A million questions tingled with anticipation in my mind. Would he be up for some BDSM play? Something told me yes. I just had to communicate with him and make sure we were clear on each other’s boundaries. I made sure to keep cage play out of the question; I didn’t want to cause him any discomfort or mental anguish seeing that. And to be honest, I wasn’t really that into it anyway; the entire reason I had a cage was because it was something that Brian had wanted to try.
I gritted my teeth once again, thinking of the guy that abused Luke in college. It was terrible that he was even allowed to walk around after what he did. He should be locked up. Now that he was allowed to roam free, he could do that abusive shit to someone else.
Luke refused to tell me what the guy’s name was. That only made me more angry.
I was sure I could find out who he was if I had the right combination of clues, and then I could assemble the story of who this guy was. Then maybe I could track him down and…
“Stop thinking about that,” Luke warned me with his spoon.
We were finally eating the banana splits I had promised him a few days ago. Luke had dutifully separated out each type of ice cream with his spoon and arranged the split bananas into a neat pile to the side. The whipped cream was separated from everything else, the dollop in the ice cream’s orbit. All of the toppings — the fudge, caramel, and strawberry sauce — were in individual puddles around the plate like a painter’s pallet.
“About what?” I asked innocently. But I knew that he knew.
“Whenever you do this,” he twirled the spoon around in his fingers, “You’re thinking about serving justice to someone.
“Aren’t you observant,” I said dryly.
“It’s one of my strong suits,” he said with a smirk. “Look, I don’t want to think about him anymore. I don’t ever want to see him again; I just want to move my mind away from all of that and think about other things.”
As much as I admired Luke’s mature attitude about it, I couldn’t help but feel the tingling fire of justice kindling in my gut. This guy needed to be put away; this guy had done something to hurt my boyfriend and got away with it.
“Seriously, stop it,” Luke urged, his eyes going all wide with his plea.
“Sorry, force of habit,” I explained. “But one last thing though…” I said as I finished my vanilla ice cream. “When you go back to school on Wednesday… is he going to be there? Or did he graduate?”
Luke went white. “He’ll… he’ll be around.”
I tightened my grip on my spoon, trying to run through some mental gymnastics of how I could stay close to Luke during that time. How I could protect him.
But then look whipped his gaze back to mine, “But I’ll stay away from him. I know roughly where he goes during the day; he’s a creature of habit.”
“You avoiding him isn’t what I’m worried about,” I admitted. If I knew anything about my experience with abusers, it was that they always sought out victims that they perceived had ‘gotten away.’ Luke had escaped him. Luke fell into that category. And if there was an inkling within this person that revenge was not exacted to tip the scales in his favor, he would work to correct that.
“What, are you thinking he might come after me?!” Luke asked, his eyes going round with fear.
“No,” I lied, “I think you’ll be safe.”
I knew he’d be safe because of me. I had to find a way to protect Luke without him knowing about it.
His shoulders relaxed a little, and he took a scoop out of the strawberry ice cream. Then there was a silence that stretched out between us as he looked through the window behind me at the lake. “Do you think my mom is going to have a meltdown when I don’t come home?”
“She has your number. You’re an adult, remember? And if you want to stay at your boyfriend’s house for a few days, so what? She has no control over you. What is she going to do, strangle you?”
Luke recoiled.
Shit, I thought to myself. I’d forgotten that one of Luke’s hard limits was choking.
“Sorry,” I said backpedaling. “What I’m trying to say is that your mother will probably bury herself in work and try to stay busy. That’s what most divorced people do.”
He seemed to accept this because his eyes were back on me. “And speaking of that, how is Jake holding up?”
I was pleasantly surprised that he asked about Jake; that gave me confirmation that Luke cared about what I cared about. It was… it was more comforting than I expected.
“He’s shaken up, but he’ll be fine. He’s already talking to Claudia…”
“My boss?!” Luke said with a smile. “Oh no, oh geez, she asked me to keep Jake away from her…”
“Well, she seems to have changed her tune now,” I said, running my hand along the counter, “Because she agreed to come to our family Labor Day cookout this weekend. It’s up at the farmhouse I showed you earlier.”
Luke was speechless, then he looked down sadly at his ice cream.
“Do you want to go?” I asked, reaching my arm back behind my neck nervously. “I want you to be there, but I understand if it’s too early for you to feel comfortable meeting my family—”
“Yes!” he said without hesitation. “It sounds like fun! And if Claudia is going, I want to be there too. I can keep her company, and I want to meet your family.”
My heart felt like it was exploding with joy. “Wait, really? You want to meet
