Every Time My Heart Breaks, page 18
My mouth fell open as I gaped at him, and he smiled when he noticed me.
“Oh hey!” he said in surprise, then he stopped short and lifted his brows. “Wow. You look nice.”
And that was it for me. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but it ended now. Cocking my hip, I set a hand on it and arched a single eyebrow before demanding, “What the hell does that mean?”
“It…” He blinked and pulled his face back, looking cornered and panicky. “It means you look…nice?”
“Well, why do you sound so surprised, as if you think I usually look like shit?”
“I don’t,” he rushed to assure me, waving his hands madly. “You always look good. You just... You look as if you put more effort into it tonight.”
I had. But so had he. Yet you didn’t see me over here, fawning over how gorgeous he was. I mean, not out loud. Because we didn’t do that.
Something was freaking up with him.
“More effort?” I repeated quietly, letting him know that was the exact wrong thing to say. “So I haven’t put enough effort into my looks lately, huh? What with trying to recover from my recent kidnapping and torture, and all? Well, I am so sorry to be such a great big disappoint—”
“Oh my God!” he shouted, lifting his hands and ducking behind them. “I just meant you looked nice. It was supposed to be a compliment. But forget it. Just…forget it.”
I huffed out a breath, knowing I’d gone over the line, but I sensed something else at play here. Something I didn’t like.
Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Whatever. Let’s just go.”
“Right,” he whispered as if sucking in a big, bolstering breath that he needed in order to keep dealing with me for the rest of the night.
Ignoring him, I stepped onto the porch and showed him my back as I locked the door. But when I turned around again, he was still, like, right there.
I yelped, startled, not liking how my pulse jumped at our close proximity or how amazing he smelled…and looked. The dude was playing havoc on my senses.
So I snapped, “Why are you just standing there?”
For a moment, he appeared to be frozen. “I really don’t know,” he finally answered as if he too were trying to figure that one out for himself. Then he turned on his heel and stiffly stepped off the porch, walking away without me.
I sighed and rolled my eyes.
Up ahead of me, he slowed when he reached his truck. He even reached for the passenger side door as if he was going to open it for me. But then he paused, squeezed his hand into a fist, and said, “Nope,” to himself before he pulled his arm back and let me get the door on my own.
Then, once we were both seated and he had the engine running, he had the gall to ask, “Any music recommendations for the radio?”
I spun to blink at him before demanding, “What is wrong with you tonight?”
He glanced up in surprise, then squinted in confusion before he almost nervously returned his attention to the road as he pulled out into traffic. “What do you mean? Nothing.”
“You’re acting weird. It’s freaking me out.”
“I was trying to be a gentleman,” he gritted out. “Really trying,” he added under his breath
I shook my head. “Why?”
“I…” His mouth opened and he looked completely blank for a moment. Then he uttered, “I don’t know.”
My brows rose. “You don’t know?”
He laughed a little and shrugged. “I don’t fucking know,” he insisted, sticking with that story. “I guess, I just thought I’d try something new and be nice for a change.”
“Well, it’s freaky and weird,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest. “So cut it out.”
“Roger that,” he murmured stonily. The rest of the trip to Bella’s place was dead silent, and I started to feel really crappy as if I should apologize for overreacting and being a bitch.
But he was acting so weird. Something wasn’t right with him. And I was going to figure out what it was.
A couple of hours later, I was absolutely miserable, and I wanted to go home. My head throbbed with a headache, and everyone talking only made it worse.
I’d been sticking it out, anyway, because these were my people, and I usually loved to be around them. I hoped the headache would abate.
Except it didn’t.
It was also my first night out with the family again. I’d wanted so hard for it to feel normal and like old times that I would just naturally slip back into the role I usually played. But everything felt different. I felt different.
Tucked up on the end cushion of the couch with Lucy sitting next to me and idly rubbing my knee as if to comfort me, I listened to Beau and Gray regale Vaughn with a story from our high school years.
“So Bella’s behind the wheel, supposedly waiting for us to tell her when to crank the engine,” Beau said, his hands motioning along with the story, only for Gracen to pop in with, “Supposedly.”
“But she starts it before we tell her to, right? And it electrocutes the shit out of both of us.”
Bentley started to giggle and cover her mouth. “You should’ve seen them twitching and howling around the school parking lot… Oh my God.”
“It was terrifying at the time,” Bella cut in dryly. “From a simple dead battery to thinking I killed my twin brother and friend…I was bawling like a baby.”
Tears started to run down Bentley’s face as her laughter only grew, and she waved her hand in front of her eyes to dry them. “You should’ve seen her screaming… It was awful then, but so hilarious now. Chloe was standing there, asking them how many fingers she was holding up as if they’d gone blind.”
“And then Luke strolls up,” Beau carried on with the story. “Big, bad senior at the time. And he—”
“Wait,” Vaughn cut in and waved his hand to ask Luke, “you’re older than them?”
