Who: Luke and Wren What: Meeting in the casino. (2/2) Where: Caesar's Palace. When: Continuation of this. Warnings/Rating: Epi and I laugh in the face of character limits.
She knew why he broke the kiss, knew that secrets lurked beneath his clothing, secrets she didn’t think anybody knew about anymore. It wasn’t like before, when the masks had a network and all their friends knew about what they did. She suspected even the people who had known about his nighttime activities weren’t in the know any longer. MK came to mind, but she pushed the thought away, her hands never wavering, dipping down to his navel and a little beneath when he began kissing her again. She was unaware of his thoughts of control, of not here, because she’d become incapable of all those thoughts minutes ago, the moment his lips met hers. The hand on her thigh made her gasp, too drunk to control the reaction to the rough tips of his fingers against soft skin. She honestly didn’t expect any more of him than this, than a kiss that would drive her mad with wanting more. She though that in his anger he would rein this in, not let her see his reaction, not let her give or receive any more than this. He was right; the boundary was safe. Kisses were only kisses, but going beyond that was opening up in a way she normally didn’t do, not in years, and not before him, when they were both very young. She wasn’t sure about who he’d been with in the intervening years. She did know men, however, and she’d left a boy behind and found a man in his place when he reappeared. She wondered, with spiking jealousy, who had wrought that change in him. When his hands stilled, she tipped her head and let her lips trail against his cheek as she stopped to look at his face, not understanding that the ring had been noted, noticed. It was his admission, his request, though, that made her tremble, made the butterflies that had been so long gone from her belly flap their wings madly. No, the boy he had been would never have requested such a thing, and she moaned against the corner of his mouth, not caring who heard or how blatant she was being in such a public, crowded place. There was nothing in the world but him, nothing of the pale ice queen in her, and she kissed over to his mouth, a sharp nip to his bottom lip and her tongue between his. But the kiss-bite didn’t last long. She mouthed down his chin, beneath it, along his throat, over to his collarbone, her fingers pulling at the collar of his shirt. It was a frenetic, uncontrolled display of desire, and there was nothing of holding back in it. Her thigh lifted to brush along the outside of his leg, higher to his hip, and she rocked against him with a slow insistence, all hips and grind as she sucked and kissed at his shoulder, fingers tugging more insistently against the fabric of his shirt at the neck. If they weren’t drawing attention before, they certainly were now. She didn’t care; she only wanted him to understand.
None of this was planned, and while Luke would have never intended to give this much, revealing more through actions alone than he ever could with words, but he was already too far gone to think of reining himself in now. The most he could do was to keep himself on the safe side of what could be a very dangerous line to cross, but even so that had more to do with the very public setting than it did his own self-restraint. He’d learned things over the years, found people in dark corners and shadows that were as broken as he was, but with her it would always be more than just physical contact, and he couldn’t detach himself from this. He looked down at her, eyes darkening at the feel of her teeth and tongue against his lips, and he tilted his head back in an entirely unthinking, impulsive motion as she mouthed her way down to his collarbone. This was exactly what he wanted; he knew how much he’d missed her, but he didn’t know how much she had missed him, and this was better than any explanation she could have given. His hand, the one on her thigh, took firm hold and kept her against him as she moved, the rhythm of slow hips and the subsequent friction between them like something out of one of his better memories of days long since passed. “Like that,” he encouraged, voice low and rough, almost intimate in the public setting. People stared, while some muttered amongst themselves as they passed, but he fixed all of them with a dark, unflinching stare that had most looking away hastily as they busied themselves elsewhere. None of them mattered. His other hand remained pressed against the small of her back for support, fingers tracing through the fabric of her dress. He had to fight to refrain from seizing control and showing her just how much he’d missed her in return, but he managed, at least for right then.
