Ripped Tights and Late Nights → Muke

epilogue;

Luke doesn't say a word as the trio walk back to the hotel.

"I'm just gonna... wait out here," Brittany says, throwing herself onto the couch. Michael ruffles her hair on the way past, eliciting a shriek of terror from the teenage girl. He and Luke sit on the bed in the bedroom but the atmosphere is so different from what they are used to. 

"What are you doing in New York?" Luke asks. He's still impulsive, Michael notes, quick to break the ice.

"I'm in love with you."

Luke quirked an eyebrow. "Blunt. Michael, you fucked me over, okay? You admitted in front of fifty people in a court that you only got close to me so you could lock up my boss."

"Your boss is a murderer and a rapist."

"You still fucked me over." Luke crosses his arms over his chest defensively. His body language had started off so soft and inviting, the way it always had been with Michael, but now he was closed off; eyes hard.

"Listen, Luke, if I could go back in time and change everything I would. Yeah, I initially went to the club to get answers out of you to see if your boss was a dick to his employees or not. But my love for you was never a cover. Everything I said was real, my love for you was real. Is real."

Luke is silent. Michael is trying not to calculate every flinch and flicker off his eyes. He needs to give Luke space to think.

"I don't know if I can trust you," he says finally.

"Thats okay. I'm willing to work for this."

"For us?"

Michael nods.

"You're going to work to spend the rest of your life with a prostitute when you're a middle aged divorced father of two who recently prosecuted said prostitute's boss."

"Love is love, Lukey." Michael says. He inches closer to Luke on the bed, wanting to put an arm around Luke's shoulders. He hovers his arm there, an invitation. His face almost splits in half when Luke leans in. Michael wraps his arm around Luke's shoulders and pulls him in, resting his cheek on Luke's fluffy blond hair.

"You'd call this love?"

"Yeah, it only took a few pairs of ripped tights and late nights but I know I'm in love with you. I'm willing to wait forever for you to be in love with me too."

::

it's so hard to get the title wormed into the book somehow you have NO idea