A/N: Hello everyone! Happy Holidays! Hope you're all having a good time.
I had a couple of days off to write so even with the mad Christmas rush, I was able to get this one out. This is a bit shorter than the past several chapters but I didn't want to plug in a few extra paragraphs in here if they weren't necessasry. It's a simple scene, really, but there's a lot going on in it. It's a turning point in their relationship and possibly the start of the end—LOL! Just kidding. We'll see, right?
And oh, has anyone noticed the little banner on the side with pics of Luke and Max? Let me know what you think!
Anyway, enjoy reading!
***
As far as spending the night together goes, that Friday night wasn’t the most romantic. It wasn’t even peaceful. Or restful.
Just a couple of hours after we fell asleep, Luke’s temperature spiked and he was a scorching, sweaty, shivering ball under the covers. He was also tossing and turning, gripped with some kind of feverish dream.
He was muttering words and sounds I couldn’t make out except for one—the name Elise.
He yelled the name out loud that I nearly fell off the bed at the force of his speech.
Who the hell Elise was, that I didn’t know.
But I would have no time or energy to speculate because it became a very long night.
I’ve never tended a sick person before other than my grandfather who had no more than a really bad indigestion in his life so I wasn’t highly skilled as a nurse.
I tried to cool Luke off with some wet towels on his neck and forehead. I sat by his side with a basin of water and ice and went through a dozen towels. The basin became even handier when he rolled to his side, groaning miserably, and puked his guts out. I went back to the kitchen, dumped the mostly liquid waste out and down the garburator and scrubbed the whole thing down before going back to him with some fresh ice water.
Part of the bed was soaked from the water that spilled when I had angled the basin toward him just as he was about to wretch so I had to soak it up with a towel until it was only mostly damp. Then I got out a large bath towel and laid it on the area so that Luke didn’t roll over to a cold, wet spot.
His shirt was practically dripping with sweat so I had to gently pull him up to a sitting position and tug the shirt off his head. He was too feverish to pay attention to my instructions to sit still for a few seconds so I could wipe him down with a cold towel so I had to come up behind him on the bed, letting him lean back against me as I ran the towel down his chest and shoulders and back. It was tricky putting a shirt on him but I managed it. At that point, I stopped worrying about whether I was touching him too intimately. With him that sick, I had to do what was necessary. But it didn’t mean that I noticed nothing throughout the whole exercise. Many aspects of Luke called out to all my womanly parts but it was not a time for that kind of appreciation.
With his temperature finally coming down about a few hours into the whole episode, he fell back asleep and I sat there next to him, struggling to keep my drooping eyes open and alert in case he needed me for something.
I woke up sometime at dawn, just as the skies were being touched with hints of light, my lower back and neck protesting painfully after hours of sleeping in a sitting position with my head crooked to the side.
Luke was half-awake next to me. It was his nudging on my leg that woke me up. His forehead felt much cooler than before, almost normal. His eyes were bleary and still red-rimmed but fever wasn’t the issue anymore.
“My stomach’s sore,” he said, his voice as raspy as sandpaper.
Since what little food he had was gone, his acids were probably not being too kind to his tummy.
“I’ll get you something to eat, okay?” I said, brushing his hair back from his face. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t go,” he pleaded, grabbing my hand.
I smiled and kissed the tip of his nose like he’d done to me before. It was the kind of kiss that disabled anyone from being able to say no to anything. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”
I jumped off the bed and headed into the kitchen, stretching my poor, screaming muscles.
Most people would think of only one activity in bed that could cause that kind muscle discomfort but sadly, no, it wouldn’t be that in my case.
I made him some plain toast and heated up some chicken broth.
Without complaint, he ate all of it and promptly fell back asleep.
