His look of triumph faded. “My old dealer.”
“But why?” I asked, sharp. Then, softer, I added, “Don’t leave anything out.”
Luke nodded at me, eyes intent on mine. “Of course.”
He began with how he’d met this man, Johnno Lerner. How they’d been something like friends, until Luke wanted to change his life. How Luke flushed pills down the toilet. How he ran from his debts and thought he could keep on running to Afghanistan, until Johnno found him. And then Luke found me.
“And that’s what I focused on in the conversation with the lawyer,” he finished. “You know, like, a marriage isn’t up to what people think it should be. It’s up to the people in it. And even if we look at what’s official, like ‘in sickness and in health, richer or poorer,’ et cetera, we did all that. We were good together. We took care of each other.” He looked away, almost pained, and with a short breath he added, “So that’s everything. The lawyer said that we have a shot. That it sounded very real.”
“And he told you to plead not guilty.”
“Yes,” Luke said. “You probably won’t even have to testify. But if you do—”
“The story is that we really care for each other.”
He took a breath, struggling. “That’s the story.”
We sat in silence. We’d had so many silences, but this one felt different. Maybe it was the first silence we didn’t have to break by lying. To everyone, to each other. Or maybe there were still lies. I didn’t know. I didn’t think Luke was lying now, or when he told me he had feelings for me. But, then again, I didn’t think he was lying when he told me he owed money to “a friend from his hometown,” either. And now, if I said in a court of law that everything we had was real, would that be a lie? I answered my own question.
“I would come in, though,” I said, quiet. “If they need me to. I would testify that it was real, too. Or at least, it became real,” I amended.
“That testimony would certainly help,” he said.
“Will you let me know the minute you know the time and date?” I would need to make sure that I could drive back from wherever we were on tour. We were sticking around in Texas for a while.
Luke nodded. The room was so silent, I could hear him breathing.
“What now?” I asked.
“Well, we can’t get a divorce until after the hearing,” Luke pointed out. “Obviously.”
“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t even thought of the divorce. For the minutes he’d been here, it had seemed like old times. Like the days when we were working together.
“I mean, that’s what you want, right?” Luke tilted his head, the line in his forehead back.
What did I want? I wanted to be careful. My feelings were huge and twisted and rushing inside me like rapids, and they were going to tip out if I didn’t tread slowly. I couldn’t let them knock me over.
“I don’t know,” I said, staring at the wooden floor. “What do you want?”
Luke swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Before I could stop myself, I said, “I liked what we had. Or rather, what we had minus the lying and pissing of the pants.” Luke let out a small laugh. I looked at his lips. “And I guess you would have to take out the kissing.”
“So you want to be friends?” Luke asked, slow.
My insides, still floating, dropped an inch. “Yeah, but—”
“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
“I can’t eat cake, period. I have diabetes.”
Luke’s calm broke into a real laugh. I giggled with him.
“And how are you and Toby?” he asked, trying to be casual.
“Uh,” I said, with a quick look at the objects strewn on the floor. “Toby and I are done.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
When I caught his eyes, there might have been a look of hope on his face, a hint of a smile, then he brought it back. He shook his head. “As far as our relationship,” he started, and stopped. He seemed to have to force out the words. “I’m barely stable. The most important thing is that we stay safe and healthy, and I think that means you go on with your life, and I go on with mine.” He smiled for real, and I couldn’t help thinking that this one was wasted. It was a tragic thing, what he just said. “We’ll probably be better off.”
“Probably.” My insides slipped another inch lower.
His gaze locked on mine, those blue eyes rimmed with black. Then they dropped to my lips. “We’ll just have to see,” he said. “Right? After the hearing.”