Page 26 of Truly (Peachwood Falls #2)

L uke

“Hey, Megs,” I say, walking into Chase’s kitchen. “Smells good in here. What’s for breakfast?”

“You just missed Chase and Kennedy’s bacon and waffles. It was … a mess, if I’m honest.” She laughs. “But Kennedy saw it on Social and wanted to try it. They stuffed the waffles with bacon somehow. I don’t know. It was good, just super messy.”

“Where is Chase? I need to talk to him.”

“Is everything okay?”

My chest tightens. “It will be.”

“Okay. Well, he went outside a little while ago. I think he was trying to get out of doing the dishes.”

I laugh. “If you see him before I do, tell him I’m outside yelling for him.”

“Have a good day, Luke.”

“You, too, Megan.”

I step outside and look around for my brother. The bastard probably saw me coming and hid from me.

I walk to the back of the house and notice the open shed door. Chase comes out of it as I get close.

“Oh, hell,” he says, trying not to smile. “You meant it when you said you’d be here this morning. I was hoping you were drinking or something.”

“What are you working on?” I ask, nodding to a piece of wood in his hand.

“I’m trying to level a table Megan bought at a flea market last weekend. What about you? What are you working on?”

We walk side by side to a picnic table with a deep, almost purple table on top.

“Looks old,” I say.

“Megan says it’s an antique, but she thinks everything before the eighties is an antique. I told her the shops slap the word antique on shit so people buy it for high prices and feel good about it.”

“And this is why I’m here.”

Chase gives me a look like our dad does when he doesn’t follow along.

I sigh. “I’m here for your asshole logic.”

“ What ?”

“This might sound bad,” I say, wincing. “But just hear me out and take the point of what I’m saying and not necessarily the words.”

“Spit it out, Luke.”

“Okay. I need relationship advice, and somehow, you’re the resident expert.”

He snorts. “How do you figure?”

“You have a wife. You haven’t been divorced. And you have a kid. I don’t know how that plays into things—in my case, it doesn’t—but I feel like that gives you a little extra boost, you know?”

“And I’m smarter than the rest of you,” he says.

“And you’re an asshole.”

He looks up with lifted brows.

“I need an asshole,” I say, holding a finger up in the air. “Someone who doesn’t get all flowery with their words, overthink it, or care about feelings much. You’re perfect.”

He rolls his eyes.

“I’ve been seeing an old girlfriend for a couple of weeks,” I say, keeping things as vague as possible. “And I don’t know how to make her understand that, unlike her dad and ex, I’m not here to hurt her. I don’t get off on putting her in her place or hurting her feelings.”

“They did that?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Beat the fuck out of them.”

I laugh, nodding appreciatively. “Okay. Not the question I needed answered, but I like your moxie today.”

“You should’ve seen these damn waffles Kennedy wanted this morning. We had batter and bacon grease everywhere.” He mocks the wood up to the chair. “I came out here because I didn’t want to clean it up.”

“Dick move.”

He stares at me for a moment before going back to his project. “My wife will be properly repaid for her assistance. I promise you that.”

“This isn’t about you. This is about me. Can we focus here? I’m on a deadline.”

“Please proceed.”

“How do I get her to understand that she can trust me?”

“Be trustable.”

“Not helpful, Chase.”

He looks at me through the chair legs. “I mean it. Every time something comes up that you can use to build her trust, do it. Everyone is trustworthy until it’s time to do trustworthy shit.”

“That’s it?”

He sighs. “Look, Luke. I’m not a relationship kind of guy. I might be married, but that’s because Megan is literally the only person in the world that I could be with.”

“That’s how I feel about … my girl.” Don’t slip up. Don’t say her name .

“I don’t have to really work on my relationship with Megan.

We have date nights, and I get her flowers on Fridays when I grab pizza on my way home for movie night.

But the rest of it is just day-to-day stuff.

Showing up. Being the guy I say I am—the man I want to be.

Shit like that. If you want her to trust you, show up as the trustworthy guy.

Do it consistently, and she won’t have a reason not to believe you. ”

“Okay, okay. You’re pretty good at this.”

He shrugs, turning his attention back to the chair.

“I have one more thing,” I say.

“Hurry up. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”

“Rude.” I sit on the bench. “What would you do if, say, Megan had a super famous job? And she couldn’t leave it, and you didn’t want her to. But you also really liked your life and what you do here. How do you make that work?”

Chase stands, narrowing his eyes. He lifts a brow.

I smile.

He nods and goes back to the task at hand. “If Megs was a musician, let’s say, and I ran a business out of the shed, I’d decide what’s most important and adjust.”

“But what if you were … a welder,” I say. “And Dad welded, and so did Grandpa. And you’re the new generation of welders in the family. Could you walk away from that?”

Chase sets the block down and plants his hands on the picnic table. He watches me, amused.

“If Megan wanted to go to the moon, I’d buy the three of us tickets, and off we’d go,” he says. “Because there’s nothing more important to me than my wife. Not a damn fucking thing .”

He’s right. I knew it before I came here. But I just needed to hear it from him to be sure.

“Are we done now?” my brother asks. “You’re either going to help or hit the road.”

“I’m out of here. Thanks, Chase.”

“Bye.”

I walk across the lawn to my truck, formulating a plan.

“We got this, Laina. You need to realize that I’ll do anything for you.”

And I mean anything.