Almost.
“Your bacon’s burning,” I said instead.
His face flickered with a lot of things, but then he turned, because his bacon was indeed burning.
He didn’t rush toward the burning bacon. No, Luke didn’t do such things. He purposefully turned his head back to me as he sauntered toward the smoking pan.
“This isn’t over,” he promised.
I waited until he had his back to me to reply, whispering, “It has to be.”
I waited until after we ate, maybe because I was a total fucking masochist. Or because I just wanted one memory to hold onto. Eating the breakfast that a shirtless Luke made me. Chewing on bacon with him across from me.
I could sink into a fleeting fantasy that we were that simple, breakfast and snatched glances.
Granted, he was watching me like a hawk, his eyes haunted as my bruises stared at him harder than my eyes did.
But it was all I could have.
So we ate.
He washed up.
I stayed sitting, watching him.
He sat back down. “You haven’t called Cade,” he said, observation more than a question.
I shook my head.
“You’re not going to.” Another observation.
Another head shake. “I’m not dragging them into this.”
He regarded me. “They’ll be upset, to say the least, if they find out about this. If they find out you didn’t tell them,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Since when do you care about my family being upset?” I snapped.
“Since I realized they’re an extension of you,” he said quietly. “So them being upset is hurting you.”
“You just realized that? It’s not been a secret,” I said, my voice harsh. “Especially not in the years that you tried to destroy everything I know and love.”
His face was blank. “Yeah, and that’s something I’m going to have to pay for. Rest of my life.”
“What is this?” I whispered, not understanding where these forever promises were coming from.
His face was no longer blank. It was so full of something I thought I’d dreamed up. It hurt to look at. “You know what this is, Rosie. What we’re meant to be. What we should’ve been all along.”
I let those words swim in my soul for a little before I hardened myself. “It can’t be. We can’t be,” I said, wishing my voice was firmer, more resolute.
His jaw hardened. “Yes, we fuckin’ can. We tried it that way, that other way, for all these years. That way, that’s what we can’t be. Not anymore.”
“What? So you bury a body for me and that counts as going steady?” I snapped.
He grinned. “You could say that.”
I let the grin bounce off the shield I’d constructed in those moments, the one I had to construct or else I’d melt, thinking pretend promises and grins were all we needed to make things right. “It’s not that fucking simple, Luke. I pushed you into this choice. You’re here because I fucking trapped you. Stopped you from being who you are.”
“That’s bullshit,” he growled.
I tilted my head. “Is it really? Because I don’t know what the truth is anymore. All these years, you were so blinded by hate that you didn’t see….” I caught myself before saying ‘you didn’t see I loved you.’ “Me,” I finished lamely instead.
He pushed out of his chair, kneeling beside me so his hands were clutching either side of my neck. I thought he was going to speak some more. Say those beautiful words that hurt so much.
He didn’t.
Instead he did something much worse.
He kissed me.
Years of running around each other, of lies and pretending and other people who meant less than nothing. That’s what that kiss was.
And so much more than that. So much more painful than anything he could’ve said. Because it was magnificent. Perfect. Taunting me with what I couldn’t have.
“Yeah, I was blind,” he said huskily, pulling back. “Don’t think the phrase is ‘hate is blind,’ though.” His thumb moved over my bottom lip. “I see you, babe. I saw you. In black motorcycle boots at five years old. Beautiful and unique, even then. I watched you blossom into an incredible beauty, the most spectacular individual. But in the middle of something I could only see as violent and bloody and dangerous. Something that endangered my spectacular individual.” He paused, watching me, drinking me in. “And I hated that,” he continued. “Hated my visceral reaction to that. Because the idiot boy inside me thought that gave me purpose. To be the hero. And to be a hero, I had to create a villain. And I did that. Just didn’t realize it would turn out to be me in the end.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to recover from the life-shattering words. The life-shattering kiss. Trying to gather all the broken pieces of me together so I could make my escape.
“And that’s just it, Luke,” I whispered. “You’re not meant to be the villain. We’re not meant to be anything, period. I’m not living my life blaming myself for turning you into that. I can’t.” I shoved my chair back, ignoring the hurt in my body and my soul as I did so. “I don’t know what this is now, this change of heart.” I waved my hands between us. “But it won’t last. You’ll stop seeing me as the victim the second my bruises fade, and then you’ll see me for what I am, or what you’ll come to think I am. Just like my family. Which is something I’m proud of. And you’ll make me ashamed of that.”