Page 16 of Scripted for Love and Poison (Sol and Luke Mystery #2)

“ H ow was the movie, Sol?” Lola’s husband asked thoughtfully while serving steamed miso salmon, brown rice, and broccoli sautéed to perfection.

“Hideous,” she pronounced. “How was your day, Geoff?” she asked in turn, realizing she couldn’t remember what Lola’s husband did, even if she’d known him for almost a decade.

She was the worst friend ever. In her defense, she’d asked him in the past at least three or four times and never managed to understand what he did.

“Not much better than yours. This crazy weather is making things difficult to forecast. There have been mudslides in Big Sur, and we’ve had to swap the older models because all the priors keep changing.”

“Right,” Sol said, and she could see Lola’s amused face across the table from her. She was sure her friend knew she hadn’t understood a single word. But she wasn’t going to translate Geoff’s lingo for her.

“How’s the investigation going, Luke?” Lola asked.

“I may have finally made some progress,” Luke said, proceeding to devour Geoff’s culinary achievement. “This is delicious, by the way.”

“Thanks, it was nothing. I’ll send you The New York Times recipes if you like,” Lola’s husband said, slightly abashed, and Sol smirked.

There was nothing Geoff liked more than people praising his food.

She should remember to do it more often.

“But please, tell us more about the case. We’re very curious. ”

“Well, without giving too much information away—because this is, of course, sensitive and mostly confidential,” Luke started.

“Of course,” Sol, Geoff, Lola, and even Alex said in unison, leaning forward on the table, unable to conceal their overall curiosity.

“And I need to thank Sol for the progress, because she has a friend who put me in contact with the officer at the LAPD in charge of both Simon Smith’s disappearance and Travis Wise’s poisoning.”

“They also think they’re linked?” asked Sol, wanting to deflect attention from herself and her so-called friend.

“I think so. Will know for sure tomorrow. I’m meeting with an officer Tom Owens.”

“Sol, I didn’t know you had friends with contacts at the LAPD,” Lola said distractedly while she focused on her food and didn’t catch Sol’s pleading gaze in her direction.

“Could you also introduce me? I’m working on this new police drama, and it would be great for research if I could— What?

” Lola finally caught Sol glaring at her.

“Nothing.” Sol tried acting normal.

“You need to introduce David to Lola, Sol,” Luke said.

“David?” Lola almost shrieked. Why her friend was still talking was something that Sol couldn’t understand.

Weren’t Sol’s flaring eyes a clear enough message to shut the fuck up?

Geoff was acting like the perfect husband-of-a-friend that he was and had remained silent the moment he saw Sol’s distress and realized the identity of her supposed friend.

Was it too much to ask the same from Lola?

“Mom, seriously? It’s, like, Sol’s ex!” Alex decided to participate then after having remained silent for most of the dinner.

Luke froze, the realization dawning on his face. “Ex, as in your ex-husband?”

“Um, it’s, like, her second ex-husband!” Alex specified.

Sol had always liked Alex. He was smarter and more polite than most of the kids his age, and he was Lola’s son, but right then Sol decided she hated all adolescents, Alex included.

“We’re going to finish eating in the kitchen and give you some space to talk about this,” Geoff said, standing, grabbing his plate, and indicating Alex to do the same.

“Please don’t leave,” Sol said. “We’ve already invaded your living room, and now you want to also decamp the dining room.”

Lola crossed her arms and lounged back in her chair, making herself comfortable. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to hear this.”

“Seriously?” Geoff pleaded with his wife.

“I was the one here when this one finally decided to leave David and needed a place to stay and a shoulder to cry on,” Lola said.

“And I’m immensely thankful and will never forget,” Sol told her friend.

“I don’t need you to stay thankful. That’s what friends are for!” Lola didn’t raise her voice, but her words left no room for argument. “What I need is you to remember your resolution never to have anything to do with David again. And now you go and put your partner in touch with him!”

“Luke needed a contact for his case! So that he can return to London!”

“But you didn’t tell him who David was,” Lola argued.

“What do you mean so that I can return to London?” Luke said. “Aren’t you also coming?”

“Geoff, this was a lovely dinner, as usual. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go for a walk— alone ,” Sol said, standing from the table, then leaving her friends’ place.

