They both stared at each other then, each waiting for the other to say something more.
“I guess that’s it then,” Luc said, his shoulders dropping with resignation. “I told you over and over, Sylv, that you’re uptown and I’m… not.”
With a sigh, she gathered her purse and was about to leave. “We’ll talk about this later, Luc.”
“Yeah, right.” Luc spoke with his back to her as he stared out the window.
“I need time to think,” she said defensively.
“Call me when you have some answers, babe, because I sure as hell am fresh out.”
Sylvie closed the door behind her, and felt a door of much more importance closing between them, as well.
Chapter Seventeen
Luc was sitting at Swampy’s bar several days later when his two brothers sidled up to him, one on either side.
“Is it really as bad as all that?” asked René, whose band was taking a break from the second set.
“It’s worse,” Luc muttered into his beer. Actually, he’d been sipping at the same beer for so long, the bartender, Gator, was giving him a dirty look. Amazing how being on the binge wagon for so long turned serious drinking into such an unappealing experience. He must have grown up somewhere along the way in the past five or ten years without realizing it.
“I thought you’d be happy that the police arrested those two hoodlums who shot at you and Sylvie,” Remy remarked, taking a long drink from a frosty glass of draft.
“I am,” Luc said, pushing his beer aside, “but I still think Dad was involved somehow. He probably paid them well to say they were hired by some unknown person to scare us off.”
His two brothers nodded in agreement.
“I’m not buying their claim that they were from New York, either. Not with those thick Creole accents,” Luc went on. “But at least they’ll be doing a minimum of three to five in the state pen. And Claudia can call off her guards.”
“To tell the truth, I think Dad was scared shitless this time,” Remy added. “He’s pulled some shady deals in the past, but I don’t think he expected his hired guns to actually use… well, guns on one of his sons. Maybe he’s learned his lesson this time.”
They all nodded again.
“So, why the sad-sack face, bro?” René asked, clapping a hand on Luc’s shoulder. “You should be happy that everything is falling into place.”
“Everything but Sylvie. Luc is in luuuuuv,” Remy pointed out in a teasing tone.
“Man, if that’s what love’s like, I hope I’m never afflicted,” Remy commented, motioning for Gator to set another draft in front of him and René. “Are you still under the influence of the love potion, do you think?”
“Damned if I know.” Luc took a sip of his tepid beer and grimaced. “All I know is I love her. I want her with a passion. All I can think about is Sylvie.”
“Sounds like a love potion to me,” was Remy’s opinion.
As if Remy knew how a love potion felt!
“Why don’t you just call her, Luc?” René suggested. “Now that the negotiations with Cypress Oil are almost finalized, she’s in no real danger. At least not from the oil folks. I can’t speak for the love-potion fanatics.”
“Yeah,” Remy agreed. “If she really loves you, nothing could be that bad.”
“She never actually said she loves me,” Luc admitted.
Remy waved a hand airily. “No biggie, bro. You should have seen the look on her face when she was defending you to Dad and to her mother.”
Luc felt his face brighten with hope that soon deflated. “That was before she learned… well, never mind.”
“Learned what?” both his brothers demanded.
“There are things about me even you guys don’t know.”
“What could be so damned bad?” Remy asked.
“Really, Luc, everyone has something he regrets,” René said. “I can’t imagine anything in your past that couldn’t be forgiven.”
“Oh, yeah! How about the fact that Tee-John might be my son?” Luc recoiled at the indiscretion of his loose tongue. For more than ten years, Luc had kept this suspicion to himself. Now, in one moment of insanity, he had blurted it all out. He was pathetic.