LUKE: Complete Series Read Online Free PDF Page A

it’s perfectly fine to drink. See.”
    She poured out the milk and it plopped into the drain, slithering down in sluggish chunks.
    “Where’s all the food? What happened to the check I sent you three weeks ago?”
    My mother shook out the rest of the milk without looking at me. “It ran out. Your father had a colonoscopy and some blood work done. The co-payments and deductibles are getting out of hand.”
    “Why didn’t you call me?” I snatched the empty carton of milk out of her hand, annoyed with my mother though I knew it wasn’t her fault. It was my father and his stupid pride.
    I tossed the carton into the trash bin and leaned against the kitchen counter, being careful not to look at the refrigerator where my mother still displayed a baby picture of Ryan in a magnetized frame. Instead, I glared through the window to the backyard where my father was mowing the lawn.
    “Brina, I have to tell you something.”
    “Look at you. You’ve lost weight. You can’t keep living like this. To hell with his fucking pride.”
    “Watch your mouth.”
    I pushed off the counter, set to storm out of the house I’d grown up in; the house that was now so haunted with memories I only visited once a month to deliver a check. He was everywhere. I couldn’t hang my coat in the closet without smelling his leather boots. I couldn’t sit on the sofa without seeing the cigarette burn where he passed out drunk on his first night back from Afghanistan. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without remembering the time my cousin dared him to drink a glass of toilet water. And he did it for no reward other than the gut-clenching laughter that ensued.
    I shivered at the thought of this memory then pulled my checkbook out of my purse and began writing a check for a thousand dollars. Though I had yet to get my first paycheck from Maxwell Computers, if the salary Luke promised was real, I would make this thousand back soon. In the meantime, I’d take lunch to work and eat breakfast in the company cafeteria.
    “You can’t afford that,” my mother said, as I held the check out to her.
    The back door swung open and my father entered the kitchen. My father liked to call himself Bruce Springsteen’s redheaded brother from another mother. Though reddish-gray would be a more accurate description of his hair color these days. When I was young, I was glad I had inherited my mother’s brown hair, but nowadays I often considered dyeing my hair red. Maybe a big outer change would jolt me into some kind of inner change; a cosmic realization that my life had veered horribly off course since Ryan’s death.
    “Hey, pumpkin. What brings you here?”
    “Just a quick visit. I’m on my way to a meeting and I figured I’d stop by to say hello since I was in the neighborhood.”
    My father glanced at the check I was about to hand to my mother and his smile disappeared. “Put that away. We don’t need it.”
    “Mom told me about the doctor’s visits. This is nothing, really. I have a big bonus check coming in a few days.”
    He gave my mother “the look” as he made his way to the sink to wash his hands, but it wasn’t just anger in his eyes; he was trying to communicate something to her. She looked away, as if “the look” didn’t have the power to penetrate the thickest of skulls. My father never hit us. He didn’t have to. He had “the look.”
    “I have to get going,” I said to my mother, as I dropped the check on the table and rushed out of the kitchen.
    The pictures of Ryan on the mantel were a blur at the edge of my vision as I raced outside. By the time I sat in Luke’s car, I was shaking.
    “Drive,” I demanded. “Please, just go.”
    He pulled away from my parents’ curb and headed toward the outskirts where he was taking me for “the best espresso in Seattle.”
    I had worked as executive assistant to Luke Maxwell, CEO of the largest computer company in America, for all of three days, and I had yet to find a single