Page 65 of Putting Out
“Yep.”
“What did you do?”
“I quit the tour.”
This time Kenny turned to look at him. “Seriously. That’s why you left?”
“My whole life had become one tournament after another. One commercial shoot after another. One bimbo girlfriend to bimbo wife after another. I woke up one morning and realized my life had no more meaning than a game. Where for everyone else it was a job. A job they could leave behind and go home to something after the season was over. So I quit.”
“I can’t leave Reilly. Especially now.”
“Quitting your job doesn’t have to be the answer. You asked what you do when it feels like you’re stuck? You shake things up. Do something different. Break a pattern.”
“I thought I was trying that with Erica. Trying to get serious about someone.”
“Serious? You blew her off pretty quickly when you found out that she didn’t agree with you.”
Kenny grunted.
Luke accepted it as a standard male response to hearing something he didn’t like.
“Maybe you trying to get serious was your way of breaking a pattern. I’m not sure that Erica is the person you want to get serious about.”
“Too early to tell yet.”
“Could be. But let me say this. Sometimes doing something to break the pattern for the sake of breaking the pattern doesn’t always work. Sometimes you just lose something that you didn’t want to lose.”
“Does that mean you’re going back on tour?” Kenny wondered.
“Too early to tell yet. But I knew after I did it, it wasn’ttheanswer. There’s something more and I have to go figure out what it is and make it happen.”
“Shit,” Kenny sneered. “You sound like the Dalai Lama or something.”
Luke laughed and after a second, Kenny joined him. They stood and watched the last remnants of the sunset and for now the tension between them was broken. Easy friendship slid back into place as they finished their beers.
“Are you really hot for my sister?”
“Yeah,” Luke acknowledged. “But don’t tell her, okay. I don’t want her to know. If this is going to work I’m going to need to kind of sneak up on her before she realizes it’s me.”
“Just hots or like?” Kenny asked like he used to when they were in college.
“Kenny, be prepared. It might be like-like.”
“Holy shit. You like-like Reilly. I’ve got to warn you, bro. She’s probably going to break your heart right after she crushes your balls.”
“Naah. My balls are made of steel. Didn’t I tell you?”
His heart, however, was another matter.
