Page 46 of Tulips and Lost Time

Kari: It’s been days! And it’s not like we haven’t been in the same space.

Kari: I saw you walk out the back door when I arrived at the Turners’ yesterday, Luc! You got on your bike and left because I arrived.

Kari: Luca fucking Lenaghan! You’re a coward.

“You keep staring at your phone like that,” Mitch mumbles, kneeling in the back of our ambulance and counting supplies while we have a quiet moment on shift, “and the glass might shatter.”

“Leave me alone.” I sit on the bucket seat bolted into the back, my knees higher than my hips and my elbows perched on top. “I’m approaching a mid-life crisis, Rosa. I need a minute to deal with it in silence.”

“You’re hardly mid-life.” He shoves fresh gauze into the tub secured to the side of the bus and makes a note in his book. “And you’re normally a pretty fuckin’ chill dude. Annoyingly so,” he grumbles. Because he, too, has a baby sister and childhood trauma. It’s like I attract the same kind of friends. “So whatever this is, it’s kinda big, huh? It’s got you twisted up.”

“It’s kinda private.” I nibble on my bottom lip and groan when another text pops through.

Kari: I know you’re reading these messages, jackass. You have read receipts on.

Then another: You’re avoiding me, and that’s not cool. You’re hurting my feelings, and you promised you wouldn’t be that guy. I’m leaving tomorrow, Luc! You know my plans, and you’re going out of your way to not be where I am. That makes you an asshole.

“I wanna ask if you have girl problems,” Mitch wonders. “But you’re Luc Lenaghan. The only girl problem you have is how many you want in your bed at one time.”

He speaks with humor. A lighthearted jab. But his words are a direct fucking shot to my stomach. Because he’s not entirely wrong. I have a certain reputation around town for being slightly… friendly with the female variety. They were my attempts to focus on something else. Anything else. They have always, and only, been a distraction from an addiction I wasn’t allowed to explore.

But now my Kari-flavored cocaine is knocking on my door. Blowing up my phone. She’s offering herself to me freely. And I’m terrified that if I try just once, if I claim her as my own, we won’t ever come back from that.

If I claim her, then she won’t get to see the world. She won’t get to explore kissing other men. She won’t get to experience sex except with me. And if that’s the case, then she won’t have lived a life where even for a minute, a single second, she didn’t belong to someone.

She was Marc’s, and then she would be mine. And it’s taking all of my fucking willpower to let her go.

Once we’ve crossed the line and I’ve had all of her, there’s no changing my mind.

So yeah, I’m ignoring you, Kari! I’m avoiding you! I’m tearing my fucking soul out every time we’re near and I force myself to walk away.

“I can’t talk about my girl problems unless they remain completely private.” I lower my phone, lock the screen, and glance up, meeting Mitch’s light eyes. “Like, take it to the grave kind of private. There’s no room for fucking around on this one, Mitch. It’s a big fuckin’ deal.”

“Okay, well…” Frowning, he remains crouched, but lowers his pen and gives me all of his attention. “I can keep a secret.”

“Even if it flies in the face of what you consider right?”

A single, questioning brow shoots high on his forehead. “Did you kill someone? Hurt someone? Fuck someone without their permission?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

“Rob a bank? Commit a crime?”

“No. Jesus. Fuck someone without their permission? Who the hell do you think you’re working with?”

“Just checking.” He casts a fast glance out the back of the open ambulance to ensure we’re alone, then he drops to his ass and takes a break from work. “When you say I consider it right or wrong, and you’re not talking about the law… what do you mean?”

“I mean… you’re an overprotective older brother of someone you think needs your constant and unwavering attention and protection.”

Abigail Rosa. The town’s sweetest, smallest, loveliest cancer survivor ever.

Of course, bringing her up tweaks Mitch’s temper. “What about her?”

“Not about her.” I drop my face into my hands. “But you’re the type to take the side of the protective brother.”

“And you’re having girl problems with… someone’s sister?”

“Yes.”

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