For a moment she thought he would refuse, but then he spun on his heel and stalked away towards the front door, leaving her standing there with her arms crossed over a chest which now felt tight and cold. Pinpricks at the back of her eyes felt like tears trying to escape. Which was so not going to happen. They hadn’t even been on an official first date yet. She was absolutely not going to cry about him.

Sitting in his car, waiting for it to warm up enough to drive, Luke slammed his fists against the steering wheel.

Dammit!

She’d known that wasn’t what he meant.

He’d thought she’d gotten over the owner—employee thing. Apparently not.

Although he should have known better than to even say anything about the club. Because he knew that was a sore spot for her. He’d just gotten so frustrated with her. So video cameras wouldn’t actually stop or catch the guy—the ‘shit-gibbon’ as she’d called him, and as aggravated as he was, part of him still wanted to laugh at that—but they might help. They’d be something.

Knowing she was living in her apartment, alone, with absolutely no security other than hoping her neighbors were nosy enough to pay attention, drove him fucking up the wall. A security system was something she could actually do. Or that he could do. And Luke badly wanted to do something. In lieu of pounding the shit-gibbon into the ground—that really was catchy, wasn’t it?—something to protect Olivia would do.

Except she wouldn’t let him.

And didn’t seem super enthusiastic about doing so herself.

His phone rang, and he immediately knew from the ringtone it was either Patrick or Michael. Geez… gossip really traveled that fast in this group? He almost didn’t even pick it up to look at it, but then he thought either one of the guys might have some advice.

It was Patrick.

“Hello?”

“Hey! Are you up to anything this evening?” Patrick’s friendly, laid back tone was so different from what Luke was expecting, he couldn’t answer right away. He blinked, his brain trying to rearrange itself to having a conversation which had nothing to do with his and Olivia’s argument.

“I—ah…” His brain was not cooperating with his efforts to get his shit together. It was like his thinking processes had stalled out entirely while trying to shift gears.

“Are you okay?”

One simple question and Luke found himself explaining everything that had just happened. Well, not everything, but the general gist of his and Olivia’s argument. His frustration. His helplessness.

After a long moment of silence, during which Luke immediately started questioning whether or not he should have just babbled all of that, Patrick finally responded.