I couldn’t sleep anymore so I cleaned up and took a shower. I washed my underwear in the shower and dried it with the hair dryer, which let me tell you, gets the job done but not after you start losing feeling in your arm because it takes a while. I combed my hair down and let it air-dry into its natural waves. I borrowed another shirt from Luke and changed into it before collecting all the dirty towels and clothes. I located the laundry room and started a wash cycle.
With that done, I headed back to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. It was about half-past seven then and I could see the open blue skies of the city from the breakfast bar where I sat with my feet tucked under me, sipping my coffee slowly and wondering why despite the kind of night I had, I was smiling.
Then the home phone on the kitchen wall rang. I listened to Luke’s voice recording as the answering machine picked up, wondering if it was Peggy checking in on him since it was too damn early on a weekend morning, even for me, for it to be a social call.
“Hey Luke, it’s me, Elise.”
My blood ran cold.
The woman’s voice—deep, cultured and feminine—continued on pleasantly and with familiarity as if this was not the first time she was calling and leaving him a message.
“I know you’ve been bugging me forever about it but there’s just been so many things going on that I couldn’t be sure so as soon as I knew, I thought I’d give you a call,” Elise said with a light, pretty laugh (yes, it was pretty). “I should be there in two weeks or so, depending on how soon I can wrap things up around here. It’ll be hectic when I get there but I’ll make sure we can get together and catch up. It’s been a long time since I’ve been back home so you’re going to have to get me back into the swing of things again. You can’t refuse, okay? I’ll call you closer to the date but ring me back. I’ve missed you and there’s so much we have to talk about. I have to go now though. Call me, okay? Bye!”
The call ended and the answering machine beeped and I still sat there, staring at it while trying not to bite my teeth through the ceramic cup.
Eventually, I felt the burn of the coffee on my mouth and tongue and I pulled the cup away. Suddenly, the coffee tasted horrible and I dumped it into the sink.
No, it wasn’t the coffee.
It was the bitter taste of good old jealousy.
Whoever this Elise was, she was someone with a history with Luke, and from the sounds of that phone call, they still seemed to share the present and would most likely continue to share the future.
And clearly, from Luke’s almost-frantic shout of her name at the peak of his fever, she wasn’t insignificant to him.
And no, evidently, I wasn’t insignificant to him either.
I was inexperienced, sure, but I wasn’t that naive not to have a single clue of where I stood with Luke. I was, as mind-boggling as it could sometimes be, important to him. He desired me, alright, but at the same time, I could sense that what he felt for me was deeper, more tender.
The problem was, the force that was pushing him away felt just about as strong as the pull that kept drawing him to me.
And I don’t know that I’m brave enough—not to just to fall but to also pick myself up and dust the hurt away if he wouldn’t be there to catch me.
I saw the kind of devastation love could leave in its wake. It destroyed my mother before she even knew what was happening to her. The only people that kind of pain couldn’t touch were those who didn’t care deeply enough.
Love was a double invite—one to happiness and one to pain. There was no way to separate the two because the dominating presence of one was often the direct result of the absence of the other. To imagine it otherwise was, quite frankly, foolish.
I may one day work up the courage to take the risk but I so desperately wished that when I did, it would only ever be with someone much braver than me. And Luke, for all his confidence and easy-going attitude, was more afraid of it than I ever was.
And it doesn’t help that where he’s concerned, the problem isn’t just his reluctance. His vast experience with many women isn’t just a reputation—it’s a reality.
A text message from Terrence snapped me out of my melancholy.
[Terrence: Everything OK? Do I need to intervene?]
Clearly, he knew I spent the night but given how he and Peggy had been so encouraging about me and Luke, I wasn’t surprised. At least he had no illusions that everything would be smooth-sailing. He did offer intervention if necessary, after all.
I smiled and texted him back.
[Me: He’s looking better this morning. I might have a career in health care after last night.]
[Terrence: Good to hear. Thanks again for looking after him.]
[Me: He’ll do the same for me.]
I wasn’t sure where the conviction of that claim came from but it felt pretty solid.
