“You have not. I barely tolerate you.”
Okay, well, I don’t know what’s happened to me over the past couple weeks, but my life has become extremely messy. I haven’t bothered to clean house either. Shit is everywhere.
“Since he isn’t answering his phone, I say you show up at his brother’s place again and see if you can talk to him.”
“I’m slightly afraid of his brother. He will crush me. You haven’t seen him up close, he’s built like a tanker truck and scowls a lot.”
He eyes me again. “You’re very immature for a doctor.”
“I know. You’ve said so a million times.”
“It’s refreshing to know that degrees don’t buy common sense.”
I sink down on the piano bench and glance at the phone in my lap.
Suddenly, the doorbell rings, and I just slump down and press my head against the keys. The sound of discorded notes floats through the air as I close my eyes. I’m not going to answer it. I have gotten my hopes up a thousand times, thinking it was him on my doorstep when it was just some package delivery.
I have no motivation to actually get up and look, only to be disappointed all over again.
“Oh, hello there,” Lex says. “You must be Luke. I can see why Elliot has been such a mess. You are a very attractive specimen. Very fine, indeed.”
I stand up so quickly that my knees knock against the lip of the piano, and I fall backward over the bench onto my ass. And then I’m scrambling toward the door, half walking, half crawling.
“Oh yes, well, I did offer to fuck him, but he turned me down. Said I wasn’t his type. Now I know why. My feelings aren’t even hurt about it.”
“Luke,” I shout, slamming into Lex and knocking him out of the way.
And there he is on my front porch in his torn jeans, tightly fitted grey shirt, and a beanie slung low over his forehead. God, he looks good. So fucking good, and alive.
“Hey there, Doc,” he says, his hands in his pockets.
“You’re here,” I say, my voice cracking slightly.
Luke pulls off his hat and runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Your sisters told me you were worried. And you know, I got your texts.” He eyes Lex and rolls his lips between his teeth. “You busy now? Or should I come back?”
“No, no, Lex was just leaving.”
“Not without my Nerds, I’m not,” he says and skips over to the coffee table and swipes them up. “Now I can go. Bye, Ellie-Belly. Call me sometime so we can hang out.”
He waggles his fingers at me, and then he’s pushing past Luke and bounding down the front steps, leaving Luke and I to face one another in this wide-open space.
“You’re here,” I say again because I’m apparently stuck on repeat.
“I am.”
“I didn’t expect you.” I clear my throat and stuff my hands into my pockets. “Would you like to come in? There are still some beers in the fridge that belong to you.”
“Yeah. That would be cool,” Luke says, following me into the kitchen and leaning against the wall. I open the fridge and pull out the beers I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of. I’d kept them, just in case he came back.
But he’s not really back, is he? I don’t know what he is, but he’s here.
He’shere.
My hand shakes as I hand him a bottle, and he notices because his eyebrows lower just a fraction.
“Who was that guy again?” he asks, popping the top off his bottle.
“A…friend? I don’t really know how to classify him.”