Page 28 of All the way home

“I just want—” He shook his head.

“What are you actually getting at? Do you not want me to be friends with her?”

“No, Rena.” Now it wasn’t just the absence of smiling eyes. A frown turned his face harsh and unpleasant. “I don’t want to be that guy. You’re allowed your own friendships.”

“But you don’t like Sahar.”

The car rolled to a stop at a red light.

A muscle worked in Lucas’s jaw as he closed his eyes. “I like Sahar just fine. She’s great. I just . . . worry.”

“What is this about?”

“Are you gay?” he demanded at last.

A deafening silence rang through the car.

“Am I . . . what?”

“Rena . . . ” Lucas dragged a hand down the side of his face. “It’s not a problem if you are. I just want to know.”

Rena sat back, blinking hard. “I’m not . . . I’m not into women, Lucas. I’m with you.”

A change rippled across his expression, too swift to identify before it was gone. “Yeah,” he said, tone laced with bitterness. “I know that.”

“So logically—”

“Feelings aren’t always logical!” Lucas burst out, and the energy rolled off him in waves, crackling and electric like static in the air. “It doesn’t have to make sense for me to feel it.”

“Feel what?”

“Sometimes I wonder—” Running his hand through his hair so it stood up on end, Lucas let out a little groan. “I’m sorry. I’m not thinking clearly.”

“You know I don’t do well with touch.” Rena wished she could sink through the seat.

“I know,” he said wearily. “I know, it’s not that. I just—”

“Do you think I don’t love you?” she demanded. “Because I do.”

“I know you do.”

“I’m just not”—she floundered, helpless—“I don’t know.”

It was probably the wrong thing to say. Lucas’s eyebrows pulled together like they always did when he was studying, mouth tipping further downward.

Something unpleasant snaked its way through her abdomen. Considering the hard lines of his side profile, she asked, “Are we actually fighting about this?”

Lucas bit his lip, tugged it under his teeth, and said nothing.

People left all kinds of statements in their silences, and usually, they were hard to decipher. But right then it was obvious.

Rena fell silent, tapping the rhythm of the numbers and letters of the license plate on the car in front of them on her knee.

The quiet the rest of the way home was stifling.

At last, when they had pulled into her driveway, Lucas leaned forward and rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “I don’t want to fight.”

After a moment’s consideration, Rena nodded. “Okay. I also don’t want to fight.”