Coming home

chapter 23

Drifting in and out of a dream state, Claire felt Luke’s arms around her middle and felt a calm that she hadn’t felt in years. Snuggling deeper within his arms, she felt him beginning to stir and glance at the bedside clock. Claire bolted upright in bed, pausing momentarily, yielding to the dull pain in her shoulder.

“Luke” Claire shook him with her good arm. “You gotta get up.”

Luke lazily opened one eye, then closed it as a small grin firmed on his lips. He took her hand that she was vigorously shaking him with and sliding it down. “I am up.”

Claire jerked her hand back. “You know that’s not what I was talking about,” she said, feeling a blush move up her neck coming to rest in her face. “You got to get up and get out of here. It’s almost 7 and Elizabeth will be up soon. She can’t find you here.”

“Why not?” Luke questioned.

Luke didn’t understand the urgency but saw the panic on Claire’s face when a faint knock came at the door, followed by “Claire, are you up? I can’t find Luke.”

Claire jumped out of bed and tugged on Luke’s arm until he followed suit. “Just a minute, Elizabeth,” she got out while retrieving Luke’s clothes and shoveling him toward her closet.

Luke couldn’t help but flash back to their high school days and grinned. Back then, he had been just as terrified as Claire seemed now, but hiding from Elizabeth seemed ridiculous to him. Claire wasn’t as amused. She shoved his clothes in his arms and shut the closet door in his face. Luke couldn’t help but chuckle, which emitted a loud “Shhh” from Claire. Claire grabbed her robe and put her emotions in check before opening the door to a clearly upset Elizabeth.

“I can’t find Luke,” Elizabeth blurted out. “His bed is made, but he isn’t in the house.”

“Oh Elizabeth,” Claire said, putting an arm around her, trying to comfort and calm her at the same time. “I’m sure he hasn’t got far. Maybe he is out with James,” Claire offered.

“No. No,” a panicked Elizabeth exclaimed as a tear rolled down her cheek. “James was in the kitchen making coffee and I asked him. He hasn’t seen him. What if Luke forgot that he was supposed to bring me to Susan’s?”

“I’m sure he didn’t, but I’ll bring you if nothing else,” Claire reassured with a smile.

There was a momentary calm for Elizabeth before she said, “But you can’t drive yet. Your arm.”

“Well then, we will get James to drive. It will all work out. I promise.” Elizabeth decided that was good enough for her and padded off to the kitchen for breakfast. Claire let out a breath in a sign of relief. One crisis diverted. Now, she moved on to letting Luke out of the closet and coming up with a believable scenario as to why he disappeared so early.

When Claire opened the closet door, Luke still had a grin on his face and was still holding his clothes.

“Why ain’t you dressed yet?” Claire demanded, bringing an even bigger and louder chuckle coming from Luke.

“Shhh,” Claire said, swatting at him. “Elizabeth is going to hear you.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but your closet is smaller than it used to be,” Luke said, dropping his clothes on the bed.

“What are you doing? You have to get out of here,” Claire said, all panicky again.

“What’s the big deal? Elizabeth isn’t going to care that I’m in here,” Luke said.

“The big deal isn’t whether or not she cares. The big deal is the repercussions from her finding out,” Claire said. “As in what if she has questions that neither of us can answer?” Luke clearly wasn’t getting the urgency in the situation. Claire had to go to the extreme and add, “What if she has questions about s*x? Are you ready for that conversation? Because I’m not.” That did it, Claire thought. Luke jumped right to the getting-dressed part as Claire formed the rest of the plan in her head.

Claire gave Luke a rundown of the plan as she pushed him toward the window. He gave her a skeptical look and said, “Elizabeth isn’t going to believe that.”

“You got a better idea?” Claire asked.

“No,” Luke confused.

“Well then, this is it,” Claire said, as if it was all settled, lifting the window.

Just as Luke resigned and started carefully climbing out the window, Claire seemed to have other plans. He was thrown off balance by a hard push and his planned graceful exit turned into him flipping head over heels, upside down in a bush before rolling to the ground, and grasping for air. It wasn’t until Luke could actually take a deep breath and was about to access any injuries he may have from what was apparently a deliberate hit on his life, did Luke hear it. Luke turned his head toward the direction of the deep belly, laughing to see James standing on the bottom step, not even trying to control his laughter.

“It wasn’t my ideal,” Luke offered as he pushed himself up off the ground, which only brought on more laughter. Luke decided his best course of action was to just dust himself off and go inside to hide. Luke had almost made it pass James when James stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, holding a finger up, signaling Luke to wait a minute. Luke waited for James to get some control over his laughter, but instead James handed him a bandana he dug out of his pocket, pointed toward Luke’s cheek where the fall into the bush, scratched his cheek, and busted out laughing even harder. Luke grabbed the bandana, walking past James, who let go of another round of uncontrollable laughter.

Luke entered the kitchen to find Claire standing in front of the coffee pot and Elizabeth nowhere in sight. Luke threw his arms up in a what the hell jester when Claire turned to him. Claire’s eyes widened at the sight of a disheveled Luke, “What happened to you?”

Luke stared at her in disbelief, “What do you mean what happened to me? You pushed me out the window.”

“I did not,” Claire tried to deny as her shoulders began to shake with laughter. Between Luke's glare and the slight ache in her shoulder, Claire had to compose herself. “I’m sorry. I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I thought Elizabeth was coming back.”

“And? Where is she now?” Luke emphasized by waving his hand around to an empty room.

“She went to get her things together and get a bath,” Claire said.

“Explain to me again the importance of you pushing me out the window?” Luke said while picking a twig out of his hair.

“It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time,” Claire shrugged.

“Well, I hope you have a logical reasoning for when you run into James cause he sure got a kick out of it,” Luke said.

Elizabeth appeared at the kitchen entrance wide-eyed. She looked at Claire and then back to Luke.

“I was pushed out of a window,” Luke shouted as he stormed out of the kitchen to get cleaned up.

Elizabeth turned a puzzled look back to Claire. Claire quickly covered the shocked look on her face, picked up her coffee, and shrugged, saying “Men never make any sense.”