Dare You To Love Me (A NOLA Heart Novel Book 3) Page 15

  Oh, he remembered, all right. He remembered the way she’d sighed his name and how her hand had slid down his back and onto his ass, tugging him closer. Luke stifled a groan. “I remember.”

  He was just having a problem remembering the right things.

  “Brilliant,” she said in awfully cheery voice, “you’re not interested in me. I’m not interested in you. Now that we’ve got that covered, I’m going to take myself home.” She paused with her hand on the top of the car door, a car door that he’d pinned her to just thirty minutes earlier. “And you’ll take a cab?”

  The idea of taking a cab was suddenly no longer that appealing. Biting back words that he’d later regret, he somberly replied, “I’ll take a cab.”

  She nodded once, a quick jerk of her chin, and then climbed into her car. The headlights flashed on and sliced through the evening mist as the engine hummed to life. Falling back a step, Luke watched as she made adjustments to the rearview mirror and the radio.

  Was she stalling?

  The organ where his heart was supposed to be broke its dormancy and kicked into a quick one-two, one-two. Maybe she’d decided to drive him anyway—just throw him into the car and later into her bed.

  He pretended that the thought didn’t excite the hell out of him.

  Anna’s driver-side window rolled down and Luke instinctively leaned forward, resting his free hand on the roof of the car. He waited just long enough for the window to edge down a few inches to ask, “You rethinking your—”

  She cut him off: “Before I left, I just wanted to tell you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  In the shadows of her car, he watched her mouth quirk up in a wry grin. “Your kissing needs some work. I thought about it and I’ve realized what was wrong.”

  “Yeah?” His voice sounded strangled.

  She snaked her fingers through the window to pat his arm consolingly. “You use too much tongue, Luke. A girl likes a little finesse. Just thought you might want to know that before you find yourself interested in somebody.”

  Too much tongue? Luke had never had any complaints in the sack. Ever. “Thanks for the input.” He was tempted to throw open the door and prove that his kisses revved her engines.

  “Of course!” Her teeth flashed white in the shadows. “God, I feel so much better after getting that off my chest.”

  He gritted his teeth. “I’m glad.”

  “Great! Well, on that note, I’m going to head home. Maybe hit up a little online dating before I hit the sack. Make sure I change my bio to include ‘sloppy kissers, need not apply.’ Have a great night!”

  Luke snatched his hand back as she inched up her window, and before he knew what the fuck had just happened, she’d sped away into the night, leaving him standing alone in the middle of New Orleans’ Carrollton neighborhood.

  She’d left, and he’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

  Only, as he watched her taillights fade off into the distance, he realized that he didn’t know what he wanted at all.

  And wasn’t that the kicker.

  Shitty kisser, I’ll be damned.

  He and Anna Bryce weren’t over yet.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “You’re distracted.”

  Luke ignored Robb Hampton’s pestering and stared hard at the elastic band. The red sports elastic was wrapped around the outside of his foot, so that he could work on tugging his bad leg into a fire hydrant position, against the band and away from his good leg. The first four reps hadn’t been so pretty and even now, on the fifth, Luke wasn’t quite steady.

  Looked like his balance had taken a hike at the same time his military career had.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Luke muttered as he completed his sixth rep. Only eleven more to go until he was done with this round—if his hip didn’t seize up again.

  “Usually you’re in here with a one-track mind. You hit the equipment like a crazed beast.” Robb’s sneakered feet entered Luke’s peripheral vision. “Today you’re moving slower than my eighty-five year old grandma with her walker.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be one.”

  Luke gritted his teeth as he finished the tenth repetition. His body felt like it was on fire. After nearly a week of only seeing Anna’s son during Sassy’s a.m. and p.m. walking times, and not Anna herself, Luke felt that his brain wasn’t doing that much better. He’d strangely accustomed himself to seeing her, and now that he hadn’t seen her at all? Luke felt weird about it.

  He completed his final rep and let the rubber band flutter to the floor as he cranked back and sat on his ass. “Thought you said PT was supposed to get better?”

