Page 193 of The Havenport Collection

Luke

I took a seat at my usual table while Josh carried our coffees over. I had lived in New England most of my life, but I could never get used to the bone-chilling cold. It was Monday, and after a lonely weekend of working, exercise, and video games, I was missing my friend.

We usually met on Mondays because his wife, Maggie, met her friends for breakfast at Jackie’s Diner. After dropping his kids off at school, Josh and I would catch up, maybe go for a run, and shoot the shit for a while if he didn’t have to work.

While staring out the window, I caught sight of Nora Rossi across the street.

She was walking into the diner wearing tight jeans and knee-high boots.

Damn. She looked delicious even at eight a.m. She had a winter coat on, but I would bet anything she had one of her sassy T-shirts on underneath.

Nora always wore T-shirts with all kinds of feminist slogans on them.

It’s like she knew my eyes would be drifting to her tits so she may as well teach me something in the process.

I smiled as I watched her disappear inside, thinking about what could be under that coat. My daydream was disrupted by Josh, who sat down, his cheeks glowing and his smile almost breaking his face.

“So,” I asked, taking a small sip of scalding-hot goodness.

He shrugged and smiled. “Amazing, man. Just amazing.”

Josh had just returned from his delayed honeymoon trip with his wife, Maggie. They had been married for a decade and had separated last year before patching things up right before Christmas. They had gone on their dream honeymoon to Costa Rica and returned a few days ago.

I had known Josh for several years. As transplants to Havenport, we bonded over our stressful careers, our experiences of growing up biracial, and the fact that we were both extreme nerds who loved nothing more than debating manga while playing video games and watching cheesy Sci-Fi B movies.

He came into my life when my mom was sick, offering much-needed support and distraction.

He had been right by my side when I lost my mom, and I had been there for him while his marriage crumbled.

He was the closest thing I had ever had to a brother. But I couldn’t resist giving him at least a little bit of shit.

“I can tell you had a good time. You look completely lovestruck. Like your feet aren’t even touching the ground right now.”

“Shut up, Lucas.” He tried to look mad but couldn’t mask his grin. “I can’t hide it, okay? I am madly in love with my wife.”

I held out my fist, and he bumped it. I was so happy for him. He deserved so much love and happiness, and I was thrilled he had found it.

“I’m really proud of you.” Josh had done a lot of work on himself while he was separated. He’d made some big changes, and I was impressed with his dedication to saving his family.

“Things got dark for a while,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “But we worked through it. And we’re still doing the work.”

We were interrupted by Leah, the purple-haired proprietress of High Tide, delivering some freshly baked scones—the house specialty—to our table.

“And I think you should do the same,” he said, mouth full of blueberry awesomeness.

“What?” I was already eating my second one.

“Do some work on yourself. We both know you’re lonely, Luke.”

I scoffed at him. “How could I be lonely when I’m always hanging out with your dumb ass?”

“You know what I mean. You’re my best friend. I’m just trying to be real with you.”

I knew it and I appreciated his concern, even though this was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

“I’m just working a lot right now.”

“Really? Aren’t you technically retired?”

I rolled my eyes at him. I had spent my early twenties in Silicon Valley working my ass off and sold my company in my early thirties for a disgusting sum of money.

But I still worked, mainly as an angel investor and board member at a variety of start-ups.

And my true passion was philanthropy. I spent a lot of my time these days working on behalf of the Havenport Family Crisis Center.

“Yes. But you know I can’t turn it off. Erica is kicking my ass at the Crisis Center. There are so many issues to work through, and you know how closely involved I am. And I serve on multiple boards, and Astrid is always dragging me into investor presentations and speaking engagements.”

“She’s intense.”

I nodded. Intense was one word for Astrid. She was my personal counsel who handled all of my current business interests and generally kept my ass in line.

“So between all these commitments, I have been busy. I think I just need a break.”

Josh wasn’t buying my attempt to brush off his concerns. In fact, he sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. His eyes narrowed. “Are you still staying at your mom’s house?”

I nodded. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to my actual home—a massive estate on the other side of town—preferring my mom’s cozy brownstone instead.

“Do you think that’s healthy?” I shot him a look. I didn’t want to have this conversation with him right now. At some point I’d deal with my living situation, but I wasn’t there yet.

I shrugged. “Not particularly, but it’s making me happy at the moment so I’m just going with it.”

“You need to get out of this funk. You just seem, I don’t know, stuck.”

“Thanks, Dr. Lawson.”

“That’s not a clinical diagnosis; you know I’m not a shrink. It’s more of a best friend’s observation. Why aren’t you dating?”

