“Thank you for doing this. Well, not for doing this”—he waved at himself in all his black-and-orange glory—“but for coming with us today. It might not seem like a big deal, but it is. To me. So thank you.”
My feet carried me back to him before I knew I was going. My fingers tangled through his before I knew they’d reached for him. “It’s nice to see this side of you. The non-baseball-legend side.” My spine shot with sensation when his thumb caressed the inside of my wrist.
“It’s nice to have you see this side of me.”
“You’re a pretty amazing brother. I hope you know that.”
Luke’s eyes diverted into the store, where I guessed another sister was flashing him something else. His answer to every piece of clothing had been a thumbs-up. Never a thumbs-down. Every girl needed a guy in her life who always gave her the thumbs-up, no matter what. Luke’s sisters were lucky.
“They’re amazing. They just make me look good.”
“Says the brother who would pay any price, financially or personally, for any one of them.” Giving his hand a squeeze, I turned back toward the store. “Have fun getting booed at here. Those Shock and Archer fans are brutal.”
He gave me a disparaging look right before something wicked flashed in his eyes. “After this, I’m going to feel a lot less guilty about leaving that red handprint on your ass tonight.”
“Mall. People.” I flourished my hands up and down at the hall we were in, droves of shoppers passing by.
Luke lifted a brow. “So?
“Never mind.” I sighed before going in search of three teenage girls.
If experience had anything to do with it, they were probably already throwing on clothes in the dressing room. None of them even eighteen and they’d already mastered the art of power shopping.
Wandering through the store, I found Alex perusing a rounder of vintage-style tees—the other two must have beaten her to the dressing room.
“I’m armed and loaded with a limitless credit card, so go crazy.” I came up on the other side of the rounder. “How’s it going?”
“Eggplant or charcoal?” She held up two tees, taking a turn floating each one over her so I could get the full effect.
“Both,” I suggested.
“Nah.” She shook her head, studying the shirts before putting the charcoal one back. “Luke already does way too much for us.”
Glancing at the tag of one of the shirts, I saw the price was less than ten bucks each. As fiends of shopping and fashion as the girls clearly were, none of them had gone crazy setting registers on fire. At all. A few pairs of cut-offs and a few shirts each, but all of them seemed to behave like they had a budget.
“I don’t think twenty bucks for a couple of shirts is going to raise your brother’s brow. Not even a little bit.”
“I know. But . . .”
“Do you know how much—”
“Twenty-one million dollars a year?” Her eyes lifted from the rack of dresses she was thumbing through. “Yeah, I know how much he makes. It’s not about the money. It’s about everything he’s done for all of us ever since—” She stopped herself short, chewing it out on her lip for a moment. “Do you know about what happened?”
“To your parents?” I asked softly, and she nodded. “Yes, he told me.”
“After that, the three of us could have gone and lived with other family. But we would have had to move away from home, from our friends, our schools. The places we used to go to with Dad and Mom.” She pulled out a dress, but she was obviously seeing something else when she studied the chevron print. “Luke kept us all together. In the same home we grew up in. He talked with Anne and brought her in to take care of us since he couldn’t be home with us for most of the year. He made it so that even though we’d lost our parents, we didn’t have to lose everything else too. It’s not about the money. I already owe Luke more than I could ever hope to pay back.” This time when she worked at her bottom lip, I guessed it was to ward off tears. “Does that make any sense at all?”
“Hey, as someone who can’t take a compliment without feeling like I owe a person big time, I so get it.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “But love isn’t about owing a person or feeling in their debt. It’s about giving what you can, when you can, and allowing that in return. It’s not all a matter of the head—it’s just as much a matter of the heart.”
Alex shifted, hanging the dress back up. “So are you saying to buy both of the shirts?”
I smiled. “Not exactly. What I’m trying to say is just accept what he can and wants to give you without worrying about how you’ll pay him back. Just like you’d want him to accept what you can and want to give him without worrying about how he’ll pay you back.” I felt my forehead crease as I replayed what I’d said to a seventeen-year-old I’d just met smack in the middle of a store that was blasting yet more reprehensible music. “Does that make sense? Because now that I’m rethinking it, I don’t know what I just said.”