  His sister’s boyfriend barely spared him a glance as he rolled a large exercise ball over toward Luke’s mat. “You’re out of the pool now,” Robb said, using the tip of his finger to send the blue ball Luke’s way. “I’d say that means you’re progressing.”

  Maybe it was because he was in his own skin, but Luke hadn’t noticed any progression whatsoever. Hell, he’d collapsed only days ago. Dragging his sorry ass onto the ball, he positioned his hands on the floor in a push-up position and hiked the tops of his feet onto the exercise ball for inward curls. Just three months ago, these would have been easy. Now, they were the final round in his physical therapy circuit and wiped him out for the rest of the day. “When can I axe the cane?”

  “How do you feel when you don’t use it?”

  They both ignored the fact that Luke wasn’t always the best patient and left the cane behind more often than he should. He counted out the reps, concentrating on the pull of his abs and the stinging in his hip. Four. Exhale. Five. Exhale. Six. “Could be better,” he said on an exhalation.

  Six. Exhale.

  “Then you’re not ready yet. I’d give it another few weeks, then we can reevaluate from there.”

  More weeks of not driving. More weeks of grappling for his cane like an old man anytime he thought he might pull a Leaning Tower of Pisa and topple right over. Except, unlike the Tower, which had stood for centuries, Luke barely managed to keep himself upright on a good day.

  Eight. On the exhale, Luke said, “Amy invite you over for Thanksgiving later this week?”

  Luke had done Thanksgiving with Brady for as long as he could remember. At least, he’d done Thanksgiving with his best friend’s family during the years he’d been stateside, which hadn’t happened in years.

  “She mentioned it,” Robb said slowly. “I haven’t given her an answer yet.”

  Eleven. Luke breathed in sharply through his nose, eyes narrowing on a speck on the mat. Almost there. Almost there. Thirteen. Exhale, inhale, exhale. The stinging in his hip strengthened to a gnawing bite, and Luke struggled to keep going. Fourteen. Exhale, exhale. Fuck the inhalation. He could do that later when he didn’t think his hip might combust in a flame of heat. Fifteen. Sixteen. “Are you keeping her on a string?”

  He sounded winded. Out-of-shape.

  Luke wasn’t the same guy who could pick up and run a half-marathon with only a week’s worth of training. The guy he was now couldn’t even manage an hour of PT three days per week.

  “I joined her and your mom last year for the holidays.”

  When Luke had been away. Bitterness sank its claws into his back. During all those years he’d been away, Amy and Moira had continued to live their lives—which was the point of him enlisting in the first place. But emotion wasn’t rational, and Luke always was. He stowed the bitterness away. “You should join us this year. Amy would want that.”

  Eighteen. Exhale, exhale. Inhaaallle. His breath shuddered through his body, sounding raspy even to his own ears. Nineteen. Twenty.

  His knees dropped to the mat, his arms curving round his head while he remembered what it was like to be alive. Pain meant you were still living—it’d been a mantra he and his brothers had repeated on various tours of duty overseas.

  “You dead?” Robb asked,
and Luke heard the exercise ball bounce twice like an over-sized basketball before being placed on a metal rack.

  Not dead, just injured. Temporarily. He flipped his worn body over and stared up at the ceiling. “You’re not that lucky, Hampton.”

  Robb’s face entered his line of sight. “I’m always that lucky. It’s why I made sure you were comatose on the floor before I told you that I plan on asking your sister to marry me.”

  His whole body lurched upward, but, hell, he didn’t even make it farther than his elbows. “I asked you to come to Thanksgiving,” he snapped, hauling himself onto his side, “not to buy an engagement ring.”

  Robb didn’t even bother to look chagrined. He sat himself down on a stool on the other side of the room—too far away for Luke to reach him and strangle the life out of him. “It’s too late for all that,” Robb was saying, resting one ankle on his opposite knee, “the ring’s already been bought.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “Amy and I have been dating for years.”