She was too drunk to grasp any revelations on his part, to understand just how much he was giving, just as she was too drunk to notice the onlookers or the unflinching stare he graced them with. The only thing she did register was his voice, the low encouragement, the rough tone, the hand on her thigh and the one at her back. The tilt of his head, the offering and baring, that became the only thing in the world just then, along with the desperation of five long years of not finding this with anyone else. The encouragement was all she needed, and she tugged more insistently at the collar of his shirt, baring his shoulder and any accompanying bruises to her mouth, warm and hot against his skin, the barest scrape of teeth, which she was unable to control. She was drunk enough that the rocking, grinding, shifting against him made her balance hard to maintain, and she trustingly let the hand at her back keep her upright. Her fingers were wound tight in the fabric of his now-wrinkled shirt, and when she pulled back and looked at him, her lips were swollen and her pupils were wide circles of want in eyes gone impossibly dark. She looked at him, looked and looked, expression heated and raw, unguarded, and she didn’t look away like she might have as a girl. She stretched against him once more, kissed him once again, and then she just pressed her forehead to his chin and tried to slow the beating of her heart. Her fingers loosened in the shirt, slackened, and they slid down along his torso to slip beneath the hem again, to rest against his skin, and she sighed shakily. “That much,” she said, a verbal answer to his earlier question, to show him how much she had missed him.
He rolled his shoulders back in an effort to accommodate her as she tugged at his shirt collar, wanting the fabric out of the way and his skin bared nearly as much as she did. Most of his bruises were lower, but his shoulder bore faded purple marks and small raised scars that were likely caused by blades rather than bullets, telling a story without words, and for a moment his restraint slipped and he couldn’t hold back a groan at the way her mouth felt on his skin. His fingers curled and pressed into her skin through her dress, and it would have taken a great deal to break his hold and allow her to lose her balance. He’d been numb for so long, and even when he allowed himself to feel it was nothing like this, all anger and hate and hopelessness when he realized the path he was on, the things he did; no one had looked at him the way she did just then in years either. His own expression was far more open than he ever permitted these days, and he struggled without success to recover his usual blank mask of indifference. He found himself unable to look away, and when she kissed him he responded on instinct, no thought required, and when she pulled back he took the opportunity to work on regaining some of his lost control. His breaths were labored, and his heart was beating out a frantic rhythm he did his best to calm as they stood together, her forehead pressed against his chin. He was quiet for a long stretch of time, allowing his heartbeat to slow and his breathing to regulate. “I missed you more,” he said, finally breaking his silence, and there was the slightest hint of a smile in his tone.
That groan rang in her ears long after he made the sound, making her want to ask him to show her how much he’d missed her. An echo, one she very much wanted to utter, but it was the belated realization of what marks on his shoulders had come from that made her stay quiet as her heartbeat spiked for another reason entirely. She knew blades, knew how close someone had to get to use them, knew the damage they could do. He’d never been the kind to let anyone get that close in a fight and, not for the first time since she’d seen him again, she wondered what had happened to make him come to this. His expression, when she pulled back to look at him, was so much more real than she’d seen since that night in the hotel, and it stole her breath in a way she thought might never stop. Her hands lifted to his cheeks, her fingers traced his jaw, reverently slow and without looking away, The small smile in his voice pulled her back, though, at least for the moment. The alcohol numbed the fear that had been spiking seconds earlier, nightmares about blades and memories about injuries, and she smiled a little bit in return at the words he said, at all the memories they evoked. She considered, again, asking him to show her, but it was the smile, the show of feeling on his face that made her act in a different way entirely. She slipped up onto the tips of her toes, and she pressed against him, intentionally letting him bear every bit of her slight weight. Her arms came around his neck, and her body went flush against his, but it wasn’t sexual; she wrapped him in a hug that didn’t allow even a hint of room between them for additional breath, arms wound tight around him, body warm against him. She kissed the crook of his neck, and then she pressed her cheek where she’d been kissing earlier, where those scars lived, and she clung to him. “That would be really, really hard for you to prove,” she finally said to his comment about missing her more, small smile and more than a hint of emotion in her slurred voice.
The scars had become such a part of who he was that Luke often forgot about them, and it failed to register that her reaction might be different; that while they weren’t a big deal to him, they would be to her. He didn’t think about them at all, in fact, and when her fingers traced over his jaw there was nothing else he particularly cared about beyond her. It no longer mattered that he’d vowed to keep his distance, or that she still hadn’t told him the truth he so desperately sought. There wasn’t even the slightest chance he could reject her now, no matter how angry he’d once been, but even now, with her body warm and solid against his, he wasn’t completely secure. Part of him still doubted, and despite having taught himself how to eradicate fear long ago he was afraid of being hurt all over again. This was a risk, even if there were boundaries. It was what made him hesitate ever so briefly when her arms slid around his neck and she clung to him, allowing no space between them, before returning the embrace. Roger had warned him, but maybe Roger was wrong. “It might be hard,” he conceded, “but not impossible. I could prove it.” He ran the fingers of one hand lightly down her back and up again. “Not here, but I could.”
