“You okay?”
His laugh arrived without any humor. “I am… extremely not okay.”
I arched my eyebrows. “That’s not a phrase.”
His gaze flickered to mine, steadier than the rest of him. “It is now.”
That almost got a smile out of me.
He drew a breath and lifted his head.
“Mila and I aren’t together.”
That wasn’t where I’d expected this conversation to begin.
For a fleeting second, all I could think was that Ethan was going to be unbearable.
“Okay,” I said carefully.
“We never were.”
I nodded, still trying to work out why he’d come here to tell me this. “Right.”
Luka glanced away, his jaw tightening before he added, “I’m not interested in women.”
The room fell quiet around us.
“Oh.”
Oh God.
Suddenly I wasn’t trying to understand Luka anymore.
I was trying to catch up.
His gaze snapped back to mine. “No one else can know about this.”
The urgency in his voice left no room for misunderstanding.
“I won’t tell anyone.” The promise came easily. “I mean that, Luka.”
A dozen thoughts were trying to arrive at once.
I shoved all of them aside.
Right now, the important thing was the look on his face.
He held my gaze a moment longer, as though testing the promise for weaknesses.
Eventually he nodded, and I had the feeling I’d just passed some kind of exam.
“Is that why you came here?”
“No.” That answer came faster, surer. Luka looked down at the floor, as though searching for words that refused to cooperate. “I thought this would stop. That I could go back to normal.” A humorless laugh escaped him. “It was a ridiculous assumption.”
I didn’t ask whatthiswas. I already knew. Or at least I thought I understood.
Luka had a habit of making that feeling temporary.
