“I need to move on.”
It was her turn to stare at her shoes. “I never meant for you to stay stagnant.”
“I didn’t think I had. Then everyone returned last year for the reunion and . . . I don’t know . . . I never left. Now I feel like I’m in limbo, waiting for something to shift.”
“A lot of kids don’t leave. You never talked about leaving.”
“Neither did you, until you did.”
Yeah, it had taken a bottle of tequila and a hangover to slap her head into the reality of her future if she’d stayed. “Are you saying you want to leave home?”
He stared at her as if her suggestion was a foreign concept.
“I don’t know what I’m saying, Zoe.”
She loved how her name rolled off his tongue.
Noise filtered out of the bar, breaking the spell Luke had placed on her by simply uttering her name. “Where are you staying?”
He glanced around the parking lot. “I rented a car.”
She chuckled. “You really didn’t plan this.”
Luke pulled his shirt away from his chest as if trying to capture a cool breeze with the effect.
“You can stay with me.”
His eyes lit up.
“I have a spare room,” she blurted out. “I doubt Jo will be using it.”
“Jo . . . shit, I completely forgot she was here.”
“She’s not . . . well, she is, but she found a tatted up hottie. Then there is always the couch.”
He laughed. “Good for her.”
“When is your return flight?”
“Monday morning.”
“Stay with me until Monday. You’ll remember all my annoying habits that you don’t miss and be ready to hook up when you fly into Eugene.”
He tried to smile. “You don’t have annoying habits.”
Yeah, she did. “C’mon.” She pushed away from the rail and dusted her hands on her jeans. “Let’s go find a bottle of tequila and remember old times.”
Luke took a deep breath and offered his arm.
Her belly twisted as she looped her hand through and walked the few short steps to their cars.
Luke woke to his tongue tasting like elementary school paste. He preferred not to think about how he knew what paste tasted like.
He cracked an eye open and took stock of where he was.
The plush couch cushioned his back. A large-screen television hung on the wall across the room.
Zoe’s!
He let his head fall back and his eyes close.
Unlike when they were kids, they drank the tequila until tipsy, not until shitfaced. He’d crashed on the couch in case Jo snuck in sometime in the night. He didn’t want to scare a woman trained to take down men twice her size when she didn’t realize he was in her designated sleeping space.
His bladder prompted him to lift his lazy ass off the couch.
When he was finished, the crack in the door leading to Zoe’s room asked him to try out his skills in voyeurism. Powerless to stop himself, his little finger moved the door ever so slightly.
She was sound asleep, her hair disheveled on the pillow, her full lips parted in her sleep.
He’d missed her.
The quiet moments . . . the laughter . . . his ability to say and do just about anything and not scare her away.
She’d left anyway, but not because of him.
In Texas, she had a life she never would have obtained staying in River Bend.
Luke eased the door closed and slowly made his way down the hall.
A gasp stopped the movement of his feet.
“Holy shit.”
Jo held shoes in her hand and shock on her face.
“Shh, she’s sleeping.” He glanced over his shoulder to the closed door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in a rough whisper.
He realized then what it looked like . . . him half dressed, walking away from Zoe’s room.
Luke took two steps and pulled Jo from the hall. “I slept on the couch.” He pointed to the blanket and pillow.
Jo kept staring. “You were in Eugene.”
“There’s more than one plane in the air, Jo.” He didn’t elaborate and turned toward the kitchen. “Coffee?”
“Holy shit,” he heard again, only this time with meaning.
Chapter Five
“A three-story house is a lot of up and down.”
Zoe slid a glance to Jo when Luke voiced his opinion.
They’d left her apartment two houses ago without her having the opportunity to talk to Jo privately.
Anton had taken one glance at Luke, smiled, and made sure he was by his side as they breached the doors of the homes Zoe was considering buying.
Her Realtor’s reaction to Luke’s good looks answered a few questions Zoe had about the man’s sexuality.
“No more or less than Miss Gina’s Bed-and-Breakfast,” Zoe said.
“This is a home, not an inn.”
“Okay . . . it’s a lot of square footage. Are you planning on your mother moving in? Maybe Zanya and Blaze?” Luke asked.
Zoe swallowed hard. The mere image of her mother anywhere near Dallas made her cringe. Would her family think that was an option? Moving to Texas and staying with her?
“Maybe it is a little large.”
Jo nudged her arm. “The houses we looked at yesterday were bigger.”
“I didn’t think about my family.”
“Is your mother elderly?” Anton asked.
“No,” Zoe sighed. “Just needy.”