When he pointed between Beau and Gray, Luke frowned as if offended. Then he glanced around the entire room before answering, “Sonny, I’m older than everyone here.”
Which was true. Everyone older than him had families and children that they’d decided to stay home with tonight.
“No way,” Gracen’s wife gasped in astonishment. “I was sure you were at least Trick’s age, if not younger.”
“Crazy, isn’t it?” I asked, before tipping the bottle of my wine cooler against my aching forehead. “It’s like he grows more and more immature the older he gets, not the other way around.”
Some of the others laughed in agreement, and Luke lifted his gaze to me, but he said nothing.
He didn’t strike back with his usual need to argue. He didn’t scold me for my rudeness. He just silently took my insult and then glanced away again.
And it left me feeling…shitty.
Like really, deep-in-my-bones shitty.
I drew in a breath and swallowed, already wishing I could take the words back. But everyone around me was already moving on with the story, Beau once again taking over the events of that day as if nothing had happened.
All the while, it felt as if my stomach had just dropped out of me. And my heart started to ache as if he’d broken it all over again.
But why hadn’t he parried back, calling me out for my obnoxious behavior? He always fought back. Even when I’d been stripped naked and bleeding on that basement floor, he’d argued with me. His arguing was like the only thing in life I knew I could count on.
I hugged myself, not at all liking the self-loathing sensation that Luke had left in me by not being crude back to me.
Across the room, he idly spun his bottle on the counter he was leaning against, only to pick the glass container up and finally seem to notice it was empty. Then, he chucked it into a nearby trash can and turned away to wander toward the kitchen
“...Turns out, the battery wasn’t even dead after all. Lowe just used the wrong damn key that went to the trunk the first time he tried it.”
The room exploded with laughter, and I flinched in pain.
When I eased to my feet to escape, Lucy looked up in concern, but I flashed her a megawatt smile, and she smiled back before returning her attention to story time. From there, I was able to slip out unnoticed.
Luke was alone in the kitchen when I reached it. He had a new bottle in hand, but he was still browsing through the hordes of liquor that were on the counter as if he were trying to decide which one to sample next.
When I appeared in the doorway and paused, he glanced up. I didn’t even have to speak. He was already setting the bottle in his hand back down as he said, “What’s wrong?”
“You’re my ride tonight,” I told him without preamble.
His eyebrows twitched in confusion. “Yeah…”
“Well, I want to go home,” I growled in a not-at-all-friendly tone. “Right now.”
He stepped toward me, his eyes growing alert and concerned. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I snapped. I was feeling shitty and small, and my head hurt. “I want to go home.”
Reaching out to grip my elbow, he nodded and answered, “Alright. Let’s go.”
But we’d barely turned toward the opening of the kitchen when my nineteen-year-old cousin Riley appeared.
I sucked in a startled breath and pulled back, bumping into Luke. He gripped my elbow tighter, and Riley lifted her hand, laughing apologetically. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to surprise you. I just wanted to… Well…”
She leaped forward and threw her arms around me, which caused me to lock up, and go frozen for a moment. But then I caught Luke watching my face over her shoulder, and I released a breath, forcing myself to relax and pat Riley’s back in rigid gratitude.
“I’m just so sorry about what happened,” she gushed, squeezing hard enough that I flinched and gnashed my teeth.
By the time she pulled away, however, I was able to offer her a gracious smile. “Thanks.”
Except she kept hold of my hands, which made me feel vaguely trapped and gave me memories of my wrists being handcuffed.
“So how’ve you been doing?”
I started nodding that I was fine before I could even summon the words since it took me a moment to find my voice and actually speak again. “Good. Lots better,” I assured her.
Over her shoulder, Luke lifted a single eyebrow, silently calling bullshit on my answer.
“Recovering more every day,” I ignored him and added so he’d stop looking at me like that.
Riley burst into a wide grin. “Great. I’m so relieved. You really scared the shit out of us, you know.”
I forced a vague smile. “It scared the shit out of me too.”
Laughing, Riley leaned in, making me tighten in panic. “I’ll bet. You know…” She shook my hands that she was still holding. “We just need to get you back out there again, doing your thing. Hey…” Her brows lifted as an idea hit her. “Tucker’s doing a show in town next weekend.”
Vibrating with energy, she literally bounced as she mentioned her sister Rory’s husband, Tucker Holt, who was an up-and-coming country singer.
“I could score us some backstage passes and we could hang out with Rory, sipping cocktails and gossiping all evening. What do you say? Want to pull out your fancy cowboy boots and join me?”
I’d already been opening my mouth to come up with a polite rejection when she mentioned the boots. But from that point on, everything just kind of went blank in my head.
I no longer saw anything. No longer felt anything. No longer breathed. All the heat drained from my face and my hands went ice cold.
But my boots…
I’d made such a big deal about buying those boots so I could show some support to my cousin’s country-singing husband. They’d been ridiculously extravagant with all kinds of western designs stitched into them. And I had made sure to point them out to Tucker every time I saw him.