I didn’t doubt for a second that if I had the slightest sniffles, Luke would have me confined in bed and plied with the best chicken soup in the city.
[Terrence: You’re absolutely right.]
But just because he would be there for me, didn’t mean that he could be with me. Weren’t those his words that night of the fundraising dinner?
Exhausted to the bone all of a sudden, both physically and emotionally, I washed my cup and spent some time in the living room (which was open to the kitchen), watching some TV and organizing the business magazines and newspapers that Luke had left haphazardly on his coffee table. When I was relaxed enough, I headed back to the kitchen to make a big batch of chicken soup this time so he’d have enough to eat throughout the weekend. I made it a little more substantial this time, adding lots of shredded chicken, carrots and celery to it.
It took my mind off things, postponing answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask yet.
It was a therapeutic exercise until the phone started ringing off the hook.
Someone tried to call four times before finally leaving a message on the answering machine.
“Luke, you’re insane if you think I’ll just let this go,” a woman, clearly seething, hissed through the line. “You can’t avoid me forever. This is not one of those times you just decide you’ve had it. We have things to discuss whether you like it or not!”
A string of swear words concluded that message.
Okay.
A couple more similar scathing messages came after that from the same caller and I swear, I could almost hear the woman grinding her molars on the other end of the line.
I was going to keep ignoring it until about the sixth message.
I didn’t even think. I was seriously so done with her.
“Luke isn’t currently in but I’m sure he’ll figure out how desperately you want to talk to him after the last half dozen messages you’ve already left,” I said chirpily although I was gritting my teeth. I was starting to stir the soup a little more aggressively but I couldn’t help myself.
“Who the hell are you?” the woman demanded after a stunned second of silence.
“His cook,” I answered.
“He doesn’t have a cook,” she retorted and I resented her for possibly knowing that fact when I didn’t.
“His bodyguard, then.”
“Please, honey, you are not Terrence.” Her laugh was brittle and a bit shrill. “Who the fuck are you and where is Luke? Get him on the phone before you waste any more of my time.”
I raised a brow. “No one asked you to message-bomb him.”
Some kind of half-gasp, half-scream came from the woman and I moved the phone away from my ear slightly before she could permanently damage my hearing. Although it was probably too late since I could never clean my ears out enough now of the filth I just listened to her say in her last half a dozen messages.
“You dare you talk to me like that? Are you fucking delusional?” The woman ranted. “You think you’re important because you’re the newest chick warming his bed? Let me assure you that you are only one in a very long list so get your head out of your ass and make yourself useful. Go get me Luke.”
“So if you and I are two in a very long list, why are you bothering?” It must be the lack of sleep or my own brooding thoughts but my usual reserve was nowhere to be found today.
“Who the fuck said I’m part of that list?” the woman scoffed. “This is Lola Lincoln, you idiot. In case you haven’t heard or you’re just too slow for it, I’m actually Luke’s girlfriend.”
“Lola.” Not sure why I repeated it. Probably to confirm that I wasn’t just having a freaking nightmare.
“That’s right. Lola Lincoln.”
Great. The emotionally unstable ex.
From one mystery woman to another.
Just the kind of day it’s been.
I sighed and didn’t care one whit that she could hear me. “You can’t see it right now but I have my starstruck face on. That’s how it works, right? And I’m pretty sure that you’re not Luke’s girlfriend anymore.”
Boy, did she ever swear at me.
Luke probably wouldn’t be too happy to hear about this conversation but I had my limits.
“Who the fuck are you?” Lola was screeching on the other line. This was not the actions of a rational person. She was on some seriously screwed up stuff.
I didn’t even hear the click on the line.
Luke’s voice sounded a bit raspy still but it was firm.
“Lola, if you raise your voice again or say another crude word to Max, you will seriously regret it.” The warning was deadly soft that even I got chills from it.
