Page 5 of Lose Me In The Shadows

Fuck.

Conor sighed. “I was hoping for an update.”

He didn’t need to say about what, but knowing Conor was hungry to get new intel on Kara made Luke feel that much guiltier. When had he become such a devious asshole? That was Micah’s thing, not his.

There was a heavy silence on the phone.

“Something’s going on,” Conor said. “Luke…”

For a moment, Luke saw two paths in front of him. One was the right path, even if it was the more painful one. Tell Conor the truth, piss Micah off in the process, and cancel his date with Kara out of loyalty to his friend.

The other was a path Luke never thought he’d follow. But Kara was on that path, and if he were being fucking honest, that was the path he wanted to go down.

“It’s the anniversary of my grandma’s death,” Luke said.

True.

Bullshit excuse, though. Luke hadn’t thought about his grandmother once this year; he’d been too busy following Kara.

“Ah fuck, sorry, man. I forgot.”

“It’s okay.”

Because Luke was full of shit, and using his dead grandmother, the woman who had raised him, as an excuse, was beyond low. If she were alive, she’d never forgive him.

“I’ll let you go,” Conor finally said, sounding lonely. Luke knew he had one more chance to tell the truth, but when he opened his mouth, something stopped him.

They hung up, Luke’s guilt weighing him down. Until he looked at Kara’s number in his phone, which she’d saved as “Hot Mess,” and the guilt didn’t come anywhere close to the elated excitement he tried to ignore.

Just keeping her safe, he thought to himself.That’s all, I’m just keeping her safe.

He was losing count of all the lies.

Luke couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this nervous about a date. The whole week, he’d bounced between guilt and excited anxiety—and Luke wasn’t the type to get anxious.

He also wasn’t sure the last time he’d been on an actual date. Usually, he just fucked people he met at bars or kink clubs. He never saw them again; the only repeat customers had been Micah and Conor, and that was too complicated to even think about right now, so he set it aside.

He wanted this woman. Badly. So badly, he was willing to break all his rules, just for a date with her. That was the truth.

But she was late. He sat on a picnic bench near the entrance of the Cave Trail at Castlewood Canyon, waiting for Kara. She’d texted him five minutes before they were supposed to meet saying

sorry, running a few minutes late, be there soon

That was half an hour ago. It was close to dusk; the park was closing in a few hours.

Had he been stood up?

He had been, hadn’t he. Of course he had. Of course Conor and Micah got balls-deep inside Kara the first time they met her, but Luke—who had talked her through a debilitating panic attack—got stood up.

The disappointment sliced him, swift and sharp. He stood up from the bench, resisting texting her some passive aggressive admonishment. He wasn’t a pathetic jackass. Or maybe he was, but he wasn’t the type to take it out on a woman via text. She’d judged him, found him wanting, and was too “nice” to tell him so.

It was for the best. This way, he wasn’t betraying anyone.

Lie.

As he walked back to his rental, he spotted a redhead sitting in an old Forester.

Kara.

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