  Luke lifted a finger. “No, you’ve been on-and-off for years. That’s not the same thing.”

  “We’re ready for marriage.”

  Well, that made one of them. Luke was very much not ready to see his baby sister walk down the aisle, to Robb Hampton or to anyone else. She was too young, wasn’t she? Shouldn’t she see more of the world before she settled down and locked the chains on? “All women think they’re ready the moment they see their friends start tying the knot. It’s called peer pressure.”

  Robb snorted. “Only you would call love peer pressure.”

  That got Luke’s attention. “What do you mean, only I would call love peer pressure?”

  “You heard me. Amy’s made it no secret that her big brother has the morals of a thief. You hook up with women and then throw them away like trash. When’s the last time you were in a relationship?”

  The pointed question rose Luke’s hackles. So, he didn’t date frequently. That didn’t make him a bad person. It didn’t make him shallow, not when he had a very good reason for avoiding the dating scene. “It’s been awhile.”

  “How long?”

  “What, is this twenty questions?” Luke shoved himself into a sitting position and up onto his knees. “Like I said, it’s been awhile.”

  “Two years?” Robb prodded, watching him with an expression Luke could only call smug. “We talking maybe something closer to five?”

  Luke ground his teeth. “Jesus Christ, you’re worse than Amy when you want to know something.”

  “Ah.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Luke snapped, “Ah, what? What the hell does ‘ah’ mean unless you’re at the doctor’s office and they’re asking you to bend over and cough?”

  Robb didn’t rise to the insult. Instead he crossed his arms over his chest and slouched back against the wall. “It means that you’re a virgin.”

  Luke came up spluttering. “That’s definitely not the case,” he finally managed to say.

  “You’ve never been in a relationship.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’ve been acquainting myself with only my right hand for the last three decades.”

  “So, you admit that you’re a relationship virgin.”

  “Fine,” Luke bit out, “Yes, Dr. Hampton, I have never had an actual relationship that has lasted past the morning. You happy now or do you want to know the last time I used the restroom and how I prefer my steak cooked?”

  “Not interested, thanks though.” Robb offered him a half-grin. “So, let me get this straight: it’s too soon for me to marry Amy, even though we’ve been together for years, all because you’re scared of love. Did I get that right?”

  “I’m not scared of love. It’s a thing. It exists.” Just not for him. He’d reconciled himself with that fact years ago. “All I’m saying is that maybe the two of you should be waiting until you’ve been more on than off.”

  “But, see, we have been more on than off.”

  “Every time I’ve come home that doesn’t seem to be the case,” Luke pointed out. The clock above Robb’s head struck four p.m. He had to be getting home soon if he hoped to meet up with Julian for Sassy’s walk. “When I’m on leave, the two of you are never speaking.”

  The look Robb sent him spoke volumes—Luke just didn’t understand the message. His sister’s boyfriend rolled his eyes to the ceiling and lifted his hands, palms up, like he was seeking strength. Finally, he said, “I’m so glad that thought actually occurred to you. Have you ever wondered as to the reason why your sister and I break up every time you come home?”

  Actually, it hadn’t occurred to Luke to wonder. He’d always taken the status of their relationship at face value, especially when he factored in Amy’s disposition during those times. She’d never seemed particularly upset or angry, and so Luke had let the big brother role fade in support of her decisions.

  “I can see that you haven’t.” Robb closed a fist near his face, biting on his thumbnail in thought. “Okay, so I’m just going to be totally honest with you here. Amy and I have never broken up.”

  Luke lifted an eyebrow in question. “Come again?”

  “You heard me. Me and your sister? We’ve been together for years—no breaks up, no ‘breaks’ or whatever the kids are calling them these days. Together.”

  Something that felt very similar to betrayal settled in Luke’s stomach. It was heavy and uncomfortable and nauseating, not unlike the feeling that swamped him just moments before he passed out. “What do you mean, you’ve never broken up? You just admitted to—”

  “We’ve been lying.”

