Page 93 of Rebellious Hearts

I got to the bar and ordered whisky—whatever they had was fine—and told the barman to keep it coming. When Luke caught up to me, I added that I needed an extra glass.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, turning to Luke. My mood was blacker than black, and at any other moment in life I would have been happy to see Luke, but now my insides were burning like I’d swallowed acid, and I wanted to fuck up anything within punching distance to try to get rid of the feeling.

I would never do something to Luke.

But with the wary expression on his face, he knew he was in the danger zone.

“Amy and I came to say goodbye,” he said. “I was waiting outside. She said she would fetch you two, and then she didn’t come back…”

The whisky arrived, and I swallowed mine down in one big gulp. When I slammed my glass down, the bartender refilled it and left the bottle.

Smart guy.

Luke picked up his glass. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

He was always so gentle and soft-spoken. He would never insist that I tell him or force it out of me. It had pissed me off so often, but it was his easy, quiet confidence and the fact that you could choose whoever the hell you wanted to be with him that always made me be myself.

“Amy is with Sofia, listening to everything Sofia says about how none of this is real and the moment she can get out of here, she’s leaving the country.”

Luke frowned. “You’re not making any sense. Out of the country?”

I nodded and sipped my whisky, stopping myself from downing it the way I’d done with the first one. If I did, I would just keep downing them, and downing a full bottle of whisky never ended well.

I knew that from experience. Turned out Icouldlearn. It just always had to be the hard way.

Like now.

I took a deep breath, another gulp of whisky, and sank onto a barstool like all the life had been sucked out of me.

“I told her I was falling in love with her,” I said dully, staring at my half-empty glass.

“Ben…” Luke breathed, and I knew what he was trying to say. He had so many questions.

Ineverfell in love. I never got that close to women. I never spent more time with them than one night so that I could get what I wanted and push them away again.

“I know,” I said. “I was an idiot.”

“I don’t think so,” Luke said. “I’ve seen you two together. You’re magic. You work, somehow. I didn’t ever think you’d find someone who completes you the way she does, but she does.”

I groaned and emptied my glass, grabbing the bottle to refill it. Luke was still on his first and shook his head when I tipped the bottle toward him to offer a refill.

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t feel the same way,” I said. “And I was a fucking idiot to think that someone would love me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No. You don’t get to come at me with some bullshit about how I deserve love just like everyone else, blah, blah, blah. That’s some pussy shit that Amy might tell me, but not you.”

Luke pursed his lips. If I wouldn’t let him say what he wanted, he wouldn’t speak at all.

Fine by me. It wasn’t like I had anything to say, anyway.

The silence only stretched out for a moment before I sighed again.

“She told Amy that it’s all just a game. She doesn’t want anything with me. She’s leaving the company and taking some different job or something, I think. I don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out the rest—I don’t need to know.”

“That doesn’t sound right to me,” Luke said, frowning as he mulled it over in his mind. He sipped his drink, one arm leaning on the bar. I drank my whisky, too, but it was more like gulping than sipping. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she touches you. The way you two move together, even when you’re not noticing. That wasn’t pretend, Ben.”

I shook my head. “Well, whatever it was, it was one big joke. She’s not interested, and when we go back home, this is over and we get to go back to life as we know it.”