May I have this dance?
It was a question I’d heard a thousand times that night. Every boy in the freshman, sophomore, and junior class had approached me with bright eyes and hopeful stares; the senior boys showed no interest. And while their offers were flattering, I couldn’t imagine spending my evening in anyone’s arms but Luke’s (no matter how innocent it would’ve been).
I somehow managed to wear a smile. The gymnasium had survived an incredible transformation. It had taken hours to turn something so bland into something spectacular, but we’d pulled it off; I was proud of what we’d accomplished.
“May I have this dance?”
I turned to decline yet another youngster, but I turned right into Luke’s arms. I stared at him in disbelief, yet there he was. I couldn’t even muster a surprised why are you here? I simply eased into his embrace, resting my head against his wounded chest. I closed my eyes as he led me into a mass of dancing couples. And there, in that moment, we shared the beginning of our first dance.
I lifted my chin and held his gaze, but it took a few jagged breaths before I could find my voice. “Why…are you here?”
“You don’t have to understand,” Luke rested his head on top of mine. “Just go with it.”
“But I want to understand.”
“Julie,” he whispered, tucking a curl behind my ear and brushing my cheek with his thumb. “Not every action has to come with an explanation.
“With you it does,” I tried to fight a smirk. “If you don’t explain, I may misinterpret. I may think we’re having a moment, and then you’ll accuse me of having irrational expectations.”
A small smile crossed his lips before he lowered his head to mine. Without a word, he pulled me closer, and we swayed quietly to the music, neither of us taking any notice of the couples nearby. It was a moment of complete serenity; I couldn’t remember ever feeling so loved and protected.
But then I was quickly reminded that every time I let Luke get this close, he bolted without explanation. I’d spend days trying to figure out why he was running. It was a game I just couldn’t play anymore.
“Is it safe to assume that as soon as the clock strikes midnight… you’ll be on the run again?”
“Don’t assume.”
“Based on past experiences,” I said, “that’s what you do best. The moment we get close—”
“Julie,” he said. “Can’t you just enjoy one night? No questions? No strings attached?”
“No,” I said, “not with you. You have too much of my heart, Luke… enough of it to break it, if you wanted to. And I want to know what’s going on. Why are you here? Why did you tell Charlie all those things?”
“What things?”
“I heard every word you said to him back at the house,” I said. “I was sitting in the stairway the entire time.”
Luke pulled back for a moment. I caught a brief glimpse of disappointment in his eyes, but it soon faded with a simple nod.
“It’s not polite to eavesdrop, Julie.”
“Yeah,” I said, nearly whispering. “But I’ve had to develop a roundabout way of learning things about you. You’re not exactly the least cryptic person I know.”
He pulled me closer to him again. We danced in silence for the remainder of the song, neither of us wanting to waste our time together. I’d convinced myself that one wrong move could end the night, and the last thing I wanted was to spend my evening chasing after him.
A half-hour into the night, Luke hadn’t said much else. He nodded, shrugged, smirked, and laughed at the appropriate times, but he simply listened while I carried on (story after story) about anything I could think to talk about. It was a rare opportunity to spend this kind of close, personal, one-on-one time with him, and I didn’t want to squander a moment.
With only one song to go before the evening came to a close, I snuggled in close to Luke, preparing myself for one last trip across the dance floor. I stared at him intently, watching as his brown eyes reflected the overhead lights. I traced his jaw line with my finger, admiring his incredible, God-given beauty. When I reached his mouth, my finger stopped short of the inch-long scar on his upper lip. He pulled his head, looking away from me, and tried to avoid meeting my stare. I turned his head back in my direction, but I no longer looked at his scar.
“You’re worried,” Luke rested his forehead on mine. “Why?”
“You,” I took a deep breath to fill my lungs with his unnaturally fragrant scent.
“What about me?”
“What happened between you and Lonnie?” I asked, remembering the tension and animosity that had filled the room earlier that morning. “I know I only met him the one time, but he seemed like a pretty great guy.”
He grumbled and diverted his stare, so I continued.
“It…makes me think that something pretty bad must’ve gone down to make him so… angry at you.”
“I didn’t go to his wedding,” Luke said as if that should’ve answered all of my questions. “He got remarried five years ago. I didn’t go. End of story.”
I nodded, knowing Luke was only sharing what he felt was necessary.
“Why didn’t you go?” I asked. “Was it because of your mom?”
“No,” he bit his lip. “No, it wasn’t. She would’ve wanted Lonnie to move on. She wouldn’t have wanted us to sit around, dwelling, hurting, or crying over her loss. Of course, that’s exactly what we did for months.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “But I, unlike Lonnie, knew that time healed all wounds.”
“Was it his choice of bride?” I asked, still trying to figure out what had caused the rift between father and son. “You don’t like Grace?”
“I love Grace,” he said, and a gentle smile crossed his lips. “She’s a godsend. You know she’s Bruno’s sister?”
“Yeah,” I said. “So, in a weird way, you and Bruno are family.”
“He’s my step-uncle,” Luke shook his head at the idea. “And sadly, he’s the closest thing I have to family right now.”
I rested my head on his shoulder, nuzzling into his neck.
“You know,” Luke’s hand caressed my bare back, “Bruno’s been pulling for us since the day you walked into the station, kid.”
“Maybe at first, but he’s changed his mind since.”
“Yeah?”
“He told me; earlier this week… I was at the station, and he said that I was in too far over my head. He said there was no hope for us, no love, no chance.” I shuddered at the memory. “He told me to stop pursuing you. I… I didn’t know what to think.”