And now…
Now…
“I… We’ll see,” I think I answered Riley. At least I hope I did. It’s possible I didn’t even speak because the next thing I knew I was tugging my hands free from hers, making her pull back in surprise, and then I brushed past her and just walked out of the kitchen.
In the back of my mind, I think I wanted to stay and finish our conversation. Or at the very least tell her goodbye. But my body just seemed to take over, and I wandered away instead. Like I was in some kind of freaking trance.
I knew I was acting strange too when I heard Riley ask, “D-did I say something wrong?”
“She was wearing her boots that night,” Luke’s answer followed me down the hall, haunting me even more. “The boots are fucking gone.”
18 LUKE
So Pick’s suggestion to woo Chloe with flattery and kindness had worked like utter shit.
She didn’t seem to be impressed by my niceness at all.
After hugging Riley, who looked as if she was going to burst into tears all over the kitchen, I hurriedly reassured her that she’d done nothing wrong—it was just going to take Chloe more time to recover—I booked it out of there to track down the woman I was supposed to be falling in love with but could only seem to piss off instead.
Except when I reached the front room where a majority of the others were, she wasn’t there.
My jaw hardened with irritation. Where the hell was she?
Fucking Pick. Out of all the women in this group, he’d chosen the absolute toughest case for me, I swear. This was never going to work.
Trick broke away from the others and sidled up beside me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, watching everyone but me and looking casual as if he wasn’t concerned. Except his chill act let me know he cared a whole fucking lot.
“Did Chloe come back through here?” I asked, still scanning the room, though I don’t know why. She obviously wasn’t here.
“No.” Trick finally turned to look at me, lifting his brows in condemnation. “You better not have lost my sister. I swear to God, Hamilton.”
“Lost her?” I echoed, scowling back. “She’s not a pair of reading glasses. Besides, she was just in the kitchen, like, two seconds ago. She’s got to be around here somewhere.” There was no need to call out the National Guard, even though Trick’s response was making me panic.
That damn basement flashed into my head all over again.
My skin went cold. My breath stuttered through my lungs.
Where the hell was she?
“She came with you,” Trick growled at me. “You’re responsible for her.”
I glared back, not liking his accusations, but liking the fear he’d ignited in me even less.
“I’ll find her,” I muttered and started to turn away. But he caught my arm, halting me.
“Well, when you do, make sure she takes some damn ibuprofen.” When I raised questioning eyebrows, he explained, “She’s got a headache; she keeps pressing cold bottles and shit against her face to relieve it.”
Oh. I nodded and pulled away, and this time, he let me go.
Bypassing the kitchen, I hurried toward the rear exit of the house. But when I exploded into the dark, quiet backyard, I already knew it was empty.
“Chloe?” I called, anyway.
When she didn’t answer, I muttered, “Son of a bitch,” and ripped a hand through my hair, turning in a harried circle.
There was a back bathroom inside. I probably should’ve checked that first. But I didn’t go back into the house. She’d been pale and skittish when she’d lit out of the kitchen; no way would she have been able to stay trapped indoors, cooped up with so many people in that state.
I made my way around to the front of the house, and when I spotted her under a streetlamp, waiting by the passenger side door of my truck, I jarred myself to a halt and exhaled roughly.
But Jesus, I’d been on the verge of a total meltdown. My knees went a little weak, and I took another second to collect myself.
My first response after that was to storm forward and yell at her for scaring the shit out of me, but then Pick’s words flooded my head.
You could not pop back with some idiotic, smartass comment every time she does or says something you don’t like.
So I swallowed all the idiotic comments swimming in my brain and pulled the key fob from my pocket to unlock the door for her instead. As soon as my truck lights flashed, Chloe yanked her door open, more than eager to leave, and she climbed inside. By the time I joined her in the truck, she’d already seat-belted herself secure and was ready to go.
I didn’t say a word, just started the engine, and then lifted the center console lid before pulling out a pill bottle.
When I silently held it out to her, she looked over at me in surprise and then down at the bottle before she slowly took it from my hand.
“How did you know?” she asked quietly, unscrewing the cap.
“You kept pressing cold things against your head as if it were killing you,” I said before shrugging and admitting, “Trick noticed.”
Because I wasn’t observant and perceptive like that. People had to fucking come right out and tell me shit if they needed something. Like love.
Which made me wonder if maybe it really was true that she’d actually loved me once upon a time, and I’d just never noticed. Because I probably wouldn’t have.
Dammit. I’d be a shit husband for her. Pick didn’t know how to choose a son-in-law worth a damn.
Chloe nodded, letting me know that Trick noticing her pain made more sense to her, and she tipped two capsules into her palm before handing the bottle back. “Thank you.”
I grunted and returned the bottle to the console cubby, then pulled onto the road without another word.
On the other side of the truck, Chloe hugged herself and swayed slowly, just barely rocking.