She noticed the hesitation and, in truth, she wouldn’t have been surprised if his response was to push her away. Even drunk, she knew he didn’t trust her, that she’d hurt him too much for that. So when he returned the embrace instead, she sighed against his neck, pressing her lips against the warm skin there as a tactile thank you for not shoving her away from him. His fingers on her back made her shiver, a reaction which she couldn’t hide even if she wanted to, and she rubbed her lips against his throat as he spoke. His words made her smile slightly, and she drew back just enough to look up at his face. “You’re so beautiful,” she told him without thinking, just looking up at him and staying silent for a moment longer before continuing. “How would you show me?” she asked, and even through the heavy-lidded gaze and inebriation it was an intentional question. He’d never been comfortable talking about things like that, not like she had, and she wondered if the man was any better at it than the boy. “There’s so much of you I don’t know,” she added, the booze giving way to a lethargic kind of laziness that made her freer with her words.
He closed his eyes when she pressed her lips to his neck, only for a moment, so quickly that it could have been a simple blink rather than an actual reaction. It was fortunate that she couldn’t hear his thoughts, which were a mess of doubts and questioning whether he was doing the right thing, fear of being left again and of the sort of pain he’d never quite desensitized himself to; beneath that maelstrom there were warmer thoughts, of feelings that lingered and things he’d wanted for years but only had memories of. The way she shivered under his touch made him want more, but now he had a little more restraint, and he looked down at her instead. She’d called him beautiful before, he remembered, and somehow it was too familiar, as irrational as that was, and he just managed to keep himself from flinching. Fortunately her next question was an adequate distraction. Luke was capable of an array of things he hadn’t been before, but actions were different than words; he still wasn’t so good at the latter, especially when it came to this. “I can’t tell you how,” he said after a moment’s thought. “That would ruin it.” Never mind that ‘it’ was something that, should it happen, there would undoubtedly be no turning back from. In a public place he could hold himself back because he had to, but elsewhere... he wasn’t sure. “It’s been five years, Wren. There’s so much of both of us that we don’t know.” To lessen the potential sting of his words, he ducked his head to kiss her again, this time slow and intentionally savouring with just a hint of demand beneath.
The alcohol saved her from the realization of that almost-flinch, and all she felt were his arms around her, the feeling of being safe that had been missing for five long years. When he spoke, refused, she almost smiled. It was so like him, so much like the boy he’d been not to want to put feelings into words like that. The difference was that the boy he’d been wouldn’t have been so ready to offer to show her either. He had been too shy for first moves, and she had a distinct feeling that this, older version of him wouldn’t be. It sent that thrill along her spine again, but it was tempered by his words, the reminder of time and all the secrets between them. She kissed him back with a different kind of desperation, the sting left behind by his statement making her whimper and tug at his shirt in a way that made it clear she was as scared of jumping into this as he was. She clung too tight, her fear of rejection coming across in the tug of fingers against rumpled cotton, and she didn’t ask what he wanted from her, what he wanted this to be. She’d meant it when she’d said she would take anything he could give her, and seeing him, touching him, kissing him, it hadn’t changed any of that. “I know,” was her eventual response to his statement, lips still against his.
She tipped her head back and looked at him, and it was the desire not to lie about anything she didn’t absolutely have to that made her speak, words a little more slurred and thick, harder to understand, making it clear just how much she’d had to drink before coming to see him. “Two things,” she began. “The fence came back, and I paid him off threefold, and he’s promised to hold anything she steals in the future, so that I can buy it back at double the value. I have to check him out, though, and I’m not trusting my regular informant very much lately.” Which led into the second item, which she went into without pause. “I had him find out where you lived, that’s how I sent the necklace, but I think he might have found things about us in Seattle and New York. He won’t tell me.”
There was a time when the way she tugged at his shirt would have made him want to soothe her fears, to offer reassurance, but now he had very little of his own to give. She might have been afraid of rejection, but so was he, and the fact that he didn’t know what this was or where they stood only made him worry more. It was like starting all over, but everything was different now, and despite the similarities it had been five long years since they’d seen one another. He didn’t trust her as he had back then, as much as he wished he could, and he was wary in a way he never had been with her before. His fingers bunched in the fabric at her hips, nervousness translating into an inability to remain still. “I don’t know what this is,” he admitted, barely a whisper against her lips, as though he was afraid of saying it too loudly. He didn’t know what this meant, or what came next; no lines had been drawn, no rules set into place, and he was torn between leaving it alone and pushing to satisfy his own insecurity. It was such a far cry from what he tried to be most of the time, strong and unflinching as though nothing could ever touch him.
