Page 14 of Keeping You
That brief contact is enough to sear my skin and send waves of pleasure through to the tips of my fingers and toes. I cross tothe other side of the island, needing a barrier between us. “So. Have you decided?”
He drains half the glass before answering, and I’m enthralled by his Adam’s apple moving up and down the column of his throat. “I’m still not sure I understand the logistics. How exactly is this supposed to work?”
I don’t have a clue. I’m totally winging this.
“It’s simple.” I lean against the counter, trying to project confidence as my brain spins for a solution that makes sense. “We make a few public appearances together. Hold hands, share a few meaningful looks.” Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath before the following words pop out of my mouth. “Maybe a kiss or two for show. Let people draw their own conclusions.”
My parents would be so ashamed of me. I wish Nikki and I had the kind of relationship where I could call her up to talk about this stuff. But we’ve never been that close. After our parents passed away within months of each other, she stayed in Europe for a few years, only returning a year ago. Until eight months ago, Harper would have been my sounding board. Though I obviously couldn’t talk to her about Luke. Now I have nobody.
“And you think that’s going to magically solve both our problems?”
“It’s not magic,” I counter, though my voice wobbles. “It’s optics. And in a town like Cupid’s Creek, optics are everything,” I say carefully. “And right now, you’re the bad boy returned home, and I’m the poor librarian who got her heart broken by her cheating ex and backstabbing best friend. Put us together, and suddenly we’re not individual sob stories anymore. We’re a romance worth rooting for.”
This had better work.
Luke sets his empty glass down on the counter, studying me with those intense eyes. “And what happens when Harper and Kirk see us together?”
“Kirk gets to see that I’m not sitting around pining for him. And Harper,” my gut cramps, “she gets the same.” She gets to watch her best friend pretend to fall head over heels for the brother she warned her away from, for making me choose friendship over love. I shrug, going casual, hoping he can’t see my hands shaking or hear the slight tremor in my voice. “Win-win.”
“What about when this fake relationship runs its course? What then?”
The question catches me off guard because clearly I haven’t thought this out at all. “Then we have an amicable breakup,” I say. “No harm, no foul.”
Luke pushes away from the counter and takes a few steps around it, coming closer to me. “You really think it’ll be that simple?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” But even as I ask the question, a flutter stirs low in my stomach, warning me I already know the answer. “We’re both adults. We know what this is.”
“Do we?” He’s near enough that I can smell his cologne mixed with clean sweat, can see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes. “Because I’m not sure, Callie.”
His laser gaze pins me where I stand, heat rushing through me in a way no fake arrangement can explain. My breath catches like it did all those years ago whenever he walked into the same room Harper and I were in. It’s humiliating how easily old feelings come hurtling back, how quickly my body remembers what my head keeps trying to forget. The way he’s looking at me, the way he says my name—it’s like being a teenager again, standing in the Caldwell’s backyard while Harper was insidegetting us sodas, feeling like Luke was seeing me for the first time asnothis little sister’s best friend.
“It’s business,” I manage to say, my voice not as steady as I’d like. “Mutually beneficial business.”
“Right.” But he doesn’t step back, doesn’t break eye contact. “Business.”
The front door opens. “Callie? You home?”
I jerk away from Luke, putting distance between us just as Nikki appears in the kitchen doorway. She stops short when she sees Luke, her eyebrows rising toward her hairline.
“Well, well,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I heard you were back in town.”
“Nikki.” Luke nods politely. “Good to see you.”
“Is it?” Her tone is calm, protective. Nikki has never forgotten how I cried for weeks after Luke left town, even though I never told her the real reason. Nikki and Luke are the same age, but they weren’t friends in school. She teased me endlessly about my crush on him for years after she initially scolded me for liking an older boy.
“Nikki,” I warn.
“What? I’m just making conversation.” But her eyes never leave his face. “So, what brings you to my sister’s kitchen?”
“I was just—” Luke starts, but I cut him off.
“He was just leaving,” I say firmly. “Weren’t you, Luke?”
Disappointment flickers in his eyes before he schools his expression. “Yeah. I should get going.”
He heads for the front door, and I trail behind, Nikki right on my heels.
On the porch, Luke turns back to me. “Think about what I said, okay? About whether this is really what you want.”