I looked up and saw Luke standing by the hallway, leaning unsteadily against the wall, a cordless phone on his ear. He was still looking slightly wan, but his stare was hard and stormy, his jaw set tightly.
“We’ll have this discussion another time. Bye, Lola.”
Then the call got disconnected.
I put the phone back on its cradle and turned off the stove before walking over to him. I slipped an arm around him and steered him to the sectional in the living room.
“What are you doing up? You should still be resting,” I gently chastised as I set up some cushions behind him so he could lean against the corner of the sectional.
He raised a brow at me. “Do you honestly think I could sleep through the ruckus of Lola screaming at my answering machine? The phone is in my office across the hall from my bedroom and she sounded like she was yelling right in my ear.”
I winced. “I might have something to do with it. I shouldn’t have answered the call but she was blistering my ears.”
Luke threw the phone on the other end of the couch and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Max. I’ve cut off all contact from her since Tokyo but she can be relentless when she sets her mind to it.”
“So romancing a celebrity isn’t all that it’s hyped-up to be,” I commented dryly, sitting next to him on the sofa. The black, buttery soft leather on it was cold against my bare skin that I tucked my legs against me and wrapped my arms around them.
“Romancing someone who needs professional help definitely isn’t,” Luke said distractedly as he studied me for a moment.
Then, with surprising strength, he reached for me and dragged me over to his side until I was sitting on his lap which felt firm and warm beneath me. My arms automatically went around his neck and shoulders. His own arms circled my waist, his hands resting on my bare legs. I wasn’t wearing anything more than my underwear and his shirt and even with him fully dressed in a shirt and pajamas, our position was quite intimate. And pretty damn perfect.
“You’ve got goosebumps,” he murmured as he trailed his fingertips along the top of my thigh.
“I am a little cold.”
But I was also getting a little hot because I was wrapped up in Luke—literally.
His hand moved down to my bare feet, which were ice cold, and rubbed them in steady even strokes until my skin started warming up.
It was a moment of sheer bliss, really, being cuddled in Luke’s arms. If I could tune out reality and just sit there and bask in the feel of his embrace and the smell and warmth of him, I would.
“You feeling better?” I asked, touching my temple against his forehead. His skin was a healthy temperature, warm but not blazing hot.
“Definitely,” he said as he turned his face toward mine, the tip of his nose grazing my cheek. “Thank you for taking care of me. I know it wasn’t easy.”
He topped off that thank-you with a light kiss on my cheek.
“Hmm,” was all that I could say. Some days, I say more than I ever should around him. Some days, I’m incapable of speech.
“Maxine,” he whispered against the side of my face, his breath warm against my skin, its minty toothpaste scent tickling at my nose.
His mouth was a fraction of a movement away and with the slightest shift, I could be kissing him. Or he could be kissing me. Regardless, the end result would be us kissing.
And probably touching.
And probably stretching out on the sofa, legs tangled, arms wrapped around each other.
And probably more.
Whoa. That went down and dirty quick. Get yourself together, Max.
It was becoming tremendously difficult.
It was getting harder not to touch Luke, kiss Luke, hold Luke—not when it was fast becoming obvious that those were exactly what I wanted to do with him.
Scared or not, my traitorous body knew what it wanted, whether I had the guts to do them or not.
“I’m thinking we could stay in all weekend,” he said, sparing us both from the temptation of kissing by burying his face in my hair. “We could order in, stay in bed all day, watch one movie after another.”
I grimaced. “I can’t. I have plans.”
“Cancel them.”
“I can’t. I’m going out with Alex.”
Luke stiffened as if he’d turned into a rock statue beneath me. In a less jaunty tone, he said, “Definitely cancel them.”
I pushed away from him with a frown. “My world doesn’t turn at your command, Luke.”
