Purple Hearts(93)

“I would come in, though,” I said, quiet. “If they need me to. I would testify that it was real, too. Or at least, it became real,” I amended.

“That testimony would certainly help,” he said.

“Will you let me know the minute you know the time and date?” I would need to make sure that I could drive back from wherever we were on tour. We were sticking around in Texas for a while.

Luke nodded. The room was so silent, I could hear him breathing.

“What now?” I asked.

“Well, we can’t get a divorce until after the hearing,” Luke pointed out. “Obviously.”

“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t even thought of the divorce. For the minutes he’d been here, it had seemed like old times. Like the days when we were working together.

“I mean, that’s what you want, right?” Luke tilted his head, the line in his forehead back.

What did I want? I wanted to be careful. My feelings were huge and twisted and rushing inside me like rapids, and they were going to tip out if I didn’t tread slowly. I couldn’t let them knock me over.

“I don’t know,” I said, staring at the wooden floor. “What do you want?”

Luke swallowed. “I don’t know.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “I liked what we had. Or rather, what we had minus the lying and pissing of the pants.” Luke let out a small laugh. I looked at his lips. “And I guess you would have to take out the kissing.”

“So you want to be friends?” Luke asked, slow.

My insides, still floating, dropped an inch. “Yeah, but—”

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

“I can’t eat cake, period. I have diabetes.”

Luke’s calm broke into a real laugh. I giggled with him.

“And how are you and Toby?” he asked, trying to be casual.

“Uh,” I said, with a quick look at the objects strewn on the floor. “Toby and I are done.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

When I caught his eyes, there might have been a look of hope on his face, a hint of a smile, then he brought it back. He shook his head. “As far as our relationship,” he started, and stopped. He seemed to have to force out the words. “I’m barely stable. The most important thing is that we stay safe and healthy, and I think that means you go on with your life, and I go on with mine.” He smiled for real, and I couldn’t help thinking that this one was wasted. It was a tragic thing, what he just said. “We’ll probably be better off.”

“Probably.” My insides slipped another inch lower.

His gaze locked on mine, those blue eyes rimmed with black. Then they dropped to my lips. “We’ll just have to see,” he said. “Right? After the hearing.”

“Right.”

All of Luke’s stammering and all the vague truisms about staying safe and healthy and him going on with his life, me going on with mine, were a far cry from what he said two days ago. Maybe he was regretting it. Maybe he was angry, considering the last time I saw him, I had kicked him to the street.

And yet he’d said that stuff about our marriage being real, the stuff I wanted to put on pause forever, and turn over, and make sure that we were feeling the same thing.

And what was that thing? Could I stand that he lied and feel what I was feeling at the same time? Was it just brought on by adrenaline, by the extreme? Should I tell him I forgive him? Do I?

“Oh, guess what?” he said, bursting my thoughts, his eyes wide and happy.

“What?”

“My family is having a little Purple Heart ceremony for me. Tomorrow. They wanted to make sure they got it in before the arraignment. You know—” He paused. “Just in case.”

“That’s wonderful.” I smiled at him. He smiled back. My skin got warm.

“Yeah, Yarvis will be there. It’s going to be really small. But nice.” He looked shocked. “Do you want to come? I mean, if you want. I would love for you to come.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, I would like that a lot.”

I could feel my face flush warmer, this time out of discomfort. “We’re going to Galveston tomorrow,” I said. “On tour. We got a record deal out of the show last night.”

“No!” he almost yelled, more animated than I had seen him in a long time. “Cassie, that’s amazing!”

“Yeah,” I said, letting a grin break through my nerves. “Yeah, it’s kind of the shit.”

His phone buzzed. He looked at it, and looked at me. “Jake’s outside with JJ in the car seat, so.”

I stood. He stood, slow.

“I’m sorry I probably can’t make the ceremony.”

“No, no worries,” he said, his voice deep, restrained. “I’ll just see you . . .”

“At the hearing?”

“Yeah.”

My hands twitched at my sides. His made fists. We walked side by side to the door, and he braced on his cane as he stepped down.

On the stairs, he looked back at me for a long minute. I didn’t break his gaze. “Bye, Cass.”

“Bye, Luke.”

The hole in my chest was back. My ears followed the steady rhythm of his footsteps growing fainter. Tension in every muscle released at the hope that we were going to beat the charges, balled up again at the thought that he might not want to see me anymore, and released at the memory of his calm words, his conviction, his determination to make this right.