Page 54 of How Good It Was (Excess All Areas 3)

“Okay. So, that’s cute.” Willow wondered if Luke would ever add something about their baby to his own tattoos. Something meaningful, something important. Ink was permanent. Even when he and their baby were apart, he’d carry a piece of the baby with him. Melancholy teased the edges of the good mood she’d been in when she’d arrived.

“Anyway, we’re not talking about Jase. We were talking about Willow and Luke.” Iz tipped her prosecco glass in Willow’s direction. “And you need to ’fess up.”

“Are you always so direct?” Willow asked.

“Funnily enough, no. If you’d met me last year, I would have avoided anything that even remotely felt like confrontation.”

“What changed?”

“A set of those broad shoulders and an inked body who encouraged me to take up my own space. I’m a work in progress. But again, you’re stalling. Luke. You. Tell us all the things. Well, not all the things because seriously, I don’t want to know the freaky things my brother gets up to.”

Willow sighed and looked down at the table for a moment, organising her thoughts. “It’s complicated. I think we both know that if I hadn’t got pregnant, a one-night stand would have been all we ever added up to.”

Zoe sighed. “I bet it was a really good one-night stand, though. Not that I’m interested in Luke. But he just gives off those really capable vibes.”

“He totally does,” Chaya said.

“I don’t want to think about my brother’s vibes,” Iz said, pretending to stick her fingers down her throat and gag.

Willow grinned. This must be what it felt like, to have a close group of girlfriends, who overshared details of their life but had each other’s backs. She’d only ever had Riley as a real friend, but even Riley was letting her down lately. Never available to do more than message each other. “Yeah. I’ll admit he’s very capable.”

Capable didn’t even begin to describe the way she’d felt when he’d run his hands all over her body. Even now, when she caught sight of him without his shirt, she felt stirrings in places that had no reason to stir. But he’d not done anything beyond the kiss he’d given her a week earlier. He’d climbed into bed at night and been gone in the morning. They were back to one step forward, two steps back.

Zoe laughed. “I bet Alex is the same.”

Izabel choked on her drink. “Oh my God, I feel the need to defend Matt if we are starting some rating of whether they are good in bed or not.”

“I mean, if we’re comparing, you’d be well placed to decide between Matt and Jase, right?” Chaya said with a grin.

As Izabel’s jaw dropped, Cerys joined in with the rest of the table’s shocked laughter. “You did not just go there.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t help it. Iz just opened the door, I had no choice but to walk through it. Sorry, Iz, Cerys.”

“Forgiven.” Izabel looked over at Cerys and mouthed the word sorry.

“Wait,” Willow asked. “You and Jase? And Matt?”

“One was a mistake, and the other was forever. Two years apart. And you live and learn. But back to my brother, Warner, before this lot distracts us again. I think he likes you. And you like him. And it’s obvious we all like you. Why aren’t the two of you doing more than just making it work?”

“It’s complicated. We don’t want the same things out of life at all. I mean, there are the logistics. I live in Malibu, and he lives here. He doesn’t want to be tied down. I understand things were tough for you both growing up.”

Izabel sobered. “It was. I mean. It wasn’t. We had a great life until we didn’t. Dad worshipped Mum and was the glue that held our family together. Luke was going to be an airline pilot. Did you know that? That’s what he wanted to do. Had plans to finish his A-levels and apply. He always wanted to see the world. We just never really had the funds to do anything beyond the family trip to Benidorm or Corfu or somewhere like that every year. Then, Dad died and it all went pear-shaped. Mum was bereft. Dad had taken care of everything. Did all the banking. Fixed everything in the house. Mum worked part-time at Primark, but she wasn’t the most independent. And while I was mad at her leaving for a long time, I think she was lost in her own grief. So that meant Luke had to step up and do everything for us. And she thanked him by leaving us. I don’t even know if she really loved Kevin, Dad’s best friend. I think she just wanted to be taken care of again.”

Willow digested Izabel’s words. “Is that why he hasn’t told her about the baby yet?”

“I would guess so. He just told me to keep it to myself and not tell her. I don’t think he’s ready to deal with that anger of feeling abandoned by her.”

Willow considered the dichotomy. Why couldn’t he see that those very feelings of being abandoned as a child were going to be passed down to his own child if Luke didn’t figure his emotional baggage out?

Cerys leaned forward. “I’ve never asked, because it always seemed rude, but why didn’t it affect you in the same way?”

Izabel shrugged. “I don’t know, but my best guess is that I was the one being looked after. I didn’t have responsibilities that should never have been mine dumped on me like he did at nineteen. He made sure I never had to worry about anything. And I know he didn’t love doing it because occasionally he’d get pissed off ... not at me, just about the situation. Like there was a school trip to a museum, and we all had to pay a fiver to go on the bus, and it was a few days before payday and his van had no petrol. He walked to work for three days so I could go on the trip. And every morning he grumbled about having to walk two miles before he even started work.”

Willow could understand that feeling of doing things you didn’t want to do. It chafed the edges of your soul. They said feeling tired at the end of the day was not because you’d done too much, but because you’d done too little of what sparked joy in your life and soul. And she could see it. Luke had always done the right thing, like he was now. But at the end of the day, he went to bed with that cloud of feeling that his life wasn’t his own.

But he’d never let Iz down.

Despite it all.

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