Mr. Imperfect

chapter 19



Rori may not have had all the answers she wanted by the time she and Luke pulled onto his street close to eleven that night, but she had learned a couple of things she hadn’t been expecting.

First, misbehaving was as fun as it appeared to be. Second, American pizza was obscenely fattening even as it was insubstantial. You could eat a pile of it and still crave more. Third, rootbeer had its place in the world of food. At first Rori had thought it tasted like carbonated medicine when Luke made her try it. But when taken as a chaser to copious amounts of cheese and dough, rootbeer became sweet and oddly palatable.

Rori had eaten several thousand calories that night, but she couldn’t begrudge the experience. After all, she would forever associate the experience with Luke, whereas before American food always soured in her mouth as she thought of her dad. Until now, her biological father had tainted everything else American in her mind with his shadow.

No more. She had a new tour guide to America, and his name was Luke Foster—a guy who never made life hard when it could be easy. Easy come, easy go, that was how Luke lived. One moment he greedily packing up the leftovers to take home, and the next he was handing his precious pizza over to two poor college kids sitting by the entrance who only been able to afford drinks. When or how Luke had noticed their plight, Rori wasn’t sure. She only knew that their faces had lit up at the thought of eating, and somehow Luke had known they were hungry.

So, yes, they may not have discussed where they would like to live or what time of year they would like to get married, but Rori did know that she was currently attached to a fundamentally good man. Behavior like his didn’t pop up overnight once a person came into money. Kindness was bred into a person, and somewhere along the line it had been bred into Luke.

So what if he didn’t reach for her hand while they ate, or that he never asked questions about her? He was making her lead every step of the way, which she wasn’t used to, but it would certainly make things easier. It gave them less to argue about.

That’s what Rori told herself even as she sensed that something was very off. After the day they’d had, a man in Luke’s position should be trying to lure her into bed, not challenging her to a battle of Mario Cart. Apparently Luke became single minded once the sun went down, if the past two days were evidence. Darkness outside meant video games inside in his mind. And who was she to judge? Before yesterday she had never jumped on a tramp. Today she would play her first video game. It seemed unfair to judge Luke’s passion without trying it herself.

“You awake?” Luke asked, giving her arm a pat in the dark car. “We’re almost home.”

Home. She liked the sound of that, even if she didn’t like the location. “Yes, I’m awake.”

“I don’t know how your jet lag is doing, but—What the hell?” he spat, then slammed on the gas.

“Luke?” Rori asked, tensing in her seat and gripping the door. “What’s going on?”

He turned into his own driveway even as he kept his eyes on a black SUV in the Cannon’s driveway. Whoever it belonged to, Rori was sure that Luke wasn’t a fan.

“Stay here,” he snapped, and burst from the car.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen. This was the first time Rori had seen Luke’s temper and she needed to know what had set him off.

Luke covered the distance between the two houses with surprising speed and pushed through the Cannon’s front door before Rori was even out of his driveway. A heart beat later, she heard Luke yelling.

Luke—puppy dog, happy-go-lucky Luke—yelling.

That got her feet moving a little quicker. Even still, she wasn’t half way to the house when Mike sprinted past her and straight into his parents’ house.

“Out!” an authoritative female voice yelled. “No fighting in my house, boys.”

Rori was guessing that was Mrs. Cannon. It took only a few moments for her orders to be obeyed when a man Rori had never seen before launched out of the front door and fell back onto the lawn. Unlike anyone else Rori had met in Luke’s hometown, the man reeked of money. Lawyer money, by her guess. But if the other guy was a lawyer, Luke didn’t seem worried about litigation when he barged out of the house after him.

“You are not welcome here!” he yelled.

“Not your house, not your call,” the other guy said smugly. Luke lunged, and Mike stepped in and held him back.

“I had the same reaction at first,” Mike said to Luke as Kris came to their side in the doorway. “But Kris can date who she wants. It’s her life.”

“Date?” Luke roared. “Are you kidding me?” He turned to Kris like a Judas.

The other guy laughed. “Yeah, Kris thought it best not to tell you at your party. She thought it might put a damper on the evening.”

Luke lunged again, harder this time. Mike held on harder.

“Go ahead,” the man taunted. “Hit me, Foster. I’ll sue your ass for everything.”

Americans and their lawsuits. Rori fought the urge to roll her eyes.

