Luke Henry is cursed to live for (aneternity) wrote in rooms,
Re: Queens: Evie/Wren/Luke
[Luke raised his eyebrows, because he didn't understand why Shane would have offered up his house to Evie if he hadn't liked her. But he didn't know the guy, so he couldn't offer any insight on him.] Did he actually call you that? [As for owing people, he was pretty sure the people she thought she owed didn't actually care about her paying them back. That was what friends did.] When people help out, Evie, they don't usually expect anything in return. I mean, I get it. You want to pay them back. I'm just saying you probably don't have to.
[Which was hypocritical, maybe, but no less true. He listened as she started babbling, and Luke had to bite his tongue to keep from saying, again, that he and Wren would have come if they hadn't been insane. Jack, too. It didn't mean Evie was alone-- it just meant the people she did have hadn't been in the right frame of mind to help.] You can't take anything Max says seriously. And Jack... he means well. [It was a weak explanation, but he tried.] We would've been there if we could. [That was quieter, because he didn't want to make Evie feel guilty; he just wanted to explain. As for the rest of it, that made the guilt in his belly roil. She'd been evicted. She was broke. She had nowhere to stay. And he could hear Wren on the stairs, he knew she was listening too.
It was pretty obvious, what Luke was supposed to do. He was supposed to tell Evie she could stay with them. He looked up when Wren entered the kitchen, ruffling Gus' hair before he ran off upstairs, and he could tell from the way she looked back at him that she was thinking the same thing he was. They should offer. It would be the right thing to do.
But getting through the day was tough enough as it was, with just them. Wren startled easily. Lia was loud. And, too, Luke was sure she still thought the kids were dead more often than not. He reached for a gun that wasn't there and had headaches more often than not. Daisy was even louder than Lia, and--even though she was just a kid--not very well behaved. Them staying here, it would just be stress piled upon stress and none of them needed that.
Luke wasn't selfish when it came to himself. But when it came to Wren, he was very selfish. Ridiculously so. And the kids? They were a close second.]
I didn't know. About Xavier. Or you getting evicted. [He bit his lip and glanced at Wren.] Listen, Evie, let us help you. Please? We can help you find a place to stay. Help with rent, for the first few months. Just until you're back on your feet. And if you really want to pay us back you can, I don't know, babysit for us or something. [He leaned forward.] You'd do it for us, if our positions were reversed. And we want to help. You're not doing us any favors by saying no.