He frowned down at her when she began to speak, puzzled, but understanding dawned a moment later when he made sense of her slurred words. The idea of her being involved with a fence in any capacity didn’t sit right with him, but she gave him no opening to interject and he was too distracted by her second point to backtrack. It didn’t click right away, but after a few seconds he realized that the him was her informant. He felt as though he’d been unexpectedly doused in ice-cold water. “What?” Luke stepped back, hands falling back to his sides. “You had someone investigate me? Obviously he wasn’t just looking for my home address, if you think he found out things about us in Seattle. That was a while ago.” Maybe it was hypocritical to be angry, since he was just as interested in her past, but the difference was that he had no informant. Roger refused to tell him anything, while he’d given up hope that Wren would ever come clean, yet she paid some man to look into his background and find out things she had no right knowing. “I have as much right to my privacy as you do,” he told her sharply. “What makes you think he found out things from back then?” Surely this informant couldn’t have found out anything about him afterward. He’d covered his tracks well, after all; still, he didn’t like the thought of a stranger knowing his past.
She wasn’t expecting reassurance, as much as she would have liked to hear it. Even drunk, she knew it was unlikely. Sober, she would have known it was more than unlikely. His fingers, bunching at the fabric at her hips like they were, kept her grounded in the moment. It was a real, tangible thing that nervous energy from him, and the fact that he was still touching her, that he hadn’t shoved her aside or pushed her away from him made her hope. As a result, she pressed closer, seeking more of that safety she hadn’t had in years. His admission tore at her, but she just looked up at him, a painful amount of trust and hope in her watery eyes. “I know. I know you don’t trust me.” It hurt to say it, and the words came out quiet and bare, just before he frowned and stepped back.
She was left surprised, even though she shouldn’t have been. If she’d been sober, she would have anticipated the retreat, but she wasn’t sober, and she clung a little too long after he moved back (or she tried to). She swayed unevenly when his hands fell to his side, since she’d been letting him support her almost entirely, and she reached out and held onto a passerby’s shoulder before throwing the stranger an apologetic look. She leaned back against the closest penny slot instead, and she tried to focus on what Luke was saying. “I asked him not to look beyond Las Vegas, but he did. I don’t know what he found. I know he found things about me too, but he won’t tell me what.” That worried her, and it came across in her voice. She had no idea what Silver knew about her - her arrests, the baby, the blackmail. She had no idea, and for a second there was something like stark fear in her eyes, even through the alcohol. “I don’t think it’s anything too terrible,” she said, at least not about him, because she couldn’t imagine a world in which there was anything terrible to find out about Luke. Maybe Silver had realized Luke was a vigilante in Seattle, but Luke hadn’t committed any significant crimes there. Still, she thought he should know. “I just wanted to know where you were staying. I told Roger.” The last was said as a last-ditch effort, as if Roger okaying it made it better somehow; he trusted Roger. “I just don’t want any new secrets,” she added, reaching a hand out for him as she said it, a plea not to pull away again.
There was nothing he could do about the lack of trust between them, at least not on his end. Once lost, trust wasn’t easily regained, though if it was he gladly would have done whatever necessary in order to fix all the things time had deteriorated. He knew it hurt her to admit the truth of how things were, and it hurt him just as much to see the way she looked at him, but he couldn’t lie to her just to give her what she wanted to hear. All he could do was tell her that he wanted to trust her again, that maybe he might be able to one day, but he never got that far. His attention span was ruled by his emotions, which were fickle and fluctuated wildly at times, and now he couldn’t focus on anything but the fact that she’d hired someone to violate his privacy-- one of the few things he had left that was actually his.
