"Look," Luke says. "I'll find somewhere else tonight. You two need to actually talk. It seems important."
"He's not ruining our night, Luke."
"Hey." Luke puts his hand on my arm briefly. "I can see how much this matters. Just listen to him, okay?” He looks at Austin again and Austin looks back. Something passes between them that I'm not part of. I watch Luke make a decision.
"She deserves to be looked at like that," Luke says to Austin. Quietly. Not aggressive. Just straight.
Austin goes very still. It's a specific kind of stillness, like he's been handed something he didn't expect and he's working out how to hold it. I don't think anyone has said that to him before. I don't think it's something he's let himself hear.
"Like what?" I ask.
Neither of them answers me. Austin is looking at Luke and Luke is looking back. There's a whole conversation happening that I'm completely excluded from. It's irritating and also, quietly, something else entirely.
"Alright," Austin says. He says it like he means it. Like he's making an actual agreement with a person he's decided to respect.
"Good." Luke squeezes my shoulder. "I like him," he says, to me, quietly.
I turn on Austin. "What did he mean by that?"
"Sleep on the couch," Austin calls after Luke who is walking towards my place, who then raises a hand without turning around.
"He can sleep wherever he wants, Austin, it is genuinely none of your..."
"Is he your boyfriend?"
"No," I say. "He's my best friend and you have absolutely no right to..."
"Then he sleeps on the couch."
"Since when did you turn into a caveman?"
"Apparently tonight." He drags a hand over his jaw. "I don't have women, Sav. Not any I talk to. Not anyone."
Something in that lands differently than I expect it to, and I need a second before I can keep going. I take a breath. "Okay. Here's what happens. Luke sleeps on the couch. You come over at ten tomorrow morning, and you say what you need to say. When I ask you to leave, you leave. And when I start dating again, you stay out of it. Understood?"
"You won't be dating anyone else," he says. "Because you'll be with me."
"That’s extraordinarily presumptuous."
"Maybe." He doesn't look sorry about it. "I'll see you at ten."
He turns and walks back to his bike, and I watch him even though I tell myself not to. He gets on and starts it. The rumble carries up the street and runs through me the way it always has. I used to sit on the back of that bike, hold onto him and feel like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
"Wow," Luke says from behind me. I turn to find him leaning against the wall with his arms folded and the expression of a man who has learned something useful. "That was intense."
"Don't start."
"I'm not starting anything. I'm just saying." He falls into step beside me as we head home. "Good god, woman. How are you resisting that?"
"He cheated on me. He made sure I'd find him."
"There's more to it." Luke says it simply. "I could tell from watching him. He's desperate to explain, not desperate to win an argument. There's a difference."
We get back to my place, I make coffee and we sit on the couch. I feel the emotion of the evening sitting in my chest like something I haven't decided what to do with yet.
"I'm sorry he ruined the night out."
"He didn't ruin anything. That was the best Friday night I've had in months and I saw a man nearly combust with jealousy over you, which is honestly the most romantic thing I've ever seen in person."