Page 58 of Tulips and Lost Time

“I’d rather we didn’t.” I glance across the street when moving shadows catch my gaze. A Thai restaurant, lit up with colored lights and a line that stretches out the door and along the block. It’s obviously a good restaurant, or perhaps there are simply too many lonely people tonight with nowhere else to be on Thanksgiving. “I don’t want to talk about girls right now, considering I’m busy working. And I especially don’t want to talk about girls with my friend’s little sister.”

“Why not?”

Yeah, Luc? Why not?

“I’ve known you my whole life,” she presses. “I’ve grown up watching you and the guys. I observed you across the school every damn day we were there, and every night the band played a set, I watched. You’re Luc,” she groans. “You date women. You have fun with them. Then you walk away. So who is this person who has you all messed up? And why the hell does she get that kind of power over you? Have you learned nothing from Sam?”

I study the long trail of people across the street. Those on a date, wrapped in each other’s arms, and the women, most of them, huddled in their man’s jackets. I run my eyes across the families. Young parents with small children, who, for whatever reason, don’t have anywhere else to go tonight.

“Luc?”

I spy the front of the line, and the hostess waiting to seat those who stand there. “What?”

“Sam is broken! Destroyed! That bitch waltzed in, threw his heart in a blender, and sashayed her ass back out of town again. I’m not gonna sit here and watch someone else do that to you. So tell me the who, and I’ll take care of it for you.”

I choke out a soft chuckle, the first real moment of levity I’ve felt in… a while. But then my eyes stop on a perfect green set. A beautiful, round face framed in wild brown hair made worse by the breeze in the air. Most fucked up of all, is the man draped over her. He’s about six-and-a-half feet of football muscle and math club nerdy, all wrapped up in one dude.

Kari’s face drains of color. Terror burning in her gaze.

She’s not scared of me. But she’s scared… of something.

“Luc?” Britt grumbles. “You still there?”

“Yeah.” I peel my gaze from Kari’s, like tearing tape off sensitive skin, and look down instead at the fuel tank of my bike. “You wanna get drunk tonight?”

“You wanna drink?” she sniggers, confused and yet, as always, willing to match my energy. “Like, two beers chill, or like, Scotch got a new nickname?”

“The second one.” I try not to do it. I swear, I don’t want to look. But my eyes move anyway, peeking up from beneath my lashes until I find Ten pressing a noisy, juicy, homicide enticing kiss to the side of Kari’s face. “Give me forty-five minutes,” I growl. “Find some liquor and meet me at Popcorn Palace.”

“Oh geez. Really? You wanna drink at that dusty old place?”

“I don’t want to drink at your house. And I sure as shit don’t wanna do it at mine. I’m gonna hang up, because I’ve got a little work to do. But have the shot glasses ready. I don’t want to remember this shit.”

She snorts. “I got you. You want me to invite the others? Marc is wandering around bored, since Kari isn’t in town. And?—”

“Nope. Definitely fucking not. Catch you in a bit.”

“And that’s when you accidentally slept with Britt,” Kane guesses on a gusting exhale. “Liquor. Shot glasses. Heart ache. It’s a recipe for disaster, dude.”

“It was a mistake,” I sigh. “One I literally possess no memories of today. But I know it happened, because I sure as shit remember waking up the next morning, crusty mouthed and puking.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and study Billy. “Britt’s a good girl, and luckily for us both, we had, and continue to have, respect for one another. What was done was just… It was a thing we did. There were no emotions involved. We weren’t in love with each other, nor were we mad at each other once it was done. It was just…”

“A thing,” Kane nods. “I get it. I made out with your sister one time.”

It’s like he gets off on annoying me. “You’re married to her, Bish. I don’t need to know the details.”

“Nah, I meant the other sister.” His lips twitch with a smug grin. “Picked the wrong one that one time,” he chuckles. “It happens. Jess forgave me. And evidently,” he extends his hand and gestures toward Billy, “Kari forgave you.”

“You’re comparing mixing up identical twins and kissing the wrong one, one time, to me having sex with the best friend of the woman I loved, and the sister of my friend?”

“Yes. I am,” he sniggers. “So long as you didn’t fuck Jess, I’m here for it.”

I drop my head back and roll my eyes. “Yes. So glad I didn’t fuck my own sister, Bish. Close call.”

“Word on the street is Britt announced what you did at the dinner table a few years later. That’s how Jess tells it. Would’ve been rough for Kari to find out that way.”

“Yeah? Except Jess doesn’t know everything all the time.” I bring my focus down and study the sweet baby that came only after years of heartache. Of forgiveness. Of thinking about a prick known as Ten.

Iwake to the sun’s rays filtering through broken panes of glass. The shards of light hitting my eyes like lasers on steroids, their only purpose in life, to irritate me when my head already pounds. My mouth tastes of dirt and vomit. My lips, dry and crusty.

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