“Don’t be sorry,” Luke said. “It’s my fault.” I opened my mouth to argue, but Luke held a hand up. “It’s fine. I know the role I played in it is larger than any of the rest of you. I’ve made peace with that fact. That’s why I’m leaving too.”
I nearly spit out my food. “What?”
“I’m up for free agency,” Luke explained. “I wasn’t going to leave the Hellraisers, and they were planning on renewing my contract, but Miami made me an offer and I think I’m going to take it. I’m headed down there tomorrow to hear them out.”
My jaw dropped. “You can’t just run from the problem.”
“There’s no problem to run from,” Luke responded. “This just is now. We lost Khloe. She moved to California. That’s it. We’ve lost the woman we love.”
The last word struck me like a cinder block over my head. I hadn’t been willing to admit as much to myself, but it was the truth. From the moment we’d first met Khloe, we’d all been falling in love with her. It manifested itself as lust first, but how else could we all be so wrecked? Why else would I be losing sleep, downing myself in work, and even being noticeably sadder by my colleagues? I was in love. We all were.
Now not only had we lost Khloe, but we were losing Luke too? Shouldn’t we be sticking together?
“You can’t go,” I told Luke.
“I have to,” he responded. He stood up from his chair before I could say anything else. “I can’t stay here.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “My flight info. Tell the rest of the guys I’m sorry.”
He turned away from me and left without another word. I looked at the paper and my heart sank. He really was leaving the next day at noon. Luke was what held our group together, if he left, it was probably only a matter of time before we were all back off to our solitary lives again. I didn’t want him to go, and I knew that the only way Luke would stay is if we could get Khloe back. Maybe it was a shot in the dark. Maybe we’d already lost Khloe, and Luke would go to Miami and that would be it, but I couldn’t just sit back and watch everything fall apart.
I picked up my phone and called the same doctor who had covered for me while I was gone for the wedding, Dr. Jillian Portland.
“Cody,” she answered. “How are you?”
“I’ve had better days, Jill,” I responded. “I’m pretty sick. Doctors being sick, you never see it coming.”
“Too true,” she replied. “Are you on tonight?”
“I am, but I’m hoping you might be able to cover for me?” I said.
“I’ve been looking to get away for the weekend with my husband,” she responded slickly.
“You help me out today, and I’ll make sure you get a full four days,” I said.
Jillian chuckled. “I’m on my way.”
I didn’t quite know how I was going to convince Khloe to come home, but I had to get the rest of the guys together, and we had to figure it out.
24
Christian
I was still in my workout clothes when Cody called to say that we had to have an emergency meeting. Last I heard, he was working all night, so it was bizarre to me to have him call out of the blue and ask everyone to meet at his penthouse. I couldn’t imagine what could happen so suddenly that he would need to see everyone right away, but Cody wasn’t a dramatic guy, so when he called and said it was an emergency, I believed him. I got to his house as quickly as I could, and I could see that everyone else had moved with the same urgency. Everyone else’s cars were already parked on the street outside, apart from Luke’s which was missing.
“Typical,” I hissed as I noticed his car was the only one missing from the pack. He was behaving as if he was the only one who was torn up about Khloe and didn’t even have the respect to show up to an emergency meeting on time.
I made it into Cody’s penthouse and saw that all of the other guys were already seated and waiting patiently. Mason, Brett, and David were in similar garb to me; it seemed like they had come directly from training as well, and Bram was wearing a suit as if he had come directly from work.
“Hey,” Brett greeted.
“Hi,” I said, not seeing Cody anywhere in the living room. “Where’s Cody?”
“He hasn’t made it back yet. He was just waiting for his cover to make it to the hospital,” Bram explained.
So he was working. I knew I’d heard correctly. I sat down on one of the couches and grabbed a beer and waited with the rest of the guys in silence. It made me uncomfortable how disjointed we felt. I thought about how Luke would normally break the ice with some stupid joke, or if Khloe was around, he’d be teasing her and we’d all be enjoying the show. Whether I was mad at him or not, I couldn’t deny that he was usually what connected us when we were hanging out, otherwise we were just a bunch of football players in different positions sitting around with a doctor and an accountant. That sort of thing didn’t typically happen. It was only because of Luke that any of us would find any common ground.