He swaps the vinyl out without saying anything, flipping through the pile until he finds one with a faded sleeve.A few seconds later, Stevie Nicks fills the space – ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ – soft and slow and too on the nose.
I raise an eyebrow.‘Little dramatic, don’t you think?’
Luke shrugs and smiles before he sits back down.
I take another bite of pie, even though I’m not hungry anymore.
The music plays on, and between the bites and the silence and the way he won’t quite meet my eyes, something shifts.
‘So,’ Luke says casually, helping himself to the last piece of pie, ‘only one sister?’
The question should be benign.Ordinary, even.It isn’t.Not when it comes from him.Not with Stevie Nicks in the background and my heart threatening to climb out of my throat to make a break for it.I could lie.Slip into an edited version of myself that fits into his world.It would work – it always works.Only there’s something achingly honest in the way he looks at me.It’s painfully tragic, like that calf outside – alone in the dirt, wide-eyed and waiting for someone,anyone, to make the world feel a little smaller and a little less lonely.
Balancing my fork between two fingers, I lean back in my chair and offer him the truth.‘One that I know of.’
Luke lifts his eyes, chewing slower.‘That sounds ominous.’
‘It is.’I stab at a piece of pie crust, my chest cracking open with the confession.‘My dad’s on wife number five.She’s twenty-six.’
His fork pauses mid-air.‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty-nine,’ I say, like I haven’t recited this fact a hundred times already to every horrified friend, colleague or mildly intrigued bartender who’d asked the same questions.
His brows lift.‘So … she’s younger than you.’
I nod.‘I was the flower girl at wedding number two.The bridesmaids wore matching extensions.There was a vegan cake no one asked for.’
He blinks.‘That’s … interesting.’
I shrug.‘Sunrises are interesting.A father flirting with statutory rape is not.’
Luke coughs – chokes, really – on a bite of pie.I don’t help him.I sip my water and wait.
‘Fair,’ he croaks.
‘And that’s only the paternal side of my carnival.’
Luke rests his arms on the table, watching me with real attention.
‘Mum fell into a long-term relationship with pinot gris after the divorce.Got a ton of money after the split and decided she wanted to reclaim her youth, or what was left of it.Blamed me and Issy for ruining her body and taking up the best years of her life.Then she rebranded herself as an “intuitive entrepreneur”, which is a nice way of saying she volunteers at places to make herself feel wanted without the commitment.’
His laugh is low and disbelieving.‘That’s impressive.’
‘And then there’s Issy.She’s beautiful in that tragic doesn’t-even-know-it way,’ I tell him.‘Which is probably how she ended up marrying an accountant with a porn addiction and a micro penis, because she has a fear of being abandoned.’
His eyes widen.
I lift my fork in a sarcastic toast.‘My family’s a circus.I’m simply trying to keep the lions from eating the clowns.’
He laughs – really laughs this time.It’s rough around the edges and curls low in my stomach.
‘It suits you,’ he says.
‘That better be a compliment.’
‘I wouldn’t dare say otherwise.’
I narrow my eyes and let it go.‘What about you, then?Tell me more about your emotionally guarded farm family.’