She wasn’t sure exactly where she was supposed to be heading. It was dark and cold, and she hadn’t exactly grabbed a jacket, her wallet, or even her phone. But she just started walking alongside the jacaranda tree–lined residential street. And pretended she wasn’t about to break.

···

“Please get inside the car, you are shivering.” She heard Luke’s worried voice from a nearby car, which had pulled over at the curve and stopped next to her.

She didn’t know how long she’d been wandering around the neighborhood.

But she’d had time to cry her agitation out, analyze everything that had happened, and even make a few resolutions.

She was feeling energized and better. But it had started drizzling halfway through her restorative walk, and she was soaked and freezing.

She turned in the direction of the voice and went to the car, getting into the front passenger side.

The moment she was inside, she saw Luke’s face.

She’d never seen him wearing such preoccupied features.

They didn’t suit him. She didn’t like being the one who’d contributed to his discomfort—or his diminished prettiness .

He took out his midnight-blue bomber jacket and wrapped it around Sol’s shoulders. His hands made circular movements around Sol’s arms and back to warm her up.

“Lola let me borrow her car,” Luke explained, as she was still not talking. “The moment you left, we started arguing about the best course of action.”

“Arguing?”

“Geoff thought you deserved privacy and being left alone and in peace like you had requested. Lola and I wouldn’t hear of it,” Luke explained while he kept heating her skin through his jacket.

“By the time Lola and I decided it was me who had to go look for you, you were nowhere in sight. I’ve been driving around Los Feliz for twenty minutes. ”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Luke said. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I know these past few days haven’t been great.”

“We should have stayed in London,” Sol said.

Luke leaned forward and shot her a half smile. “Believe it or not, I think coming here was a good idea.”

“Has all this driving on the wrong side of the road permanently traumatized you or something?” Sol snapped. “What are you talking about? I thought you hated it!”

“Don’t get me wrong, I do thoroughly hate it. And there’s plenty of reason for it. We’ve had two cases thrown at us while we were supposed to enjoy some much-deserved downtime. Your luggage was lost. and you’ve been forced to wear my clothes.”

“I like your clothes, they smell of you,” Sol said, getting closer to him.

“You have one editor asking you to write about a movie you don’t care to even watch.” Luke hesitated, then pressed on, his voice clipped. “And one former editor offering you a job you feel you should take.”

“But that I know very much that I don’t want to take,” she said.

That was one of the conclusions she’d reached during her walk. There had been several reasons that had driven her away from Los Angeles, and not all of them were her ex-husband David. She was not returning to the city. Not now. Not to work with Claudia. And not alone.

Luke’s tone shifted, softer now. “You were thrown out of the four-star hotel we were staying at, haven’t had a good night’s sleep since landing in California, and have had no sex for days.”

“And I’m incredibly pissy and cranky because of that,” Sol admitted. “I also miss you in an almost painful way but haven’t been able to find the way to tell you.”

“You miss me? I thought you were cross with me.”

“You see, I haven’t been able to communicate. But that’s not even everything,” she said. She was finally ready to voice what had been keeping her wrapped up for days. She raised her gaze, holding Luke’s chestnut eyes inside the dark vehicle.

“The next time we go to Barcelona, I’ll introduce you to Miquel.”

Luke blew out a sharp breath through his nose, jaw tight. “Your first ex-husband.”

“Yes. He’s a bit obnoxious but a very nice person, and we’ve been friends for decades. I think you’ll like him.”

“I reserve the right not to do it. I’m not a jealous person but only to a point,” Luke said, and Sol knew he was trying to keep the conversation cordial. He wasn’t a fan of the exes.

“But I never had the intention of introducing you to David,” Sol continued.

“Divorce is never easy, but I had already done it once with Miquel, and I na?vely thought that it could be the same with David. Hard, yes, but we could get through it in a civilized manner and remain friends. But the breakup with David wasn’t exactly amicable.

The divorce was an absolute legal nightmare.

He did everything possible to make the situation unbearable.

His family got mixed in the negotiations.

Whatever good memories I may still have had from the first years we spent together were shattered after months of accusations and bickering.

And when the conversation about what money belonged to whom started, things got very ugly. ”

“You never told me about it.”

“I don’t like talking about it. It’s a period of my life that I don’t like recalling. I don’t know what I’d have done if it wasn’t for Lola and her family. But they took me in, cheered me up, and fed me.”