I blinked a few times and my mouth popped open. Was this the same Sarah I was thinking of?
Luke saw the look on my face, and he must have been following my train of thought, because then he said, “She isn’t the same at home as she is when she’s out in the community. That’s when she’s ‘on,’” he air-quoted. “Anyway, she took my phone and grounded me for three days.”
“…grounded you?” I asked. It was hard to believe that there was this grown man next to me, being disciplined by his parents.
He ran his hands through his beautiful blonde hair. “She grounded me, yeah. And she took my phone. I was trapped in the house for three days, listening to her crying in her bedroom.”
“Luke, I’m so sorry! That sounds… that sounds hard.” I said, touching his shoulder.
This time when I touched him, it did feel like I was comforting him. In a way, it felt like I was absorbing his pain.
I liked that; I liked feeling like I was useful. I liked feeling like I was helping someone, especially Luke. And secretly, I was bathing in relief.
He didn’t escape from my house earlier this week because he was disgusted by me. He didn’t mean to ghost me. He was just a prisoner in his own house; within his own family.
“So how did you get away?” I asked.
“You. You came and saved me. She was taking a nap, and I found my phone,” he explained. “It was in this little box she keeps in her room with a duck on it. I had to check in a few places to find it, sneaking around her bedroom while she was asleep…” he trailed off.
A pang of empathy rushed through me as I pictured Luke, poor anxiety-ridden Luke, battling his own demons as he looked for his phone in that high-stress situation.
Battling his demons so that he could find it and call me.
All I wanted to do was wrap him in a huge hug, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that to him. He was in a vulnerable place; I had to support him. As tempting as it was, I couldn’t use this moment as an excuse to get closer to him.
I was a police officer. And I was bound by my moral duties to protect the people of this town no matter what.
Sighing, I turned my gaze out to the darkening lake as the sun receded beyond the horizon. The air got a little more chilly as Luke opened up to me about what his family was really like.
“There’s not a lot of real warmth there,” he said. “They’re just people. People that all live in the same house. And my mom… well, I think she knows that on some level. So she’s fighting tooth and nail for any kind of warmth.”
I briefly thought about how weird that was. It was the complete opposite of my own family. Sure, they had their issues and everything, but they were always warm, always welcoming. They accepted any new person into their ranks with a warm, if not overbearing, welcome.
“What’s your family like?” Luke asked his voice a quiet, soft sound in the darkness.
Then I was surprised as I felt warmth in my hand. I looked down and saw that Luke had placed his delicate, pale hand on top of mine.
Alarm bells were ringing in my head. Again, I didn’t want to take advantage of his vulnerability. I didn’t want to be that guy; that guy that swoops in after a crisis. That kind of behavior was almost predatory, and I saw it in domestic abuse situations all the time.
But I looked over at Luke; at his innocent eyes. They were pleading for a connection; pleading for me to reach out and meet him halfway.
This was the opposite of what had happened with Brian. With Brian, we were close sexually, but we were never truly intimate. Looking into Luke’s eyes now, I saw the promise of everything I’d ever wanted dangling there, begging me to reach out and take it.
The temptation was too hard to resist.
So I jerked my head away and looked out to the opposite side of the lake. I was a professional first and foremost. I couldn’t risk it.
“Well, you’ve already met Jake,” I started with an eye roll.
He chuckled, an innocent, light sound that filled the night like bells.
I smiled.
“Yeah, I’ve met Jake. I can tell you care about him a lot, even though he annoys you sometimes,” he said, squeezing my hand.
“He’s my little brother,” I agreed stoically. “I can’t not care about him.”
Luke squeezed my hand again, and after a beat, said, “I’m… I’m a little envious.”
“Of what?”
“Of… of having a true family. Of having a real family,” he revealed.
I looked at him with sadness in my eyes, “Luke… what do you mean? You have a family. You have your mom, your dad, your sister…”
“Yeah but it’s not the same. Like I said, it feels like they’re all just individual people who live in the same house. Well, minus my dad now…” he said sadly.
I swallowed, not sure how to respond to that.
“That friendliness, that bond that I saw between you and Jake at the bar the other night, that’s the kind of bond that I want. I want to be close to them. I want to be close with someone,” he said.
I glanced over at him again, and in the light of the rising moon, I could see the sparkle of tears in the corners of his eyes.
“I want to be close to you,” he admitted, turning to look at me.
And just like that, all of my professionalism and cop person went out the window. It was just me and Luke, two lonely souls, on this sand dune at night.
And his soft lips were finally on mine.
