I mo
uthed, “What the hell!” But Luke only ignored me, continuing on with his conversation.
“I’ll tell her, sir. And I will.”
Then he hung up. I glared. I glared my hardest, most withering stare, but Luke continued to act casual.
I leaned against the side of my house, dropping the water bottle to the ground, and crossed my arms. I was fuming.
“Your dad said to tell you…thanks.” That was all Luke said, then he went back to hammering.
I didn’t say anything, instead getting swept up in my thoughts. I knew my father would assume that me sending my twin sisters their first birthday gifts was a peace offering and maybe it was a little bit. Not really from me to him, but from me to them it was. They didn’t deserve the cold shoulder. They were babies. They didn’t choose their names, they didn’t choose for my father to cheat on my mom, and they surely didn’t choose for him to knock up Carrie. They were my half-sisters and I wasn’t that cold-hearted. They were going to need me down the road.
The funny thing was, though, I picked out two of the most annoying and loudest musical instrument-like toys to send them. It would drive my dad crazy but not seem like I intentionally sent annoying gifts. They were really cool toys and I knew the girls would love them, while effectively annoying my father at the same time. What’s that? Oh, that’s just evil Cammie laughing in the background.
I snickered at myself and then pulled back when I realized Luke was standing a few feet in front of me. I tried not to make it obvious that I was wafting the smell of his cologne and husky scent toward myself, but with the gleam in his eye, I wasn’t sure that I was successful.
“It’s funny how surprised the ol’ general acted when I answered your phone.” Luke raised his eyebrows, and I only shrugged.
“He was probably equally surprised that when someone finally answered the phone, it wasn’t his daughter.”
He laughed, “Yeah, I kind of got that. He gave me the, ah, the dad-talk.”
I laughed hard so hard that Luke started to chuckle, too.
“He probably thought you were my boyfriend.” I quickly stopped laughing when a malicious smile formed on Luke’s face.
“Well, I told him I was.”
My mouth gaped open. “LUCAS WELLS!”
“What?”
I swear, Luke could be so convincingly innocent at times. It was kind of scary. I bet he could get away with murder.
“You work tonight?”
“Yeah…” I said, still blindsided that he’d told my dad he was my boyfriend. He was not my boyfriend, gah. He was so irritating!
“But, what about when the storm hits?”
“I’m off for the next few days after tonight.” I snatched my phone out of his hand and looked at the time.
“I gotta go get ready, actually,” I said, already cursing myself for not catching a small nap before I headed in.
“Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then…” he trailed off, his brow furrowing when he reached in his back pocket to pull out his phone. He audibly growled when he saw whoever had called or texted him.
“Yeah, okay,” I said when he started to walk back to his house. “And…thanks for helping…”
“I’ll clean up the yard; go get ready,” he replied without looking at me.
It was weird how his demeanor had changed within seconds. He ignored his friends when he walked past them on the porch and they looked back and forth to one another with knowing looks before following him inside.
Weird.
The howling wind woke me up with a groggy jerk out of my bed. I sat up straight, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and hastily grabbed my phone off my bedside table to see the time.
7:08 p.m.