“He was only doing what he thought I’d want him to do,” Luke said. “He was the only person who knew about my feelings, Jules. When I was in the hospital, I asked him to help me. I didn’t want to drag you into this life; you had your own problems, you didn’t need mine, too. So, he agreed to help me keep my distance. And if he saw me slipping, he’d pull me away.”
The memory of the Halloween party flooded my mind. Bruno hadn’t seemed too happy when Luke showed up at the bonfire. It was only when we were about to share a kiss that Luke’s cell phone rang, a call from Detective Bruno, interrupting our moment.
“What problems could you possibly have that you don’t want me dragged into?” I kept my head low. “Does it have anything to do with why you keep running from me?”
“I’m not running, Julie,” Luke said, shaking his head. “I’m… sorting.”
“Sorting?”
“My thoughts, my feelings, my intentions…” He took a deep breath and continued, “I thought we were heading in a good direction. I thought we were making some kind of progress, but I was afraid of slipping up. I wasn’t ready for Charlie to know anything, not when I didn’t know what was really going on. So, I did my best to keep you at a distance. But then I screwed up, and I’ve been so humiliated by that mistake that I can barely stand to face you.”
“Mistake?” I asked, meeting his gaze again. “What mistake?”
“Julie,?
?? he laughed nervously. “I don’t remember telling you that I loved you.” His humiliation grew increasingly apparent in his expression. “I don’t remember standing on your porch, holding you, and spilling my guts.”
“You don’t believe it happened?”
“I know it did,” he said, “because I know… I know what alcohol can do to people, especially people in my family. And I should’ve known better than to think I was an exception to the rule. But please understand, I was never angry with you. I hated myself for slipping up. I never wanted you to hear those things like that—”
“I’m not sorry you said what you said, Luke,” I ran my fingers through the side of his hair.
“But I’m sorry that it happened the way it did,” he said. “It shouldn’t have. You deserved so much more.”
“Luke,” I said, “we all make mistakes. We all do things we shouldn’t do, but that’s part of life. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay, Julie,” he said, and his expression told me that he meant exactly what he’d said. “After Mom died, Lonnie started drinking. At first, it was a casual drink in the evening to hide the sorrow. But then the pain found its way to the surface, and one drink wasn’t enough. So he’d drink another, then another, and then five or six more.” Luke’s eyes glossed over, but he managed to keep even a single tear from spilling out. “He’d do things—awful things—when he drank. Things…things that he wouldn’t remember doing when he was sober.”
I ran my thumb across the scar above his lip. “Did he do this?”
Luke didn’t answer. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t nod, shrug, or change his expression. He simply took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to my head.
“Under the influence,” Luke said, “Reibeck men do stupid things.”
“You’d never hurt me, Luke,” I still felt the tingle of his lips on my skin. “I know that.”
“I do, too,” he said. “I’d never hurt you, Julie. Because after I made a fool of myself at the poker game, it’s safe to say those days are behind me. You’ll never see that side of me again. That’s a promise.”
“Is that why you didn’t go to the wedding?” I asked. “Because Lonnie hurt you, and you haven’t forgiven him?”
“In many ways, yes,” he said. “I moved out after high school, struggled to make it through college on my own. And those weren’t easy years. I spent every second of that time blaming my father for taking away my dignity; I had no sense of self-worth, Julie. None.”
“But you do now,” I said, “and that’s all that matters—”
“My life changed when I got out of the academy,” he said. “Your Uncle Charlie gave me a job. He respected me, treated me with kindness, and honored my opinion. It was because of him that I finally got back on track again; I was finally focused for the first time in years. But I still carry a chip on my shoulder. I still resent my father for everything that happened.”
“So,” I watched him closely. “Your father is angry because, after all the changes he’s made—sobering up and getting his life together—you still haven’t forgiven him?”
“He’s angry with me because he doesn’t understand,” Luke said. “He doesn’t know why I left in such a hurry, why I never came home, or why I shut him out.”
“How can he not understand?” I asked. “He literally scarred you for life.”
“That’s just the thing, Julie. He doesn’t remember hurting me. I just walked away; I didn’t feel like he deserved an explanation.”
“Do you regret that now?”
“I do,” he said, “but there’s nothing I can say. I certainly can’t call him up and say hey dad, sorry I’ve been an ass for five years, wanna grab a bite?”
“Have you ever thought of telling him the truth?” I asked. “That always seems like a good place to start.”
“I’ve thought about it,” he said. “But then I have to consider… who am I doing that for? Me or him? It’s selfish. Telling him that he beat me to a pulp one night six years ago isn’t going to do anything but hurt him.”
“So you’d let him go on hating you and never knowing the truth?”
“He thinks he knows the truth,” Luke said. “He thinks I resent Grace because she’s not my mother, and that’s okay. It’s better that way.”
“Better for…?” I asked. “It’s not better for you.”
“But it’s better for him and Grace. They’re happy, Julie.”
The song came to an end, but Luke didn’t pull away. He rubbed his nose against mine and rested our heads together.
“I need you to know how sorry I am,” he said, just above a whisper. “For everything. You should’ve bailed a long time ago, but you didn’t. I’ll never understand why.”
“Because I loved you, Luke,” I said, matching his whisper. “I loved you all along…I still do.”
He nodded, but he didn’t return the sentiment.
“I need to fix things with my father, Julie,” he said. “I need to fix it without telling him the truth, and that’s going to take time. We’re a stubborn bunch; he’s not going to forgive me easily. And that’s why I’ve kept my distance, kid. I can’t move on to the next stage of my life; I can’t start something new until I’ve fixed the things that are broken.”
I swallowed hard and watched as his eyes softened. He didn’t have to say anything else. He’d said it all with a simple stare. He needed my patience, my understanding, and some time. And because I loved him, I wanted nothing more than to give him everything he needed.
“Take your time, Luke,” I held him tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”