Page 72 of Rebellious Hearts

The drinks arrived not much later.

“Don’t you get along with your family?” Sofia asked after Luke and Amy had talked about how horrible their family gathering was.

“Not really,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I’ll always love them, and if someone says something mean about them, I’ll throw blows.” She smiled cheekily. “But I don’t want to spend time with them if they’re just going to tell me what I’m supposed to do with my life.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, cutting off a piece of cheese and putting it on a cracker. “Amy and I are thirty, for God’s sake. We’re pretty good at living our own lives by now.”

Amy rolled her eyes when Luke said it.

“We’ll always be our parents’ babies.”

“I get that,” Sofia said and Luke and Amy both looked at her. She looked suddenly unsure of herself. “I mean…” She cleared her throat. “We were both miracle babies. They told my parents they were never going to be able to have kids, and yet, here we are. My parents were so scared something would happen to us, they never let us do anything or go anywhere, and I sort of understand why they were like that.”

“Do you?” Amy scrunched her nose. “I don’t really think that’s fair.”

Sofia shrugged. “It’s not, but our parents can’t be faulted if they did the best they could.”

I stared at her. Was it really supposed to be that simple? Maybe… but I had parents somewhere out there, too. Parents who had given me up just because the going had gotten too tough. Because looking after me had become too much of a burden and they’d surrendered me to the state. Was thatforgivable? Had they really tried their best and couldn’t be faulted for that?

I was suddenly pissed off. I never got this angry about my birth parents and the hell they put me through. At least, not right away. It usually took some thinking and alotof drinking to get me this pissed off.

But what the fuck?

“Are you okay?” Amy asked.

“Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“How about you and I go get some shooters at the bar,” Luke suggested, and I nodded.

Shooters sounded great right about now.

Before I stood, I paused, turning to Sofia. “You’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, but her eyes searched mine. She was sure she would be okay, but she wasn’t sure I would be.

She knew a bit about my past, but she didn’t know all of it and Luke was the one who knew how to talk me down from the ledge when I got like this.

When we got to the bar, we ordered tequilas, and I glanced back toward the booth where the girls sipped their wine and talked and laughed.

“Come on, man,” Luke said. “What’s got you so riled up tonight? You’re not usually this touchy about all the bullshit from the past.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I had no idea why my past was suddenly hitting me square between the eyes as if it had all happened again yesterday. “It just pisses me off sometimes how you guys have a perfect family but you try to avoid them as much as you can because they care too much.” I wasn’t sure where that had come from, but the words tumbled out, and I knew I could tell Luke anything.

“Look, Ben,” Luke started, but then the tequilas arrived. We tapped the shot glasses on the counter twice and threw them back. Luke waved at the bartender for two more. “I know your past is fucked up. I know you come from hell, and I get that. It pissed you off, and it’s fine that it does. But you have a great family now. You have people who are always there for you, people you don’t even have to try avoiding, you’refineseeing them every day at the office and partying with them sometimes, too. I mean, if that’s not a top-shelf life…”

I sighed heavily. “I know, okay? I don’t know why I got so pissed off.”

I glanced at Sofia again and her eyes met mine, glancing at me at the same time.

“I’m starting to think it might not be that kind of family that’s got you so worked up,” Luke said.

“What do you mean?”

“It looks like you and Sofia are doing a hell of a lot more than just pretending.”

I shook my head, and the next round of tequilas landed in front of us. I lifted the glass in a salute to Luke, and he did the same to me before we threw them back and tapped the glasses on the table again.

We both leaned on the bar on our elbows, facing each other.