He was still struggling to come to terms with her past secrets, and this new revelation, despite being the truth, was yet another blow to a wound that hadn’t healed. It hurt to push her away, but he stood firm this time, winding his fingers back in the loops of his belt to keep himself from reaching for her when she swayed and was forced to catch herself on the shoulder of a stranger. “You gave him free rein and actually trusted him not to dig deeper? Money can’t buy everything, Wren.” It was incredulous, and maybe a little bitter considering the added jab; Luke had difficulty trusting people he knew these days, never mind strangers and mere acquaintances. Her own past was her business, but she had no right to ask someone else to look into his without his consent. He saw the fear in her eyes, and he wondered if she was afraid that this man had discovered the secret she’d fought so hard to fight; the possibility that someone else might know, yet another person aside from himself, felt like another knife striking low to add to the rest. “You don’t think it’s too terrible, but you don’t know. I’m not blind. You’re afraid of what he might have found out. Don’t you think maybe there are things I don’t want anyone knowing either?” His frustration grew with each word, and his jaw clenched as he forced himself to breathe evenly in an effort to keep his temper under control. Unfortunately, the mention of Roger failed to make things better; it only reminded him that there were things Roger knew that he didn’t. “Roger,” he repeated, his voice shaking slightly. “You told Roger. Do you two always talk about me behind my back? I’m sure you’ve discussed your little secret, the one neither of you will tell me. Why not tell him you’re planning on hiring someone to find out where I live? It’s not like asking me makes any sense.”
There was more hurt in his voice than there was anger, and he looked at her outstretched hand as though he couldn’t decide which choice he wanted to make. “But what about the old secrets, Wren?” He took her hand in his after a few long moments of hesitation, but his grip was nothing gentle. It was firm and hard, just short of being painful, and he tugged her forward sharply. “I need to know something,” he said, all demand and no request. “Is this how it’s going to be, where you do things behind my back and tell me about it afterward? Is that your definition of not keeping secrets?”
Blame the alcohol, but she hadn’t expected that much anger. She was too drunk to articulate what she was thinking as he spoke, that she’d been worried, that she’d just wanted to know he was okay, and maybe that was a good thing. It wasn’t pity that had driven her, and the commented about money left her wondering if he would have taken her motives there if she had managed to tell him her reasons in a clear manner. “I thought I could trust him. He’s someone I’ve known for awhile, and I didn’t think-” She stopped herself, because he was talking about Roger then, and she managed to find her footing slightly. She shook her head with enough force that her blonde hair fanned across her cheek, and she did it a few times before she found the words she was looking for. “No. This was right after the hotel. I just saw Roger that day. I’ve talked to him once since seeing you in the car, and that was because he got in touch with me about you, not because I sought him out. I never told him anything about you before that. I didn’t even know he knew you until that day, and I didn’t tell him any secret. He figured that from what you said. I would have never told him.” Her words tripped all over themselves, and they lacked any persuasive articulateness in her current state. She was just trying to stay ahead of his accusations, to keep him from leaving in anger. In her mind, Selina hated all of it, which Wren was blissfully unaware of; it would have worried her - Selina was prone to revenge. “I only wanted to know where you were staying,” she repeated, as if understanding that one thing would make everything okay.
She didn’t expect him to take her hand. She expected him to shove it aside. She was prepared for that; she wasn’t prepared for the question, and she wasn’t prepared for the sharp tug and the firm, hard grip. She stumbled, the drink shattering her reflexes, and she had to catch herself with a hand against his chest to keep from completely falling to the ground. As it was, she stumbled, and it earned a gasp from a passerby, one she didn’t even notice. Once she was stable again, fingers holding onto his shirt tightly enough to pull it taut and low at his throat, she looked back up at his face. It was telling, that there wasn’t any fear in her features, especially when fear was the first thing that generally came crashing back when she was in close proximity to anyone’s temper. She glanced at the skin of his shoulder, the blade scars there, and then back at his face. “We both have old secrets,” she said, because he’d lied about his nights, hadn’t he? “I wanted to know where you were. I won’t talk to Roger about you again, and I won’t have anyone look into what you’re doing.” There were warning bells, of course, at the fact that he was so concerned about that, but they were dampened by whiskey and this, the anger on his face and the unforgiving tightness of his hand on her wrist. Maybe she should have left it there, with promises not to do the things that had set off his sharp spike of ire, but that would have been the little girl from long ago, the one that was scared of shadows. Even drunk, she knew to fight now. It had come too late, maybe, but it had come.
