Don’t you dare spill anything on yourself.
Normally I don’t have to give myself a pep talk about the simple act of drinking a soda. But I’m waiting for Luna, and it has not passed my notice that my body malfunctions whenever she’s in a ten-foot radius. Most guys only have to worry about not getting a boner when they’re around a woman they’re crushing on. I, on the other hand, have to worry about every limb in my body possibly betraying me.
I’m Superman, and she’s my walking, talking kryptonite.
I spot her strolling down the street. With each confident step she takes, Luna’s hair sways against her bare shoulders. Her tank top shows off sculpted arms and hugs tight against her torso.
Never before have I been envious of a tank top.
With aviators covering her eyes, I’m unsure if she sees me staring. Either way, I can’t seem to do anything else.
Luna pauses at the hostess’s stand, and I rise to my generous height, waving for her attention.
The way her mouth curves into a welcoming grin does all sorts of inappropriate things to my breathing. Good thing I wasn’t drinking when she hit me with it.
“Hey, Charlie.” Luna strolls up to the table and settles in the seat across from mine.
I’d stayed standing in the wild hope she might go in for a hello hug. No luck there. Careful not to hit the table with my knees, I settle into my chair.
“Hey, yourself. How’s your last day in town going? Got any exciting plans?”
Now in the shade of the restaurant’s awning, Luna removes her sunglasses. I expect to meet a casually smiling gaze.
Instead, I’m staring into a level of intensity I wasn’t ready for.
“Talking to you is the biggest thing on my agenda.”
That’s both thrilling and ominous.
“Is everything okay?”
Luna sits in her chair with perfect posture. Suddenly, I get the sense that this lunch invite I thought might be something like a date is much more serious.
“Nothing dire has happened.” She keeps her eyes locked on mine. “But I have something important to ask you about.”
“Whatever I can do to help.”
She’s the sister-in-law of my best friend, a relatively tenuous connection when looked at in those simple terms. But I have this tug in my chest demanding I do whatever she asks. That I go to any lengths to make her happy.
“How much do you know about Dash and my family?”
The grimace claims my mouth before I can stop it, and Luna gives a quick nod.
“You know some at least.” She doesn’t fidget or avoid my gaze. Luna is not here to mess around.
“I know Dash served time for stealing cars.”
Her jaw hardens, and I wish I’d kept my words to myself. But then she sighs and offers a tight smile.
“That’s part of our uncle’s business. Dash is out of it now though. In case you were worried.”
“No. I know. Paige told me.” My friend isn’t one to hold past sins over a person as long as they show remorse.
Luna sets her folded arms on the table, opening her mouth to keep going, but a server shows up before she can speak. After we both order the gumbo and Luna asks for an iced tea, the staff leaves us alone. I lace my fingers together in my lap to keep from reaching across the table to her.
“My brother Leo never left the business.”
I knew in a vague sense that Dash had another sibling, as well as parents who live in the city. But when none of them came to the wedding, I figured it had to do with his problematic past.
Sucks being right sometimes.
“I’m sorry.”
Luna nods, then stays quiet as the server returns with her drink. After swallowing an aggressive gulp, she pushes on.
“Then there’s my grandma.” Luna spends the rest of the time before our food arrives detailing how she discovered her other living relation in Delaware, and how just as she was getting to know the woman, her grandmother passed away from cancer.
“I didn’t know she was sick.” For the first time, I witness a crack in Luna’s confident, cool demeanor. Just a small quiver of her voice in that statement.
But hell does it hit hard.
Suddenly, this outdoor seating seems too exposed. I want to shelter her so she can grieve in privacy without the sun glaring down on her pain and strangers potentially overhearing her raw words.
But just like that, Luna’s shoulders go back, and the vulnerability disappears.
“My grandmother added Dash and me to her will. Turns out the grocery stores she and my grandfather opened were pretty successful. She left us both an inheritance.”
I nod. “She was trying to take care of you even after she passed. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with that pain.”
Luna blinks at me from across the table, and I replay my words to see if I said something wrong.
“It does hurt,” she admits. “Mainly because of the time lost.” The crack returns, and as if realizing this, Luna glares at her lap. I can imagine she’s giving herself a silent berating for showing weakness.
I wish she was comfortable being vulnerable with me. But I get the sense that few men—few people—have given Luna a reason to trust them.
“Anyway,” she pushes on, “the money. It came with stipulations. One of them was that I won’t inherit unless I get married.”
Good thing the outside chairs are made of sturdy material because I rock back hard at that revelation.
Is Luna getting married?
Under the table, I crack my knuckles.
“There were other things, but I didn’t bother listening to them because that first one was ludicrous. Especially because I need to be hitched by the time I’m thirty. Which is in less than five months. Even if I have the urge to shackle myself to someone, I’m not about to do it that fast.”
Just then the staff arrives with our food, and I mull over Luna’s story as they arrange everything on the table.
A strange concoction brews in my chest. Relief that Luna’s not about to commit to someone for the rest of her life. But also a pervasive melancholy at the dismissive tone she used to talk about a lifelong partnership.
And then there’s sadness. That the one thing left to her by this woman she obviously loved is out of her reach.
“But then I talked to my brother.” Luna’s determined words bring me back to the conversation. One that isn’t over.
“Dash?”
“Leo.”
Ah. The one still in the illegal family business.
Luna swirls her spoon in her bowl, eyes on the brown broth. That’s when I realize I haven’t taken a bite. Making sure the gumbo makes it to my mouth and not my shirt, I briefly take my focus off Luna but keep listening as she continues.
“I know he wants an out. Of the business. Problem is that the work is like quicksand and he’s buried up to his neck.” She abandons her food for more tea. “There’s one thing that’ll get him out. A language they all speak.”
I can guess. “Money?”
Luna nods. “Money. And I know how to get some.”
I wonder if someone walked by and kicked out the legs of my chair because my brain whirls wildly off-kilter.
She can’t be leading up to what I think she is.
With a clatter, I drop my spoon into the bowl. Brown droplets splatter on my crisp, white button-down, but for once I don’t have the headspace to cringe at my clumsiness.
The fierce woman sitting across from me claims every iota of attention. “Why did you ask to talk to me, Luna?”
She sets her own spoon down with more control than I’d managed.
“Because, Charlie Keller. I want to know if you’ll marry me.”