Luke laughs under his breath—because he totally knew that—and places the hanger back on the metal rack behind him.
“Tryin’ to make me look like a tourist?” I accuse in jest and go back to sifting through the shirts on a more fashionable rack. “Might as well find me a muumuu and drape a lei around my neck, too.”
He points and says, “I think the muumuus are on the back wall, but I, uh, wouldn’t go that far.” He almost looks scared.
Shaking my head and trying not to laugh, I quickly find a suitable outfit: a simple white scoop-neck tee, a pair of light pink shorts with two white stripes down the sides, and a pair of white flip-flops—Paige would not be proud. Five-minute shopping, to Paige, is reserved for things like a quick run into the drugstore for a box of tampons.
Luke breaks out his wallet when we step up to the register.
“No, I don’t think so,” I protest sassily and reach inside my purse, but before I can fish my wallet out from underneath my camera, he slaps a credit card down on the counter.
I lean toward him and hiss low under my breath, “Luke, seriously, I can pay for my own stuff.”
“Yeah, so what,” he says in a normal tone, not caring that the cashier can hear us, “and so can I. As your host here on the best vacation you’ll ever take, I’m paying from here on out. I talked you into staying; it’s the least I can do.”
The cashier hesitates, looking between us, and then reluctantly slides his credit card from the counter and goes to run it through the little device attached to the side of her computer screen.
I just look back at him, baffled.
“You won’t win this argument,” he says, “so just save your breath.” He smiles charmingly with teeth, and I don’t know whether to play-pop him on the arm and tell the girl not to use his card, or smile at him in return and let him have his way. But I get the feeling he’ll have his way no matter what, so I don’t argue with him.
The bell on the door jingles again as we make our way back outside into the sunshine. Walking side by side down the length of the sidewalk, I glance over at him and say, “Maybe I’ll just find a bunch of really expensive stuff then. Make you pay for that, if you wanna play that game.”
He grins, looking over at me briefly.
“Like what?” he asks.
I shrug. “I have a professional shopper and fashion guru for a best friend, just so you know”—I nod heavily once, one eyebrow arced in a dramatic fashion—“and she taught me everything I know about shopping and fashion.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” Luke’s grin seems to deepen; I halfway expect something clever to come out of his mouth any second now, but it’s like he’s biding his sweet time.
I cross my arms. “Yeah, she did. I didn’t really have much of a sense of style before Paige got ahold of me. And by the time she was done, I fit right in on Rodeo Drive with the best of ’em.”
He purses his lips. “Wow, that’s really interesting,” he says smartly. “But y’know, I gotta be honest; I think your best friend is probably better at it than you.”
Shocked, I stop on the sidewalk, turning to look right at him, not knowing how to take what he just said, but knowing that it stung.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Luke smiles softly, tilting his head to one side.
“I guess that came out wrong,” he says. “I just mean that you don’t seem wasteful.”
Still unsure, but feeling a little better, I just look at him, waiting for him to go on, and we both begin walking down the sidewalk again very slowly.
“I used to buy stuff like that,” he says, and now I’m even more confused. And intrigued. “For about two years I blew every dime I earned on clothes and cars and you name it”—he looks over—“but now I’m back to being me. And I prefer me.”
Wait … cars, plural?
“Wow,” I speak up. “Do tell.”
Unlike the enigmatic topic of Kendra and his brother, I don’t feel at all hesitant to probe for answers this time—and I hope he doesn’t keep them from me, either.
We make our way back to his car.
“Landon and I used to own a business,” he says, opening my door. “It started out fairly small, like most businesses do, I guess.” He closes my door and picks up where he left off after he hops in on the driver’s side. “Truthfully, we never expected anything to come from it. Made a few bucks here and there online—wasn’t enough to put gas to last two weeks in the car we shared.” He laughs and starts the engine. “But then the sales picked up, the money started rolling in, and next thing I knew, we each had a million in the bank.”
Silence. From me anyway—I can’t seem to figure out what to say, much less get my mouth moving again to say it.
As soon as we leave the makeshift parking space, the sky opens up again as if the sun had never shone.
Finally I manage to say, “You made a million dollars?”
Luke keeps his eyes on the road, driving slowly through the downpour.
“By the time it was all over,” he goes on casually, “we had to split millions three ways—me, Landon, and, of course, Uncle Sam.” He laughs out loud, his voice filling the car with bitterness and irony. “Uncle Sam is a greedy, thieving bastard—everybody knows that—but I didn’t know just how much until I was out of the poorhouse and had to write seven-figure checks to him. But don’t get me started on government and politics or the IRS—they’re my least favorite topics.”