Page 36 of Walking Wounded

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He spends about an hour pretending to admire Dex’s club, finally gives Tara a warning look that makes her laugh, and then ventures back out into the cold afternoon.

He walks back to the bookshops he noticed on the way to the club, and browses for a blissful three hours, lost amid crowded stacks, flipping through the dusty pages of secondhand sci-fi novels and biographies. The smell of crumbled binding and faded ink soothes the more excitable regions of his brain, leaves him content, humming even.

He prowls the sidewalks, hands in his pockets, trying to decide if he regrets the conversation he had with Tara at The Grind earlier. He trembles a little, thinking that he put it into words like that, because he’s never done that, not with anyone besides Hal. Oh, people have known – Linda keeps hinting, and obviously Hal knows, though he tries to pretend The Incident never happened. But Luke has never made the actual admission, not even to his mother, who would understand, and kiss his cheek, and feel sorry for him.

Maybe that’s why he’s always held back: he doesn’t want pity. He knows he’s pitiful, but he doesn’t want the sympathy that entails. Tara seems incapable of pity. She took it in stride; she didn’t judge him for it, and in return, she expects him not to judge her.

He can do that.

Maybe, one day, he’ll even be able to get over the terrible, crushing, insurmountable love he’s always borne for his best friend.

When he’s chilled to the bone and his feet are sore, he pops into a small winery, buys a too-expensive bottle of Chardonnay for his hostess, and returns to the Maddox house.

When he knocks, Tara opens the door, and bats her lashes at him, her voice sugary and Southern. “Why Luke, what a nice surprise.”

“Your accent sucks,” he tells her in an undertone as he steps inside, and she laughs.

“Here, is that for Mama?”

“It doesn’t get me any brownie points if you give it to her.”

She helps him take off his jacket instead, and hangs it up on the rack. “Mom! Luke’s here!”

“No need to yell, dear,” Sandy calls back. And then: “Luke, I swear we aren’t all animals,” growing louder as he progresses down the hall.

The mistress of the house stands peering through the window in the oven door, squinting at whatever’s inside that smells so wonderful, dressed in jeans and a silk shirt, the glimmer of diamonds at her ears and throat natural and not overdone. She glances up and shoots Luke a smile as he enters. “Twice-baked potatoes are almost done, and the stew’s resting.”

“Smells amazing.” He offers the bottle. “This is for you.”

She sweeps forward, low shoes clacking on the tile, cooing in appreciation. “How sweet, you didn’t have to. Ooh, nice vintage. Thank you.” And to his shock, and mild embarrassment, she leans forward and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. She smells like perfume and perfectly cooked meat.

“Uh…you’re welcome.”

“The men should be here any minute,” she says, bustling to the counter and digging in a drawer for a corkscrew. “My husband the workaholic just can’t ever drag himself out of his office. I’m a Washington widow, I swear.”

“Oh, let me get that.” Luke steps forward to open the wine.

She relinquishes the corkscrew gladly. “Thanks, honey. Maddie!” she calls. “Are you ready?”

Footsteps thunder down the back steps and Madison appears in a sweater and skirt that seem much too dressy alongside her mother and sister’s outfits.

Sandy does a double take at it. “Look at you, all fancy,” she says, and Luke thinks he hears a note of concern bleeding through the compliment.

He glances to Tara as he gets the cork free and she rolls her eyes.

It strikes Luke, as Tara presses wine glasses into his hand one after the next, that in his solitary writer life of cigs and vodka, he hasn’t had a dinner this hectic with family since he moved out at eighteen. And then it gets crazier.

A draft of cool air slides through the kitchen, signaling a door somewhere has opened.

“Honey, I’m home!” a booming voice calls.

“You’re late, and you’re also not funny,” Sandy quips as her husband comes into the kitchen, suit jacket slung over his arm, hair rumpled, briefcase in hand. Matt Maddox bends down to kiss his wife, and Luke’s eyes lift up and over their heads, landing on Hal in the doorway.

He allows himself a moment to look. Just one, because he needs it like oxygen.

Hal looks windblown, his cheeks bright from the cold, his eyes watery from the wind, brilliant green. He’s ditched his suit jacket too, and the heavy muscles in his shoulders and arms strain the thin blue material of his dress shirt. Luke wants to chastise him for not being dressed warmly enough. He wants to run his fingers through Hal’s tousled hair.

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