He ran a hand down his face. “You know it’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about, Luke?” I demanded, the thin weave of control I had over my own jealousy fraying at the seams as I remembered the message from the mysterious Elise earlier today and Luke’s grim promise to deal with Lola later. “Because you’re making plans yourself just as I am. Do you see me stopping you? Have I asked you to cancel your plans? To drop your dates because I feel like having you all to myself for the weekend?”
A muscle worked in Luke’s jaw as he stared hard at me. “So it’s a date.”
“No. It’s furniture shopping and pizza but what does it matter?” I snapped.
“You can call it off then.”
I climbed off of him (because his arms were impairing my logic worse than it already does on its own) and stared at him wide-eyed, as if he was suddenly blubbering in a strange language—something that sounded very much like selfish crap.
I crossed my arms and thrust my chin up in defiance. “Alright. Let’s make a deal. I’ll call off my plans with Alex if you agree not to make any with Elise and Lola and whoever the next woman is to call your hotline.”
Luke blanched, lines settling on his forehead as it creased in surprise—not the good kind.
“Elise?”
“Yes, Elise,” I retorted, not liking his expression one bit. He felt too deeply about that news and it clawed furiously at me. “She left a message about catching up with you in two weeks. Shortly after that, Lola smoked your phone with a barrage of irate messages that had more swearing in it than actual words.”
Luke stared off into the distance, rubbing his jaw, agitated. There was a deep line between his brows as he brooded, his eyes suddenly distant.
I wasn’t even sure that he was still in the same room with me.
“So, what do you say?” I asked with less bravado than I originally had, wondering if I really even wanted to hear his answer at this point, knowing what it was going to be.
When he didn’t answer, I nudged his leg with my foot. “Hey. Are you even listening to me?”
He glanced at me, his face anxious. “I have things to straighten out with Lola so she leaves me alone for good. As for Elise, I have to see her. But it’s not something you have to worry about.”
That he was already clammed up shut about Elise, as if that explanation was good enough and final, just made me unravel so much more inside.
I could only guess so much about where I stood, making assumptions and getting no reassurances.
As far as compromises go, it sucked.
If I was reaching out, I’d like for him to at least take my hand instead of shrinking away and shutting me out.
“So when I tell you that the afternoon I’ve planned with Alex shouldn’t be something you have to worry about, you’ll believe me, right?” I asked with a tight smile.
Luke looked like he was mashing his teeth behind his granite scowl. “I can’t ignore the obvious fact that he’s male enough to see what I don’t want him looking at.”
Tears—of frustration and a fragile sort of sadness at the realization that this cycle with Luke might never end and we’d never be more or less than what we were now—pricked my eyes and I quickly blinked them back.
“You know you’re not being fair, right?” I said with a voice I wished came out steadier.
An intense light flickered in Luke’s eyes that for a moment, I wondered if they were getting as glassy as mine probably were. “No, I’m not.”
And even though I already knew that, apparently, I could still be reckless enough to invite more pain. “Cards on the table, Luke. If you want me, you’ll have me. But I’ve got to have you, too.”
His lips disappeared into a thin line, his chin betraying just the slightest quiver. “I can’t make you happy, Max, and that’s the only thing I want you to be.”
“You won’t know until you try.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do right now and look at the fantastic fuck-up of a job I’m doing with it,” he countered in a harsh, desperate tone that had me backing up a step.
“So that’s it,” I said. “You can’t be with me. And no one else can either.”
He reached for me and laced his fingers through my stiff, trembling ones.
“Is it too selfish of me to ask you not to be with him?”
I bit the inside of my lower lip and wrenched my hand out of his grasp. “Yes, Luke, it is. If you don’t think you’re the right person to make someone happy, giving someone else the chance is the least you can do.”
He gazed at me for what could’ve been the length of a heartbeat or the infinity of a moment that would never be before he briefly closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.
He didn’t look at me then.
Whatever he was looking at wasn’t the thing he wanted—that much I could tell because he looked like he’d just been handed a death sentence—but he was resigned to his fate, possibly even determined about it.
