Staying For Good
Page 31

They’d just hooked up for the first time since before he was old enough to drink in a bar.
He smiled at the memory and decided he needed a shower more than a few more hours of sleep. He had some planning to do.
“You do know the blue room is right above mine, right?”
Zoe blinked several times, her mind scrambling for an explanation . . . then decided a lie now would be heartache later. “Luke said it’s the white room.”
Mel rolled her eyes. “The bedspread is blue.”
“I know, right?”
Mel grinned. “So is there something you need to tell us?”
Zoe, Jo, and Mel sat on the back porch of Miss Gina’s inn, looking over bridal magazines and picking out all the crazy crap one picked when planning a wedding.
“What is she getting at?” Jo asked, oblivious to what was obvious.
Zoe picked up her iced tea and said over the rim of the glass, “Luke spent the night with me last night.”
Jo’s eyes drifted from the satin and lace gown on the page. “Spent the night.”
“Platonically slept in the same space?” Mel asked, knowing full well that wasn’t the case.
Zoe started to nod, then slowly shook her head. “We screwed like bunnies until about two, fell asleep . . . and he left around six.”
“Five thirty,” Mel corrected. “After another round.”
“Jesus, Zoe . . . what does this mean?” Jo asked.
Zoe dropped her hands in her lap. “How the hell do I know what it means? It means we like sex and we’re good at it.”
“It’s Luke.”
Zoe found Jo’s eyes. “I know.”
“It’s more than sex if it’s Luke,” Mel chimed in.
Jo’s eyes stared in judgment.
“He came to me in Texas. Talked with one of my neighbors to find the bar we were at that night.”
“This can only end badly,” Jo stated Zoe’s deepest fear.
“Who said it needs to end at all?” Mel asked. “Luke and Zoe belong together.”
“I live in Texas, Mel.”
Little Miss Optimism with her shiny new engagement ring and wedding bells ringing wasn’t thinking about a probable breakup and fallout.
Jo obviously was.
“Did you guys talk about this before it happened? Or did it just happen?”
“A little of both.”
Jo ran a hand through her hair. “I almost had to arrest him last year when you left after the class reunion, Zoe. He has a weak spot when it comes to you.”
This was not something she wanted coming between her and Jo, but she needed to solicit her BFF’s support. “I know you worry, Jo. I’m more than a little confused myself. But ever since Luke showed up in Dallas, I haven’t been able to get him out of my head. Being here makes it even harder to think about anything else other than how it once was with us.”
“You leave in the morning,” Jo argued.
Jo was torn. How could she not be when she had been the one here to pick up the pieces after Zoe had left?
“But you’re going to come back . . . a lot.” Mel was playing middle child, mediating.
“And Luke can get on a plane to visit me.”
“Did he say that?” Jo asked.
“He alluded to it.”
Mel waved a hand between the two of them. “Oh, my God. Stop it, you two . . . this is awesome stuff. Zoe and Luke getting back together is like Sandy and Danny from Grease. It’s epic and wonderful.”
“I think Jo’s concerned about a Romeo and Juliet outcome.”
Jo nodded. “Not the perfect ending.”
“So melodramatic. No one is going to kill themselves.” Mel shoved Jo’s knee and broke the tension. “So how was it?”
A slight lift to Jo’s lips told Zoe she wanted details.
“Is it possible his dick grew over the last decade?”
Mel squealed and Jo glanced at the sky as if contemplating the question.
For the next hour, they talked about makeup sex. Engagement party sex . . . and sex with a nameless man Jo had while in Dallas. Nameless only because she refused to gather the details and save herself the effort of looking the man up in her database. A byproduct of her job, she told them. His tats alone told her he had a history, but damn, the man had been good in bed.
According to Jo in any event.
The conversation switched only when Wyatt and Hope returned to the inn with Wyatt’s parents around lunchtime.
Zoe’s phone buzzed in her pocket while she baked homemade snickerdoodles for Miss Gina and her guests.
Luke’s number popped up on her screen.
I don’t know the last time I felt the need to nap on a Sunday afternoon.
I’m shot, myself.
Did anyone see me leave?
Zoe settled against the counter and enjoyed this new way of communicating with Luke. When they’d dated in high school, she couldn’t afford a cell phone. They were probably the only kid couple who hadn’t shared naked pictures when they were young. Zoe suddenly felt fortunate that there weren’t those kinds of recorded pieces of crap out there for someone to exploit.
No, but Mel and Wyatt took notes from the room below us.
Oh, boy . . . twenty questions?
She set her phone down when the oven timer rang. After pulling her cookies from the oven, she returned to her text.
Luke had placed an impatient question mark in its own text when she hadn’t returned fast enough.