  Hell. Luke hastily scanned the workout room. He needed a seat, maybe an ice bath dumped over his head. “Amy doesn’t lie.” The words emerged slow, like they’d been forced around a swollen tongue. “She wouldn’t have just lied to me for thirteen years.”

  His fingers clenched around the cane’s rubber grip.

  Robb didn’t seem that at ease either. Red tinted his cheeks and his hair stood at end thanks to the constant running through of his fingers. “You met me that first time, years ago, and you disliked me with just one glance.”

  Luke rubbed his chest with the heel of his palm. “You told me that my sister was a great lay. I hated you on principle.”

  A grimace pinched Robb’s mouth. “I was eighteen and a punk.”

  “An accurate description,” Luke quipped, still rubbing his chest. It felt . . . tight. Uncomfortable. Not unlike the anxiety that flared up now and again when he felt incredibly stressed. “You were a prick and I didn’t want you near my sister.”

  “You told her that.”

  A trip down memory lane was not what Luke wanted. “I did,” he said, somberly. “I also told her that her taste in men was abysmal and that she should look for someone better.” His eyes narrowed. “Obviously she didn’t heed my advice.”

  More with the reddening cheeks. “I said that on purpose,” the other man muttered, shifting uneasily in his seat. “You had this reputation for being a ladies’ man. I figured that if I could speak your language . . .”

  Speak his language? “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”

  “Yeah, well, I was an idiot back then. I can promise you that I’ve improved since.”

  “Lying to my mom and me for years about dating and not dating Amy isn’t a great step in the right direction, Hampton.” Shit, his mom. When Moira discovered Amy’s subterfuge, she was going to flip out.

  Moira O’Connor prized honesty above everything else—in fact, it’d been the only real rule she’d enforced when he and Amy had been young. Tell the truth and the severity of your punishment would lessen. Lie, and there was a pretty decent chance that the only thing you saw for days would be the four walls of your room.

  At Robb’s ensuing silence, Luke growled, “What am I missing here?”

  “Your mom knows.”

  “She knows what?”

  Luke swore he heard Robb gulp down his fear. “She knows th
at Amy and I lied to you. She’s known all along, but she agreed with us. There was no point upsetting you when you were home for a maximum of a month each year. It was just easier to . . . pretend.”

  So, this was what it was like to feel sucker-punched by invisible hands. Luke wouldn’t recommend it. It felt like death with a sprinkle of Hell for good measure. He went back to rubbing his chest in tight circles. “It was easier to pretend for years than it was to just tell me the truth?”

  “We’re both sorry.”

  Cowards. The word ran rampant in Luke’s skull, bouncing around this way and that until it nearly fell from his tongue. Sweat dampened his palms, and the outer perimeter of his vision turned a rather abnormal shade of red.

  “I’ve got to go.” He heard the words escape him, though he had no recollection of opening his mouth. “Yeah, I’ve . . . got to go.”

  He threw a wild glance about the room, sure that if Robb stepped too close, Luke might just introduce the man to his fist. As much as a scared shit he’d been those first few weeks of training, years in the military had sharpened his reflexes. He’d been the best sniper in his platoon and a workhorse when it came to combative training.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Robb was saying plaintively, straightening from the chair. “I would have said something sooner, but as the years went on, you didn’t like me any better than that first day.”

  “Because I thought you were playing with my sister’s heart.” Luke grabbed his cell phone and wallet off the bench. He stuck them into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Turns out y’all were just shitting on mine the whole time.”

  “Listen, Luke—”

  Except Luke didn’t hear the rest of what Robb Hampton had to say. He’d already thrown open the door and had stalked (or as close to stalking as he possibly could, given the circumstances) to the stairwell. As he took them one at a time, leaning heavily on his cane for support, he called for a cab.

  He couldn’t guarantee that if he saw Robb’s face on Thanksgiving Day that he wouldn’t introduce his fist to the man’s pretty face.

  By the time Luke made it home, the sun had started to set and Julian Bryce was sitting on his front stoop.