The Fast and The Serious

“I was about to call you to talk over coffee,” I told Luke meekly after his passionate conversation starter. He looked surprised about that. Which I thought was weird. I was deferring on talking to him, yes, but I never thought of just not talking to him altogether. That’d be simply immature.

“Oh. Okay. That’s – That’s good, I hope,” he acceded, visibly relieved. He exhaled deeply and looked the tiniest bit more relaxed.

We walked out of the building quietly and got to my usual coffee shop. We ordered our drinks and sat on a secluded corner. We each sipped tentatively, calculating what to say to each other, I think. He seemed nervous. I knew I looked anxious, too. And the coffee now seemed like a bad idea. Did I really need additional sympathetic nerve stimulation? Nope, not really.

He cleared his throat. “Let me just get this out of my system. You’re not thinking of breaking up with me right now, are you?”

I stared at him quietly for a while, my mind whirring unstoppably. No, I did not even consider breaking up with him at all. That was just crazy. “No, Luke, it hadn’t crossed my mind. Why would you even think that?”

He looked down and rubbed his forehead. “Look, I know Seth screwed things up. I screwed things up by having you meet him so early on. And it was him that has a problem, I realize that now. I just – I wanted you to know how serious I am about you and that’s why I wanted you to meet him. Obviously, the plan backfired on me.” He finished passionately, leaning back on his seat like he was relieved to say what he had to say.

“I don’t wanna get between the two of you, though. I know how much you adore your brother.”

“And he should feel the same way about you and me.” He looked very pissed about Seth.

I had nothing to say in response to that. Luke seemed legitimately mad at his brother. I meant what I just said about not wanting to get between the two of them. But this reaction from Luke would have been welcome last Saturday. And I told him exactly that.

He apologized about how he reacted that night. He said he had already talked to Seth about me before the actual dinner and he was expecting a better welcome than what I received. Obviously, his brother did not follow through, and he just did not know how to react. He had not appreciated the fact that Seth was being rude to me, but he also could not just call him out in front of me because that would only make Seth more unreasonable than he was actually being. (Yup, I thought Seth was an egotistical maniac who was being ridiculously petty at that exact moment, too.) The explanation itself was complicated and Luke had rambled on for several minutes before I got the gist. And miraculously enough, I understood his side of the story. Seth, though, was a different side of the coin.

“Why was Seth even like that to me? And for Christ’s sake, why did he have to be debriefed on how to act in front of your girlfriend? Shouldn’t that be, I don’t know, general knowledge?” I didn’t mean to sound aggressive, but it came out that way. Really, I have yet to learn how to contain my emotions. Thank God, I have the bedside voice nailed perfectly or my future patients will not want to even go near my future clinic.

“I’m sorry. He’s always been like that.” He breathed deeply before he continued, “I’m the kid who screwed up in my family. They still treat me like I need protection from them, especially my brother.” He paused, looking at me thoughtfully as though he was considering if he wanted to tell me more. “Seth thinks anyone that comes in my way is only there because of my advantageous background ever since I almost married a girl who was exactly that a few years back and they lost me.” He stopped and I let the information sink in. He almost got married was what sank in.

“You had a fiancée?” I asked in surprise.

“I had bought a ring to propose, yes,” he replied solemnly. “But that was years ago. Is that seriously all you took from that?” he asked, a ghost of amusement shadowing his features with a small tentative smile.

“I’m sorry. It was what sank in…” I replied wistfully, blankly staring through the glass windows and towards the street. I was trying to imagine him married to some girl. I could not. He was simply way too young. “When did you almost get married?”

“Four years ago. We were twenty-one and in love. Or so I thought. It’s a long story and I don’t really know how to work that into a normal conversation, but suffice it to say that my brother and I fortunately found out early enough how she was merely after the money and connections of the family.”

Turns out Carmen and Olive were both right about Seth’s reasons, then, I thought.

Luke paused to take a sip from his coffee before continuing on. “I was devastated when I found out. I built my life around her at one point in my life. And I threw away everything for about a year and a half after what she did. And then I realized I needed help when everything went really bad with me. I was a lost cause and Seth helped me recover. And now I have all this fragile connotations all around me from my family.”

“They love you,” I told him in a small voice. Seth made sense now. I am an older sister, too. And I understood exactly where Seth was coming from now. I’d probably be doing the same thing. Although less harshly, ideally.

“I know that. But they are overbearing. I have literally regressed to an adolescent in their eyes, and I can’t really blame them. I screwed my life up consciously.” He couldn’t look at me anymore at that point. “I was fine with it at first, thinking I deserved it, but I admit I was relieved when my parents decided to go on a cruise, thinking I could be just normal again. I had never realized Seth would take on all the overbearing for the whole family. And I only recognized that the night you met him.”

I was speechless. All of this history coming from Luke was too much to take in, and I was starting to chicken out from all the drama he has revealed. So this was what I was waiting for for him to divulge. It was seriously so naïve of me to think there was no baggage to this man. Or at least not a baggage that was this big. I had been thinking it was something lighter, something petty like sibling rivalry or whatever. And I was so hugely off the mark.

“You’re the first girl I’ve introduced to Seth ever since that failed one, you know. I know I’ve moved on from that, but clearly my family hasn’t. And it also doesn’t help matters for them that we’re technically moving fast,” Luke continued. He reached across the table for my right hand and squeezed it gently. “But I don’t care about our pace. I know this is right. I want it to be. You’re the right fit for me and I wouldn’t wanna change that. I love you, Samantha.”

I was drinking from my cup when he said it. I almost spit my coffee out of pure shock, but thank God I didn’t or that would have been completely embarrassing. Not to mention offensive.

But come on, the direction of what he was just saying? Who would think it was headed to that? And wouldn’t you think that this was all going too fast? Because I certainly did.