Purple Hearts(73)

“What?” Cassie said, looking up at me, her cheeks pink. “I think she and Dante are going to be friends.”

“She could eat Dante for breakfast.”

The five of us continued up the trail, me taking charge of Mittens, Mittens taking charge of her stick.

“Fingers crossed,” Cassie said.





Cassie


Yarvis was back. He’d brought croissants, which I set on the coffee table in front of Luke and me while Yarvis sat across from us. We’d both showered this time. Luke wore his button-down. I wore actual pants instead of cutoffs. The apartment was airy and lemony from cleaning.

“There’s nothing like fresh-baked croissants,” Yarvis said.

Luke and I exchanged looks.

“Luke, you seem more awake. Cassie, how’s the music life?”

“I’ve got to leave for practice in thirty minutes.” We were doing the song I’d written for Frankie. The Sahara show was in three days.

“Well, we’ll try to be prompt.”

“She will leave in the middle of a sentence, FYI,” Luke warned Yarvis.

“Yeah, so? Why is it so hard to understand that this is my work? No one would be giving me shit if I were leaving for my job at the firm. This is my real work.”

I tempered myself, realizing I was just talking aloud to an invisible version of Mom. But Toby had started to do it, too, acting offended and hurt because I wouldn’t treat him like my boyfriend at rehearsal, because he distracted me, and he pissed Nora off. He always thought I was mad at him. Then, because he kept asking if I was mad at him, I would actually get mad.

Luke shrugged. “I was just saying, honey.”

“Oh.” Interesting. I guess Luke wasn’t passing judgment, just stating a fact. “Thanks, babe.”

Yarvis checked up on Luke’s PT progress—“Well, well, well,” he said—then told us we had to do some sort of role-playing game before he left. When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, I turned to Luke.

“What is it with these people and their marital exercises?”

“I know,” he said. “Whatever happened to the good old days of ‘your daughter for two goats, please’?”

I elbowed him, feeling an ease I hadn’t since our Skype days. It felt like we were old pros. Old married pros.

“Okay,” Yarvis said, settling in with another croissant. “The idea is that you pretend you are the other person, and make statements of gratitude. Cassie?”

Mittens was at Yarvis’s feet, tail wagging, eyes on the croissant.

“I’m Luke, and I’m grateful for Mittens,” I said in a Mickey Mouse impression. He loved it when I did high voices. And by “loved,” I mean he made a face like he was hearing a metal chair scrape on the ground. If I didn’t know you had such an incredible singing voice . . . he’d said last time.

“Great. I sound just like that,” Luke said, flat.

“Maybe leave out the impressions,” Yarvis said. “Okay, Luke?”

Luke said, fake serious, “I’m Cassie, and I’m grateful my husband hasn’t changed Mittens’s name to Rambo Dog, despite repeated threats.”

I rolled my eyes. “She wouldn’t even respond to Rambo Dog.”

“She would if there’s bacon,” Luke asserted.

“Okay, you two. Cassie?”

“I’m Luke, and I’m grateful my wife hasn’t left my sorry ass,” I joked. I looked at Luke, expecting him to laugh, but he was staring at his phone, brow furrowed. He did that a lot. I knew it had to do with his family, or his money situation, neither of which it was within our boundaries for me to handle. Instead, I nudged him.

“Luke,” Yarvis scolded. “You’re supposed to listen.”

“Sorry,” Luke said, tucking his phone away.

“I’m Luke,” I started again. “And I let my masculinity stunt my emotions.”

I wasn’t joking on that one—all of his shrugging off help, his refusal to tell me what his nightmares were about—so I was surprised to see Luke smile and put his arm around me.

“I could say the same for you, honey.”

We both laughed at that. He was smarter than he thought he was. When he felt comfortable, he was as observant and witty as anyone I’d ever met.

“See?” Yarvis said, smiling through a bite of croissant. “I told you it’d get easier.”





Luke


“Can you catch it, Mittens?” I held a neon-pink Buda Municipal Fire Department Frisbee to Mittens’s nose.

“Try to make him catch it!” JJ screamed with delight.

“That’s what Uncle Luke’s doing, honey,” Hailey said.

“Mittens is a girly dog, JJ,” Jake said, squatting next to his son. “Not a ‘him.’?”

“Burgers will be ready in ten,” my dad called from the grill.

“Salad will be ready . . . like, right now,” Cassie echoed, examining the bowl of romaine into which she had just poured Caesar dressing.

We had gathered in my dad’s backyard for a barbecue. Jake and Hailey said it was my dad’s idea, though I had a feeling it had been Jake and Hailey’s idea.