Kris stepped past Mike and Luke and walked to the other man on the lawn. “Can we call it a night, Caleb? I think Luke and I need to have a little chat.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said, making a point to press himself against her as he kissed her goodnight. “You do that. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rori watched Caleb’s arrogant stroll to the SUV and noted that it wasn’t until the car was half way down the street that Mike let go of Luke. Rori could have never imagined the level of venom in Luke’s eyes as he looked at Kris and snapped, “How long?”

“Two weeks,” she said without apology. “He’s different now, Luke. We can’t judge someone forever based on what they did when they were kids.”

“Kids?” Luke scoffed. “You say that like he wasn’t eighteen years old at the time. People don’t change that much in a few years, Kris. No way you’re dating him. Not on my watch!”

Kris kept her cool. “No offense, Luke, but it’s not your call.”

“Like hell it isn’t! He’s only dating you to piss me and Mike off. Banging you is the best way to add insult to years of injury, right?”

Kris’s cool disappeared in an instant. “F*ck you, Luke.”

“Yeah? Fine. And I guess I’ll leave f*cking you up to Caleb,” Luke said, storming back toward his house and calling over his shoulder. “By the way, you missed a button.”

Rori glanced back at Kris before following after Luke and saw that he was right. The center button of her blouse was unbuttoned, a fact that Mike didn’t seem all that happy with. Nor did Mrs. Cannon when she appeared on the porch in her pajamas.

Rori was obviously missing the full story. The macho show she’d just witnessed had nothing to do with any jealousy Luke might have had for Kris dating someone, and everything to do with the man she was dating. There was clearly history here, and Rori was out of the loop.

But that didn’t answer the question as to why was Kris dating a guy who was very clearly a jerk.

“I need to throw something—hit something,” Luke said, charging through his front door.

“How about talking?” Rori offered. “Who is Caleb?”

He spun on her, making her flinch. “Caleb? He’s an unrepentant a*shole, that’s what he is! He teased me all the way through school and made sure every other jock did the same. If it weren’t for him I would have been on the varsity basketball team, but nooo. He had to get me kicked off of every team.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Kris said, appearing in the doorway. “It’s not like you didn’t make it easy for him.”

“Not helping,” Mike warned, stepping in front of her and looking Luke in the eye. “Look, man, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I figured it wasn’t my place.”

Luke stabbed a finger at him. “I’ll deal with you later.”

“Excuse me?” Kris said, stepping forward. “You’re going to ‘deal’ with my brother because he respected my wishes to tell you about Caleb myself?”

Luke covered the distance to her. “And when were you planning to do that?”

“Oh, maybe when we were both in the same room and not surrounded by my family. I haven’t seen you since last night, Luke. It’s not like I passed up on any opportunities. Last night just didn’t feel right.”

“As opposed to tonight where I have the joy of seeing him getting under your bra?” Luke snarled.

“You didn’t knock!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mike said, stepping between them. “This isn’t solving anything.”

Rori was relieved when Luke took the cue and backed off, pacing away. “I don’t approve, Kris. I never will.”

“Why? Because he’s the one person you’ve ever met that’s called you out on your shit?” Kris said. “You’re the one who started the feud between you two, Luke. At least own that.”

He spun and faced her. “So, what? He gets to torture me for the rest of my life? And somehow that’s fair?”

“Well, you’ve never apologized,” Kris pointed out. “He’s over it all now, but you could have saved yourself a whole lot of grief if you’d just apologized back when you both were twelve.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Rori said. “But can someone explain to me what is going on?”

“Your fiancé still hasn’t learned to take responsibility for his actions, that’s what,” Kris snapped.

“Oh, and Caleb has?” Luke shot back. “I don’t see him confessing to stealing my jerseys, or planting porn in my locker, or slashing my tires on prom night.”

“I’m not saying he was right to do those things,” Kris said. “I’m just saying that now, years later, he can confess that he was wrong to do what he did. Can you, Luke? Can you finally confess that you were wrong, too?”

Luke rolled his eyes. “What? All this comes down to the snow mobile incident that happened in the sixth grade? It was an accident and his family insurance.”

Kris shook her head. “No, you were being reckless, Luke. Admit it. You took the machine off a jump and hit a tree when you knew that one of the conditions of riding the snow mobiles was to stay in the flat areas. Then you lied about who was driving the thing, blamed it on Caleb, and got him grounded until he could pay the deductable himself!”

