell of cherries and baking, just like always.
“Yes,” she said, “I made a cobbler just for you. Cherry. Your favorite.”
“Thank…thank you,” he said, stumbling over his words.
He followed her into the kitchen and, once again, he was struck with a powerful wave of memory, of all the times he’d spent here, helping her bake, or just watching her rule over this, her domain. There was the same set of colored Pyrex mixing bowls on the counter, and there was the same set of Fiesta plates that were her pride and joy.
“Always buy West Virginia made when you can,” was her motto, and she stuck to it as much as possible.
Luke took a seat and let her cut him a slice of cobbler–warm but not too hot–with a cold glass of milk. It was almost like he’d gone back in time to the day Mikey had broken up with him, and his eyes filled with tears.
Aunt Patty let him finish the cobbler before she started speaking.
