Page 98 of Happily Never After

She had been inching toward the whiteboard, eager to put a plan to save the business into motion. “But?—”

He shook his head. “Later. Let’s go.”

So bossy today. She found a pair of jean shorts in a basket of laundry she had yet to put away.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he steered her out the front door and down the steps.

“You’ll see.” Typical Luke.

They got into the car. Thankfully, there were zero ex girlfriends climbing the drainpipe. Luke flipped through songs on his phone until he found Claire’s favorite metal song. Her body thrummed with the double bass. Bar by bar, her anxiety quieted.

The sun hung low on the horizon. Neon lights flashed by. Luke’s thumb brushed small circles over her knee. She wound one arm through his and, for once, focused her attention on the city instead of her phone. They passed a Thai place, and the intoxicating smell of drunken noodles stirred her appetite.

“Is there food where we’re going?” The chocolate chip cookie had been delicious, but it was definitely lacking protein.

Luke nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. Maybe they were going back to food truck central.

“How was your day?” She hadn’t even asked.

“Less dramatic than yours.”

She bumped his shoulder. “Come on. Tell me something. I could use the distraction.”

He glanced at her. “Are we seriously not going to talk about what happened this morning?”

This morning? What was he talking about? Oh, right. His ex-girlfriend trespassed while clad in lingerie and a plastic smile. How polite of him to remind her.

“What, the Olivia thing?” Claire scoffed. “I’m over it. I’ve lived and lost a thousand dreams since she fell from the roof like an oversized bird of prey wearing Victoria’s Secret. She is at the very bottom of my ever-growing list of problems.”

It was true. She hadn’t even bothered to check Olivia’s Instagram for her inevitable sob story. “You would tell me if I had something to worry about, right?” she asked.

Luke frowned. “What are you talking about?”

She folded her hands in her lap. It was like the alcohol had evaporated from her system. “A year and a half ago, you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her. And this morning, she climbed your drainpipe.”

He sighed and seemed to be thinking hard. “I was in a weird place after my dad died. I came home when my enlistment was up, drove across the country so I didn’t have to see my brother.”

Claire bit her lip. Luke’s brother, George, had pulled their father off life support before Luke could get home from Afghanistan. She had forced the two to hang out during a painfully awkward dinner party that culminated in her incapacitating George and forcing him to leave. But things had seemed marginally better at Thanksgiving.

“I did some night classes and bartended while I started my first project,” he continued. “Anyway, Olivia was simple, safe. At first, anyway. Then with all the influencer bullshit, she got addicted to drama. That was our entire relationship, day and night. Accusing me of cheating, picking fights, trying to make me jealous, turning my friends against me.”

And then he had proposed. Not that Claire could judge—she had spent nearly one-eighth of her life with a sentient, Doritos-dusted beanbag with gamer’s thumb.

“That sounds exhausting,” she said carefully.

“It was. So no, you don’t have anything to worry about. Here we are.” He pulled into a parking lot.

“Where are we?” She sat up and looked around. A yellow sign several yards away read Will Rogers State Beach.

“Oh! The beach.” She had been so tied up with Brad’s proposal that she had never even managed to put her toes in the Pacific.

The sea breeze hit her the second she opened her car door. Salt spray misted her face. Not even the tantalizing smell of the cheesesteak food truck in the parking lot could have derailed her from her first Pacific sunset. She kicked off her shoes and tossed them in her purse. Luke’s hand found hers, and they trudged barefoot through the sand to the edge of the water.

A trail of light skimmed across the waves, leading to the setting sun. Cotton candy clouds stood like sentries, guarding the view of the stars that, in West Haven at least, would have peeked out.

A few young families and a handful of elderly couples strolled the beach, but when she turned to look at Luke, they might as well have been the only two people on the planet.

He was still here, even in the aftermath of her greatest career failure. He hadn’t yelled at her or left her to go to poker night like Jason would have. He had built her back up, stepped in to take care of what she couldn’t do alone, and pulled her out of her self-pitying nose dive. It was a level of security she had never known. Warmth and gratitude flooded her.

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