Rori bit her lip, suddenly feeling a little less defensive on Luke’s behalf. He’d screwed up, no doubt about it.

“And guess what?” Luke snapped. “I’ve been paying for that mistake ever since, okay? It wasn’t like Caleb suffered like Mother Teresa. That a*shole shot me with bee-bee guns, stole my clothes and abandoned me places, and did a million other things nice people don’t do. He’s not for you, Kris. He’s bad news. Case in point, what kind of jerk undoes your shirt on your mom’s couch with your parents twenty feet away.”

“They were in bed.”

“Not the point,” Luke replied. “He doesn’t know how to respect people, Kris. He respects money, that’s it. And he knows you don’t have any, so he doesn’t respect you. He’ll mentally buy you, use you, then walk away.”

With all the accusations flying around, Rori wasn’t quite sure what to believe, but she knew for a fact that Luke wasn’t far off in his assessment. Rich men never respected women who needed their money. Caleb would never be faithful to someone like Kris. That much was obvious.

“I think that’s enough,” Mike said, his voice calm as he stepped between them. “I think we can all agree that this could have gone down much better than it did.” He turned to Luke. “You know I hate him, too, man. I’m calling this a bout of temporary insanity.”

“Damn right,” Luke said under his breath.

Mike turned to his sister. “And seriously, sis, I can’t un-see your bra either and I have no reason to knock when I head over to mom and dad’s. I’d have thrown Caleb out, too, if I’d have gotten there first. If you’re going to be gross, go to his place, okay?”

“Fine.”

“So how about we all call it a night and finish this conversation after we’ve had a chance to sleep on it?” Mike suggested. “It’s late. We’ve all had long days.”

“Sounds great,” Luke said, moving down the stairs without another word. After a moment of debate, Rori started after him only to have Mike snag her arm.

“Not tonight,” he said softly, and in spite of everything she felt her heart kick at his touch. The human body truly was ridiculous sometimes. “Let him sleep it off. He won’t be making any good impressions right now.”

Rori looked down to Mike’s hand on her arm, then looked up. To his mouth. Then his eyes. Then she had the presence of mind to scowl. “I think that’s my call to make, don’t you?”

He didn’t let go, but his grip lessened. “Let me put it this way, how much sleep have you two had in the past few days?”

Rori glanced at the empty stairway. “Not much.”

“He’s jetlagged,” Mike said releasing her. “Sleep will help him more than talking will right now. Trust me.”

Kris stepped to his side. “He’s right. This is my mess. No need for you to clean it up. I’ll take care of it tomorrow, I promise.”

Rori had a choice in front of her. She could brazenly push through the two of them and follow Luke, or she could follow their sound logic.

“Let me say good night to him,” she said. “I won’t be a minute.”

Mike and Kris looked at each other, but it wasn’t like Rori actually needed their permission so she pushed past without another word.

“I’ll wait here for you so we can walk back together,” Kris said and Rori gave her a brief nod before heading down the stairs.

From the railing the siblings watched her until she disappeared, then Kris dragged Mike into the living room.

“Did you see that?” she hissed.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be a little more specific, sis.”

Kris rolled her eyes. “She was staring at your lips! Did you see that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“She’s into you!” she whispered.

“No, she’s not,” he whispered back.

“When have I ever been wrong?”

“Uh, how about five minutes ago when you told me to text you when they pulled up,” he said, making sure the stairs were clear. “If I would have known you were going to take your top off, maybe I wouldn’t have been so obliging. This is a mess, Kris!”

“I don’t regret it,” she said with confidence.

“Yeah, well I do. I wasn’t kidding when I said I couldn’t un-see the little scene you set up in there. Since when do you wear Victoria Secret shit?”

“Since I stopped being fourteen,” Kris snapped. “Now stay focused. The point here is that Luke’s fiancée likes you.”

“You’re seeing things, baby sis.”

“You think so? Fine. But all I’m saying is that the two of them together is a stain that’s only going to get bigger.”

“Agreed, but I’m pretty sure those are her footsteps on the stairs, so maybe we should bench this for now. Good?”

“Good,” Kris agreed, walking back to the stairs just as Rori came into view.

“He locked himself in his room,” Rori said looking a little confused.

“Yeah, well, you’ll get used to that,” Kris said heading for the door. “I don’t know about you, but I’m excited for this night to be over. Shall we?”

Rori nodded and Mike watched as she walked out the door with his sister.