I sipped my coffee, unwilling to even go down this road with him.

I was hardly a commitmentphobe. I’d had girlfriends and some moderately serious relationships over the years.

But in my twenties, my career had been my focus, and then in my thirties I moved back East to take care of my mom and got busy with other things.

And while it was easy to find a woman interested in my money, it was a lot harder to find someone who wanted to stick around for the right reasons.

I had been burned, badly, by women who wanted nothing more than money, or power, or access.

Girlfriends who expected expensive gifts all the time or introductions to my powerful friends.

Models, actresses, influencers—lots of beautiful women were willing to throw themselves at me for a chance at a Cartier watch or a BMW.

Few were actually interested in getting to know me as a person.

Not that I could blame them; beneath my money and success was just a fairly boring nerd.

Probably not enough to keep someone interested forever.

I had hardened over the years, grown more jaded, so I had resigned myself to a life of casual dating. For the past few years, it had been fine. But today, I was not feeling fine. I was itchy and out of sorts.

“You’ve been especially moody lately. Care to tell me why?”

“Haven’t you been busy reuniting with your wife?” I countered.

He grinned. Bastard. “Yes. And trust me, my wife keeps me very busy.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. He was such a dork. “But I still have time to be a good friend. So tell me what’s up.”

I looked around to make sure there weren’t any prying ears around; Havenport was notoriously gossipy. “Something happened.”

I looked around again to be sure. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Nora and I kissed at Liam and Cece’s wedding.”

Josh slapped the table. “I knew it!”

“Shut up,” I hissed. People were staring.

He sipped his coffee, rolling his eyes dramatically. “This is not surprising. You guys are like magnets. Anytime you are in the same place, you are pulled together for that special brand of hate banter you both love so much.”

“We were doing shots of Fireball.”

Josh gagged.

“I know. And then we took a walk in the orchard and then we were kissing.”

I looked down at my hands. I didn’t know what else to say. It was amazing? I had thought of little else since? Nora was frustratingly unattainable and I wasn’t even sure I liked her that much?

“Let me get this straight. You kissed Nora? She kissed you back? Consensually? With no punches thrown?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s like a cheesy movie. Now you love each other?”

“Fuck, no,” I spat. “It’s not like that. We kissed. It was more of a hot make-out session actually, and that was it. We don’t like each other. It was a silly drunk mistake.”

Josh was shaking his head and smiling. “Nope. Not buying it. Nora suffers no fools and goes after what she wants. This was not a drunken mistake.”

“You’re wrong. She was emotional; her best friend had just gotten married. It was a temporary thing. She has been clear in the months since that there is nothing between us.”

“But…” He raised his eyebrows. Damn Josh, he was all intuitive now.

“I can’t stop thinking about her. She makes me crazy. She’s loud and pushy and annoys the shit out of me. I don’t want to want her.”

“But you do.”

“I’m fucked. Nothing can happen between us. Nothing. I need a distraction. I need to find someone else.”

“Good luck. I know you, Luke, and I know how single-minded you are. Also, Nora may be loud and pushy, but she is a damn good person. She loves this town and her friends, and I respect the hell out of how hard she works.”

I agreed with everything he was saying. And if there was a chance in hell she’d be interested, I’d be all over her. But she’d been clear, and I needed to respect that.

“You could do a lot worse.”

I looked Josh square in the eye. I needed to shut this down now. I couldn’t let my mind continue to wander, no matter how gorgeous and intriguing I thought she was. “It’s never happening. Never.”

He put his hands up. “You’ve never wanted for female attention, Luke. What happened to Emma?”

I shuddered. “Over. Long since over.” She and I had dated casually a few years ago on and off. She lived in California, and we sort of drifted back together a few times before the breakup stuck. “I heard that she’s engaged.”

“Good for her,” he said, taking another sip of coffee.

“You hated her.”

“Of course I did. She was pretentious and treated you like an ATM.”

Josh was honest, I had to give him that. And I was grateful to have him as my friend. It was nice to have someone who would call me on my bullshit. Still didn’t make it any easier to tolerate though.

“When are you going to wake up and realize you deserve better than vapid gold diggers?” he asked.

“That’s where you’re wrong, bro. That is exactly what I deserve, hence why I’m not in a rush to go find another one.”

“You need therapy.”

He wasn’t wrong. “I need a lot of things. Including more caffeine. I’m dragging ass after a late meeting with the west coast last night.”

“I thought we were hitting the weights.”

“Yeah, yeah. Lemme get another scone and then we can go.”