Page 58 of In Plain Sight

“Thanks for listening,” I said, my voice gruff with emotion.

“Something tells me you don’t have a lot of people in your life who do that,” he said, his eyes filling with an intensity I couldn’t place and liked way too much. “Listen, and not just talk.”

I couldn’t answer. He didn’t need me to.

“You said your mom called yesterday,” he said, breaking our momentary silence. “And that’s why you’ve been off?”

“Right.” I shook my head. I’d completely lost the thread of our conversation during my tangent about Ivy.

“You don’t have to tell me more about it,” he continued. “I just want you to know that you can.” He pressed his arm a bit harder against mine. “Any time.”

I cleared my throat, trying to get rid of the lump that had formed. I’d already said so much tonight, no point holding back now. “It was the same as most of the calls I get from her. She knows my work schedule but acts like it’s a big shock when I can’t do what she wants because I’m working. Then she gets mad, and when she gets mad, she gets mean and says things she knows will hurt me.”

“That’s not okay.”

“No, but it’s who she is. Who she’s always been. She’s selfish, and it’s easier to blame me for everything that’s wrong in her life than it is to acknowledge that her choices have consequences. Usually it’s not a big deal, and I can brush it off, but she said…” I shook my head; Luka didn’t need to hear the details of my mother’s call. “She went for the jugular. And she woke me up, so I was still groggy when she laid into me. And I’ve got some other stuff going on, so it hit extra hard.”

Silence descended on us, but it wasn’t strained or uncomfortable.

“Are things better with your friends?” I asked, needing to change the subject.

He snort-laughed. “Not really.”

“No?”

He leaned his head against the stone wall behind us. “They’re all at a party right now, and I wasn’t invited.”

“Because your ex fling will be there?”

He nodded. “The stupid thing is I’d be okay with all this if we had a bad break up. Or if we’d been super serious and broke up. But we only hooked up for a few months, and it was supposed to be casual.Iwasn’t the one who changed the rules, but everyone’s still acting like I’m the bad guy here. And it really sucks that my best friend just goes along with it. I love Dean like a brother, but I can’t take much more of this crap. I don’t want to walk away from my friends, but I can’t figure out if that’s because I want to stay friends with them or if it’s because the idea of not having friends scares the piss out of me.” He looked so broken and defeated that I wanted to wrap him up in a hug and protect him from everything that was weighing him down.

Instead, I pressed my arm against his. It was the chastest contact ever, but it still sent a zing of awareness through me.

He relaxed, some of the tension leaving his shoulders, and gave me a small smile. “I don’t handle rejection well, and being abandoned is one of my biggest triggers. It’s made me willing to put up with a lot, and they have no problem using that against me.” He sighed heavily. “Making friends as an adult is hard.”

“It is,” I agreed.

“You know, I was really hurt earlier when I found out everyone was going to that party, and I wasn’t even invited,” he mused. “But now I’m really glad I didn’t go. Hanging out with you is way better than any party.”

He smiled shyly. I knew he meant “you guys” and not “you” like me, but it still made my chest tighten and my stomach swoop.

“I’m happy you’re here too.” I cleared my throat. “I’m not happy your friends are being assholes, but I am glad you came out with us.”

He beamed, and he was so beautiful I had to look away so I didn’t say something stupid.

“It’s a nice night,” I said, just to break the silence.

Good job, Zander. Way to not say something stupid.

“It is.” He tilted his head up and looked up between the buildings at the night sky. “And it’s really nice that it’s not cloudy. Sometimes I forget what stars look like because it’s always overcast.”

I chuckled. “Yeah. Jesse is really into space, and he’s always complaining about how it’s always overcast or raining whenever celestial events happen.”

He huffed out a soft laugh. “My dad used to say the same thing. I remember this one time, when I was eleven, there was this giant solar flare or something, and we were actually in the right zone to see the northern lights. But of course it rained the first night, and it was cloudy the second night they were supposed to be visible. My dad and I sat outside for almost four hours that second night, hoping to catch a glimpse of them through a break in the clouds.”

“Did you?”

Luka smiled. “Yeah. Not for long, only about thirty seconds, but he got to cross it off his bucket list.”

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