She took her free hand, and she used it for leverage against his shoulder. She tugged herself up just enough to bring her lips near his ear, her body pressed against the angry threat he presented, her hand continuing up to wind with a sharp tightness in his hair. “I messed up,” she said roughly, articulating a careful rasp against his ear, breath hot. “I messed up, and I’m not perfect. I never have been, Luke.” She paused carefully. “Is this how it’s going to be? You punishing me for mistakes I can’t fix anymore?” Because telling him wouldn’t fix anything, and even he had to know that.
Had he been capable of backtracking, Luke would have pushed for more information on her mysterious informant, but he was more focused on Roger and the sudden irrational suspicion that his brother and Wren often discussed him amongst themselves. He hated being left out of the loop, something that extended back to his teenage years, and it made him quick to assume. “You still talked to him about me,” he accused, either not realizing or not caring how petty he sounded. “Once you found out he was my brother, and he found out you and I had history. You can’t tell me otherwise, because I know you’d be lying. I just-- I don’t like it, okay? I’ll tell him the same thing.” Maybe he had no right to be angry, considering he’d done his best to pry information from Roger about Wren, but it wasn’t a stretch to say that his reasoning was warped and not exactly rational. “You never would have told him, but he still knows. I don’t expect you to understand why that matters.” Her desperate attempts at responding to his accusations did little to reassure him, but even to his ears that last remark sounded harsh. “You could have asked,” he repeated, just as firmly. Whether he would have told her or not, well, that was questionable.
He felt a stab of guilt when she stumbled against him, and the gasp indicated that they still had their spectators, which wasn’t a good thing, since he couldn’t afford to make a scene in his place of employment. Despite his anger and firm grip, he would have preferred death over hurting her, and since he assumed she knew that he hadn’t been expecting to see any fear in her expression. The way she pulled at his shirt was uncomfortable, not painful, and he bristled at what she said rather than the sensation of fabric digging into the back of his neck. What he did at night had nothing to do with her, not when she hadn’t even been with him during that time, and he would always stubbornly stick to that. “Good,” he said with added emphasis, because it was a start, even if he wasn’t quite sure he believed that she’d leave his past alone. As for Roger, he’d be pissed that they hadn’t managed to stay away from each other, so there might not be much more talking on that front after this. He’d expected that to be the end of it, which meant he wasn’t expecting her body to press against his, or for her hand to wind tightly in his hair. He sucked in a sharp breath, but the sound of her voice in his ear kept him effectively silenced as she spoke.
This was nothing of the girl he remembered, which thrilled him in some strange, foreign way; and as much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. Forgiveness didn’t have to come right away, but he couldn’t keep throwing what she’d done in her face and expect her to take it for much longer. He had to ask himself if he was always going to be trapped in a cycle of self-destructive anger, driving everyone away until he ended up dying alone one day. Ever so slowly, his grip on her wrist loosened until he let it go and drew his hand back to his side. “No,” he sighed heavily, because even he could see how it couldn’t work otherwise, and no amount of anger would change what had been done.
Even when he let go of her wrist and drew back his hand, she didn’t move away, didn’t unwind her fingers from his hair, didn’t give him room or space or air. “I wouldn’t have told him anything if he didn’t surprise me, if I’d known you were related. I haven’t told anyone else anything about us,” she assured him, because it was true. “Even MK, even when she and I were drunk. I wouldn’t,” she said, and it was honest. “I don’t have a lot of us left,” she whispered into his ear, her voice husky and earnest. “I don’t like to share what little I do have.” It was, possibly, not the best reason for not talking about him with others, but it was the truth. She had grown possessive of memories in the intervening years, of what they’d had, and she didn’t like to talk about it. She kept it - him - locked away where it was safe. “It’s not for other people.” She said, drawing back. “They wouldn’t understand how I feel when I look at you.” She tugged at the chain around her neck unthinkingly, the one that disappeared into her dress, a small ring at its end.
