Conditional Love

Chapter 31

**| Luke's POV |**

"I think we just fucked up," Gabe says, coming to stand next to me.

I'm not able to respond, too busy staring at the door where just moments ago, Sang Sorenson disappeared, walking up with her head high, but eyes filled with tears. We did something wrong. We had hurt her. We tried to play her game, but now I'm not so sure of the rules. Her game is hard.

North clomps down the stairs, his boots thumping on each step. He comes up and smacks both of us across the back of our heads, efficiently drawing me out of my thoughts.

"Ouch," I say, rubbing the spot. He had hit harder than normal.

"Fucking idiots," North says. He pulls out his phone and sends off a text. Mine buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it. "Let's go. Team meeting."

I open my mouth, but North glares are me. Even Gabe knows to shut up and just listen right now. North is livid.

The walk back to our car is tense and only when I get to it and North stomps off to his bike am I able to relax. I get into the driver's seat and Gabe gets into the passenger and we follow North along.

"What went wrong?" Gabe asks.

"I don't know," I respond, trying not to replay what happened because it'll distract me and distracted driving is a big no-no. I've gotten into a couple of near accidents. I couldn't do that now.

"Did we say something wrong?" Gabe asks, sounding so lost and confused.

I'm right there with him. Sang has all these rules, all these land mines. We uncover some of them and when we do, we realize it goes deeper than we think. And the land mines. So many of them. Today, we stepped on one of them. Now it's a question of what it is we destroyed.

The rest of the drive back is Gabe asking questions I can't answer. I can see how much he truly cares about Sang. I won't say the words, because no one is in the position or the mindset for those special words to be said. It'll start a whole different game that no one is ready to play, especially Sang, and at the end, no one is going to be a winner.

"Did you see her expression?" I finally ask.

"No," Gabe says as I pull up to our place.

I shake my head. I don't even know what to think of that expression. She looked so fragile. She fought with everything she had to leave with dignity, but her eyes told me a whole different story. We may have broken something inside of me and that ate at my gut. I never want to hurt Sang, not even intentionally.

I turn off the car and just sit there, Gabe sits with me, neither of us saying anything. I keep replaying what happened. She doesn't want to commit, she likes different men, she enjoys sex. When I saw her there with North, I didn't want to say the wrong thing, I didn't want her to see how much it hurts to know that she isn't the commiting type, that she's keeping herself away from the beauty of a relationship.

A knock makes me jump and I look over at North glowering at us. "Let's go."

I nod and climb out of the car, Gabe mirroring me. We head into the apartment building and to Victor's apartment since he had a huge conference room in there after doing some remodeling.

The others are already in there, waiting for us. We find a seat and North leans up against a wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he glares down at the ground. I know he's furious with us, but I also know he's mad at himself too. He feels just as guilty as we do for making Sang run like that.

"What's going on?" Mr. B asks, looking at North and then at us, searching for an answer.

"Don't fucking know," Gabe says. "We were having fun, exploring the jail house, and next thing I know she's taking off."