“Then you should probably go if you don’t want to be late.” His voice was soft—like snow steadily falling until it froze the earth.
God, it hurt.
It hurt to be broken inside, to have to stand there and let the pieces be until you were alone—until there was no one else to see you on your knees putting the pieces back together through the blur of tears and humiliation.
“Will you promise me something?”
This time, the tears slipped down my cheeks and I dashed them back angrily.
Luke lifted his eyes to me, his profile so sharp and flinty it could’ve been carved out of stone.
“What is it, Max?”
I curled my fists at my sides, summoning all the strength and dignity from every cell in my body. “That this is where we draw the hard line—and you’re never to cross it again.”
Only his beautiful blue eyes—shimmering like shattered glass catching the sun—indicated the storm brewing inside of him. “I know I should stay away from you and I’m sorry that I couldn’t—that I still can’t. I never meant to hurt you, Max.”
I squared my shoulders—perhaps I didn’t want to be any weaker or more vulnerable than I already was around him—but it was an effort that cost me no small amount of pain.
I smiled at the irony of it all. “Isn’t it funny how you think you can hurt someone with a choice when in the end you hurt them more by not having one?”
Since I’d taken about as much as I could without crumpling to the floor, I turned and walked to the bedroom to change and collect my things.
Luke stayed in the living room, saying and doing nothing as I packed up to leave, his head buried in his hands.
We’d been through a few of these before—the irresistible pull and the inevitable push—but today the distance felt real and measurable and vast.
The music had crested and we’d finally started spinning fast, heads buzzing, hearts pounding.
It would seem, after all that mad dancing, we’d spun apart as fast as we’d tumbled into it the first time.
And now we would walk away from each other, uncertain of our injuries but knowing that we bled anyway.
I left a different person from the one who came last night.
Somehow, for all my sterling efforts to avoid complications that led to a broken heart, I managed to achieve just that.
My first mistake was to think that Luke was going to be different—that he wasn’t going to see me that way, that we were going to be just friends, that it wouldn’t become more than that, that I could protect my heart just fine even with him so close.
My second mistake was to think that we could recover from the first—that we could overcome our fears, that we could accept our new and unexpected path, that we could trust each other enough to go down that road, that maybe we could be happy together.
I didn’t want a third mistake but then it may not matter much at this point.
There was nothing left to break.
***
So, what do you think?
Now, some people might say, 'Not again!' but in case it hasn't been obvious, this story is very relationship-centric with lots of things being built up through simple conversations and normal day-to-day events (although falling in love with an adorable but exasperating CEO isn't any girl's typical day). Also, while this might feel like it's gone on forever, at this point in the story, Luke and Max haven't known each other that long. They'd gotten to know each other pretty well pretty fast but they're still very much adjusting to being in each other's lives. So I hope that helps with the frustration of the all-important question 'Why are they still not together yet?'
To be honest, this kind of non-relationship relationship is something I can personally relate to and trust me, it got very exhausting first before I came to a point of putting my foot down and asking whether I should stay or go. So it's one of those stories that wouldn't be resolved quickly and painlessly.
Vote and comment if you like it!
Tidbit: We might meet someone new in the next chapter and we might see Luke and Max try to exist apart from each other. We'll see how well that works out *snickers*.
P.S. I love this song with this chapter. Hope you do too.
XOXO!
-Ninya
♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Down by Jason Walker feat. Molly Reed ♪♪♪
I don't know where I'm at
I'm standing at the back
And I'm tired of waiting
Waiting here in line, hoping that I'll find what I've been chasing.
I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
Never know why it's coming down, down, down.
Not ready to let go
Cause then I'd never know
What I could be missing
But I'm missing way too much
So when do I give up what I've been wishing for.
I shot for the sky
I'm stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I'm gonna fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
Never know why it's coming down, down, down.
Oh I am going down, down, down
I can't find another way around
And I don't want to hear the sound, of losing what I never found.