I was going to give in on that point and would likely have to apologize (even though that would suck).
But I did have the whole fistfight thing to throw in his face. Being a tough guy, macho man was one thing, getting in fights in bar parking lots was something else. Who did that kind of thing? It was juvenile and took the whole tough guy thing a shade too far.
The doors to the elevator opened, we walked in and Luke flipped on the lights.
I turned to him to say something, I didn’t know what, when he calmly walked to the bed, picked up the lamp on the bedside table, yanked the cord out with one vicious tug and threw it with a savage side arm throw across the room.
I watched it sail then smash against the semi-circular bar, its pieces flying.
All righty then.
One thing I knew, I wasn’t going to bring up my Sweetest, Saddest Song Ever Written Defense.
He turned to me. I took one look at him and saw he was so beyond controlling-fury mode that it wasn’t funny.
“Luke,” I started in order to try to defuse the situation and I was going to do it by shifting the focus and seeing to his cut. Priorities first and blood was pretty much always a priority. “We need to clean that cut.”
“Pack,” he responded.
I blinked. “What?” I asked.
“Pack. Now.”
Then without another word, he shrugged off his jacket, tossed it on the bed, walked by me and into the bathroom. I turned in a half-circle, my eyes and body following him. I watched him turn on the bathroom light, nab a washcloth and then he started to clean his cut.
Something was happening to my throat, I couldn’t quite understand what it was but I was kind of thinking it was panic mingled with fear again, this time significantly magnified.
I went to the bathroom door. “Luke, I…” I started and then stopped because I didn’t know what to say. Further, he didn’t even glance at me.
It was then I realized there really wasn’t anything to say.
Bottom line, now he knew that I knew he was in love with Jules. The jig was up and obviously we were over.
I didn’t understand why he was so angry about it but I’d think about that later, when Dom was gone and Sissy was with me and we had lots and lots of tequila, which always helped women understand how men’s minds worked.
And this, I told myself, was a good thing (not the angry part, the jig being up part). I told myself this but I wasn’t very convincing.
I turned away from the door (by the way, he never looked at me, it was like I ceased to exist which made my throat feel all the funnier) and went to my luggage.
I’d been keeping my things pretty tidy, I just had some stuff in the laundry room, the bathroom and a few things on the nightstand. I went to the laundry room and separated my clothes in the dryer from Luke’s. This activity made my throat stop feeling funny and start feeling tight. I hurried as fast as I could, taking my clothes back to my luggage and shoving it all in without folding it which was hard to do, I didn’t like to iron but this was definitely not the time to be obsessively tidy.
I grabbed my toiletries bag and went into the bathroom. I walked by Luke who, at this point, was putting those little white strips on his cut to hold the edges together and pulled back the shower door to get my shampoo and conditioner.
Just like he’d done to me, I tried to ignore him.
This became hard when I’d nabbed my stuff, shoved it into the bag, turned back around and Luke was standing dead center of the bathroom, feet planted, arms crossed on his chest.
Clearly, Luke was done ignoring me.
“Which one?” he asked.
I shook my head because I wasn’t following.
“Which one did you convince yourself I was thinkin’ of when I was fuckin’ you? Was it Roxie?”
I stared at him, my tight throat getting even tighter because he was guessing. Why on earth was he guessing?
No time to dwell on that without tequila.
Time to move on, fast.
“I’ll, um…” I stopped, deciding to ignore his question and get on with packing so I could get out, get to the store, buy an enormous amount of food that had no healthy living mojo whatsoever, go home and start the painful process of getting over Luke which I assumed would take me approximately one hundred and fifty years therefore, I had to get started, pronto. After making this decision, I started speaking again. “Give someone a call to come and pick me up.”
I leaned to the side, reached to get my toothbrush and his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist and he yanked on it, bringing me closer to him.
My head tilted back and I looked at him. I was beginning to lose it, beginning to let all those things I wasn’t thinking of, all those things I’d buried, seep into my head and they were overpowering.
I wanted to be angry. It wasn’t me who was in love with someone else. It wasn’t me who had a fight in bar parking lot like a testosterone-fuelled idiot. However, for some reason, I was having trouble holding on to anger and instead felt something far, far worse.