Page 34 of Show Me How to Heal
I didn’t need a crush on some guy I barely knew, and I especially didn’t need to start a relationship right now, no matter how much I wanted to. I’d taken out a substantial loan to pay for the shop and the renovations. I couldn’t afford to get distracted by my employee.
Besides, I was his boss now.
Yeah, but you were his hookup first, my heart told me. It was a permanent fight within me, head versus heart — and I didn’t know which side I wanted to win.
That was a lie; I knew exactly which side I wanted to win. The side that brought me closer to the guy sitting opposite me, a gentle smile on his lips while he absentmindedly stroked my hand with his thumb. The motion was oddly soothing, keeping me calm while my head was trying to understand what had just happened.
Adam had come out to talk to me. Which was huge. We hadn’t talked in months, let alone texted. I was the idiot texting him memes and stuff without him even so much as acknowledging my texts. But what had Luke said? I wasn’t an idiot. I was keeping a door open for when Adam was ready to step through it.
God, I hoped he was ready soon because he looked bad. He’d lost weight and all his energy. BM — before Marc — he’d been the positive one out of us. A teddy-bear. Always happy, easily excitable, friendly.
Now he looked like there was a rain cloud hanging over his head. And his softness? Gone. He’d gone from a cook with a little bit of tummy to a kid trying on his dad’s work clothes.
I hated seeing him like this, but I hated knowing I couldn’t do anything about it even more. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Luke was right. I couldn’t help him if he didn’t want help in the first place. Avery and I had tried for more than a year, but to no avail. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean it hurt any less.
Luke got that. The way he’d looked at me when he’d told me his story, the pain radiating off his body in waves, the agony in his eyes… he got it. Both sides. What I was going through and what Addy was going through — and he helped me understand, though it was obvious talking about his past was painful to him.
I didn’t know what career he’d lost — and I didn’t want to pry if it was this painful to him — but there was no doubt it’d been his lifelong dream.
Working in a shop in a small town selling and packaging soaps probably wasn’t his idea of an adequate substitute, but at least it might be enough to show him he wasn’t useless. I sincerely hoped so.
Because he wasn’t useless. At all.
“Oh, our food’s coming!” I said upon seeing Kathy heading towards our table, our order in hand.
“Thank god. I’m starving,” Luke muttered, turning his head, his eyes lighting up at the prospect of food.
However, when Kathy placed his chicken sandwich and salad in front of him, he furrowed his brows, looking at it like something was wrong. While he studied his food like it was a riddle he had to solve before he was allowed to eat, I thanked Kathy and asked her to refill our Cokes.
Her dazzling smile and murmured, “Thank you,” were worth the pain it had caused me to see Addy like that.
“Everything alright?” I asked Luke when Kathy was out of earshot, worry unfolding in my gut. Had I chosen wrong? I’d never ordered for anyone else, but he’d asked me to.
“Yeah… no, I mean… I think they got my order wrong. Not that I mind, the burger looks delicious, but I thought you’d ordered a sandwich for me.”
“Huh?” I looked at his plate that had, in fact, a chicken sandwich on it. “It’s not a burger. It’s chicken.”
“Yeah.” Luke nodded, looking at me with an utterly confused expression, his eyebrows disappearing under his dark blond hair. “A chickenburger.”
Now it was my turn to blink. “Burgers are made with a patty, usually made out of beef,” I explained.
Luke shook his head. “Burgers are a patty or piece of chicken or a patty made out of beans or peas or whatever between two buns.”
“No. If it’s a patty, it’s a burger, if it’s a piece of chicken, it’s a sandwich.”
“Soo… you want to tell me you call this burger a chicken sandwich? Then… what do you call an actual sandwich… using toast bread.”
“Using what?”
“Toast…this squishy white bread you use for sandwiches… Doesn’t matter. What do you call an actual sandwich that happens to have chicken on it?”
“A chicken sandwich?”
“So how do you know what you get?” Luke asked, his voice raised, his cheeks a dark pink color. Despite his agitated state, he didn’t let go of my hand. Which was sweet — though I wished it wasn’t. It was getting harder and harder to remember why starting a relationship with him wasn’t a good idea.
“I… Are you unhappy you didn’t get an… actual sandwich?” I asked carefully, not quite understanding how a conversation about bread had gotten that heated within the blink of an eye. My mind had trouble catching up, still basking in the peaceful silence.
“No, I… actually prefer a burger to a sandwich,” Luke said, shaking his head. “Sorry. I got confused for a second. Obviously, in Germany we differentiate between sandwich and burger. I mean, we do have real sandwiches. Sometimes the differences between our countries are quite shocking because you’d never expect things to be so different.” His anger was long gone, instead he laughed. “I made the mistake of ordering a large Coke at McDonalds and I got a fucking bucket of Coke. Like, seriously, who can drink that much?” He shook his head again. “When people say everything’s bigger in the US, I thought they were exaggerating.”