She looked into his eyes then, still close, fingers still wound tight, as if she intended to keep a hold on him in that way forever. Her gray gaze scanned his features, and it was a quiet perusal, body warm against his and stare unflinching. She didn’t look away, and she memorized, and she finally kissed him softly, just on the corner of his mouth. It was a lingering press of lips, gentle, sorry, almost strangely apologetic, and she rocked back to her heels and put space between them once she was done. “Dinner,” she suggested. “Next week. When I’m sober.” It was a bold request, a child’s demand that was blurted out and proceeded by a blush he probably remembered. She smiled just a little after, just a hint of the teasing girl she had been before mistakes had gotten in the way of happy endings. “Will you have dinner with me next week?” She amended, a question instead of the jerky words from a second earlier. She knew it was dangerous. She knew talking to him would bring confessions and, eventually, confessions would become the truth. It scared her, but not enough to walk away without his agreement to see her again. “We don’t have to tell anyone,” she assured him. “We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”
As a rule, Luke rarely discussed his past. He didn’t like talking about the people he’d known and lost, or the any of the things he’d once had, for that matter, and his gaze was searching as looked down at her in an attempt to determine the truth of what she was saying. He and MK hadn’t discussed her either, and he’d noticed the other woman was careful not to bring Wren up by name. Maybe, in this, he could believe her. “Okay,” he said after a long moment, deciding to trust what she said. “I haven’t told anyone either. Roger didn’t even know, not until now. I don’t... talk to people about my past,” he admitted. It had been almost five years since he’d even mentioned Thomas in any regard, never mind by name. He shuddered when she whispered in his ear, one of the rare reactions he didn’t manage to hold back, even though he attempted to compose himself a moment later. He cleared his throat when she drew back and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, a familiar tell from the boy he’d been years ago. “No,” he agreed. “They wouldn’t.” MK might, maybe, but not Roger, not after he’d warned him about keeping his distance. He wouldn’t understand. His gaze fell when she tugged at the chain, and he was almost afraid to believe that she’d kept it after all this time, which was why he didn’t ask, didn’t request to see it for himself.
His anger, as quickly as it had come, ebbed away bit by bit as she looked at him, and by the time she kissed the corner of his mouth if had become a dull ache, a faded constant, one he was accustomed to. He took the kiss for what it was, and allowed her to move back when she was finished. “Dinner?” It seemed so mundane, so normal, that for a moment he was genuinely surprised. He waited until she’d repeated the question before nodding, hoping she didn’t change her mind once she was sober. “Okay,” he agreed. “Next week. Maybe... maybe we shouldn’t tell anyone right now. Not yet.” Not until they figured out what this was, at least, which might be easier when she was sober.
She took that shudder for her own, locked it away for herself, and she couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s gesture in the man. That tell, the rubbing at the back of his neck, it was something so familiar that it made her heart ache, and her eyes watered for a moment before she managed to blink the emotion away. She noticed his gaze when it fell, but she didn’t associate it with the chain she still wore around her neck. It had become second nature now, having it on, even when it was hidden safely beneath clothing. It was the only thing she’d had of his - well, the only thing she hadn’t given away without realizing it at the time - and she was never without it. But she didn’t think he would recognize it, and so she didn’t think he was looking at it. She took the duck of his head to be just another gesture from the past, and she kissed his jaw and smiled at the surprise on his face at the suggestion of dinner. “Friday.” She tugged on his fingers a moment, bit her lip like she’d always done when they were young and life hadn’t ruined them yet, and then she nodded and stepped back with an uneven stumble. She caught herself on a nearby pillar, and she leaned against it for a moment and just looked at him. It was bright, the lights of the casino illuminating his features perfectly, and she stood there for a full minute without looking away. Finally, she nodded toward the crowded casino floor. “You go. I don’t want to look away first,” she said, a hint of the whimsical girl she had once been in the request.
“Friday,” he agreed, with no hesitation whatsoever. The time to refuse had passed. Maybe it was yet another terrible idea stemming from this one, but he was going to meet her for dinner, and whatever happened afterward would happen. He told himself he had nothing more to lose, because if he refused, then things would be as they were before, and if things fell apart again, then he would be in the exact same position anyway. He ignored the fact that he could cause himself extra pain by choosing this path and going forward instead of following Roger’s advice and cutting contact. It was almost impulse to step forward when she stepped back, but he kept himself in place, and met her gaze as she stared at him for an indeterminate amount of time (a minute, but he didn’t keep count). “If you say so. You’d better not look away until I’m gone.” A beat passed before he smiled, and while it was clear he didn’t smile very often anymore, he hadn’t completely forgotten how. “See you Friday,” he said, before turning and walking out of the casino, intentionally not looking back once. In his head, Bruce ended his longer-than-usual silence to inform him that this was a mistake, what he was doing, and that he should have heeded his brother’s advice. Luke ignored him, but secretly he prayed the man would be proven wrong in the coming days.