It was then that being dazed by a tough guy, macho man elbow to the forehead wore off and I remembered Luke was angry. I remembered this because he drove like he was angry. He drove like he wanted to take me straight to the gates of hell and he wanted me to get there yesterday.

I was angry too but not angry or stupid enough to go up against the heat of fury rolling off Luke.

“Luke, please slow down,” I said while I chanced a glance at him. I saw his jaw clench but felt the car slow.

I decided that was all I should say, for now. I didn’t want to start the conversation we were inevitably going to have in the Porsche with Angry Luke at the wheel. Instead, I planned my defense for whatever was going to come next

One thing that was sure and certain and the blood proved it, not to mention Luke told me straight how he felt on several occasions, Luke was not the kind of guy who liked to walk into a bar and see his woman in another man’s arms.

How I was going to get out of Luke finding out that I told Ren about how he felt about Jules, I didn’t know but I was going to have to come up with something.

He parked in the garage and wordlessly we went up to the loft. I still wasn’t thinking clearly, it was the first time two guys had fought over me both getting bloody in the process. I again found myself in a situation where I didn’t know what to do and I was beginning to get a little sick of feeling clueless.

Sure, one could say considering I was practically living with Luke, I shouldn’t have relaxed into Ren and let him hold me during one of the sweetest, saddest songs ever written.

But on the other hand, it was one of the sweetest, saddest songs ever written.

It was lame but I was going to use that as my defense.

Then there was the fact Luke had a thing for Jules. It wasn’t nice that Luke was with me when he felt strongly for another woman but I probably shouldn’t have told that to Ren. However, who would have ever thought in a million years Ren would have shared.

However, Ren shared.

I was going to give in on that point and would likely have to apologize (even though that would suck).

But I did have the whole fistfight thing to throw in his face. Being a tough guy, macho man was one thing, getting in fights in bar parking lots was something else. Who did that kind of thing? It was juvenile and took the whole tough guy thing a shade too far.

The doors to the elevator opened, we walked in and Luke flipped on the lights.

I turned to him to say something, I didn’t know what, when he calmly walked to the bed, picked up the lamp on the bedside table, yanked the cord out with one vicious tug and threw it with a savage side arm throw across the room.

I watched it sail then smash against the semi-circular bar, its pieces flying.

All righty then.

One thing I knew, I wasn’t going to bring up my Sweetest, Saddest Song Ever Written Defense.

He turned to me. I took one look at him and saw he was so beyond controlling-fury mode that it wasn’t funny.

“Luke,” I started in order to try to defuse the situation and I was going to do it by shifting the focus and seeing to his cut. Priorities first and blood was pretty much always a priority. “We need to clean that cut.”

“Pack,” he responded.

I blinked. “What?” I asked.

“Pack. Now.”

Then without another word, he shrugged off his jacket, tossed it on the bed, walked by me and into the bathroom. I turned in a half-circle, my eyes and body following him. I watched him turn on the bathroom light, nab a washcloth and then he started to clean his cut.

Something was happening to my throat, I couldn’t quite understand what it was but I was kind of thinking it was panic mingled with fear again, this time significantly magnified.

I went to the bathroom door. “Luke, I…” I started and then stopped because I didn’t know what to say. Further, he didn’t even glance at me.

It was then I realized there really wasn’t anything to say.

Bottom line, now he knew that I knew he was in love with Jules. The jig was up and obviously we were over.

I didn’t understand why he was so angry about it but I’d think about that later, when Dom was gone and Sissy was with me and we had lots and lots of tequila, which always helped women understand how men’s minds worked.

And this, I told myself, was a good thing (not the angry part, the jig being up part). I told myself this but I wasn’t very convincing.

I turned away from the door (by the way, he never looked at me, it was like I ceased to exist which made my throat feel all the funnier) and went to my luggage.

I’d been keeping my things pretty tidy, I just had some stuff in the laundry room, the bathroom and a few things on the nightstand. I went to the laundry room and separated my clothes in the dryer from Luke’s. This activity made my throat stop feeling funny and start feeling tight. I hurried as fast as I could, taking my clothes back to my luggage and shoving it all in without folding it which was hard to do, I didn’t like to iron but this was definitely not the time to be obsessively tidy.

I grabbed my toiletries bag and went into the bathroom. I walked by Luke who, at this point, was putting those little white strips on his cut to hold the edges together and pulled back the shower door to get my shampoo and conditioner.

Just like he’d done to me, I tried to ignore him.

This became hard when I’d nabbed my stuff, shoved it into the bag, turned back around and Luke was standing dead center of the bathroom, feet planted, arms crossed on his chest.

Clearly, Luke was done ignoring me.

“Which one?” he asked.

I shook my head because I wasn’t following.

“Which one did you convince yourself I was thinkin’ of when I was f**kin’ you? Was it Roxie?”

I stared at him, my tight throat getting even tighter because he was guessing. Why on earth was he guessing?

No time to dwell on that without tequila.

Time to move on, fast.

“I’ll, um…” I stopped, deciding to ignore his question and get on with packing so I could get out, get to the store, buy an enormous amount of food that had no healthy living mojo whatsoever, go home and start the painful process of getting over Luke which I assumed would take me approximately one hundred and fifty years therefore, I had to get started, pronto. After making this decision, I started speaking again. “Give someone a call to come and pick me up.”

I leaned to the side, reached to get my toothbrush and his hand shot out, fingers wrapping around my wrist and he yanked on it, bringing me closer to him.

My head tilted back and I looked at him. I was beginning to lose it, beginning to let all those things I wasn’t thinking of, all those things I’d buried, seep into my head and they were overpowering.