Page 59 of Walking Wounded

Amazingly, Luke hears the soft plop and rattle of the peas sliding off and hitting the floor. Hal’s gone twitchy again.

“Seriously?”

Hal bends down to reapply the makeshift ice pack, and when he straightens, his cheeks are stained rose-petal pink.

Luke imagines his stomach settling, a soothing oil balm to quiet the roiling and clenching. It doesn’t work, but he manages to look unaffected, he thinks, prodding at the chicken with a fork. “So you must have really had it bad for her, huh?”

“Nah.”

Luke steals a look across the bar; Hal’s head bent, lashes dark fans against his high, pretty cheekbones.

“It was just kinda weird the way things ended with her. Good weird, I guess. Neither of us got hurt, and she…helped me maybe figure some stuff out.”

“Cooking stuff?”

“No. Other stuff.” Hal’s gaze flicks to the skillet. “That’s ready to turn.”

~*~

The salad is, no surprise at this point, excellent. They drown it with homemade citrus dressing and eat (carefully) on the couch in front ofSportsCenter.

When the greasy plates are resting on the coffee table, Hal says, “How’s the face?”

“Better than your foot.”

“No, seriously, lemme see.”

With a sigh, Luke twists toward his friend so Hal can check his bandaged eyebrow.

In the blue glow of the TV, Hal’s face scrunches up with concern and he reaches to probe at Luke’s temple and forehead with tentative fingers. “It’s starting to bruise.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna look fantastic in the morning.”

Hal ruffles his hair before he pulls back, grinning. “It looks kinda badass.”

“Oh my God,” Luke groans, rolling his eyes.

“I’m serious. All dangerous and mysterious and shit.”

“You’re the worst,” Luke tells him, and leans sideways so his head rests against Hal’s substantial shoulder.

Hal’s laughing, jostling his head in a gentle way, and so it takes Luke a moment to realize what he’s doing: Leaning on Hal, pressing together, like three years ago they hadn’t almost…like Hal hadn’t…

He straightens, too quick and stiff, shoving off of Hal’s shoulder with a shaking hand.

Hal’s laugh cuts off with a sharp intake of breath. His head snaps around, gaze searching for Luke’s, eyes full of hurt and question.

Luke can’t look at him. It’s too painful, the way Hal projects such sadness, and betrayal, like something as simple as a touch could ever mean as much to him as it does to Luke. Like he ever cried himself senseless over his best friend’s rejection. Like he wrestles with his ugly, unappeasable, unreciprocated love for a man who doesn’t want him back every day of his damn life. Like he isn’t the straightest, most straight-laced, perfect all-American boy with the world lying at his feet.

And Luke hates himself for that sharp stab of jealousy. Because he isn’t jealousofHal; he’s destroyed by the knowledge that he can’thaveHal. He’s jealous of Kate, and all the girls who’ve come before and who will come after. Because he’s a petty, heartbroken idiot, still stuck in the past, still as fixated as always.

“Hey,” Hal says, quietly, and runs his fingertips down the vulnerable curve of Luke’s back. “It’s okay, you don’t–”

Luke surges to his feet, knees knocking into the coffee table. “I should get these in the dishwasher.” He snatches up their plates and forks in a desperate hurry. He still can’t look at Hal, can only miss the brief warmth of his fingers against his back.

Somehow his legs carry him the short distance to the kitchen. His elbow catches the tap and he runs water over the dishes, watching it try to combat the olive oil on their slick white surfaces. Oil and water. Is that what he and Hal are now? Always out of step by one stride? Similar, but incompatible?

He doesn’t expect Hal to follow him, but he probably should, after that morning at the gym. He’s still stuck in the mindset of three years ago, that closed door between them, when he shuts off the tap, looks up, and sees Hal standing across the bar from him.

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