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“I’m looking for Tully. Have you seen her?”
“About two minutes ago in the G-I aisle.” Nathan followed her pointed finger to the far shelves and nodded in thanks before walking in that direction.
Tully wasn’t in the G-Is, but she was next door in the J-Ls. She didn’t notice him with her back turned as she stood on her tiptoes to push a book into a small slot she’d made.
Nathan stepped forward without thinking and reached over her from behind to get the book fully into place. Tully jumped and spun around, with wide eyes. It was the most emotion she’d given him in two weeks and he savored it for the three seconds it was there before it disappeared behind an impassive mask.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. Nathan stepped back and put some distance between them for her sake and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I could ask you the same thing. I thought we didn’t need to do Fridays.”
She turned back to her cart so Nathan couldn’t see her face again. “We don’t, but I like to help Mrs. Pritchard at the end of the semester when everyone throws their overdue books in here before they leave.”
“You should have told me. I’ll help.” He tried to grab a book but she blocked him and his hand hung awkwardly between them.
“It’s fine, I can do it myself. How did your exams go?”
Nathan blinked and wiped his empty hand on his jeans. “Good, great actually. It should be enough for college and my dad. I owe it to you, so I was thinking we could—”
“Good, then there’s no need for this anymore,” she interrupted him before he finished.
Nathan blanched in surprise. She wasn’t hostile, just . . . indifferent. “What?”
“We did everything we needed.” She faced the rows of books with a handful and moved down the line as she put them where they went one by one, leaving him to watch the side of her face with his mouth open. “I got back at Joliet, made my point and all, and you got your grades together and have yourself set for college. That’s what we agreed on, right?”
Stuttering, Nathan tried to catch his words but they failed him as sensation left his finger tips. “Well yeah, but—”
“Then that’s it. We can end it now.” She stopped and turned her attention from the books. Nathan was granted the curse of seeing her lips turn up softly and her dimples dip into her cheeks. She extended a hand to him, reminding him once again that this had been a business transaction.
“Thanks, Rondeau, for everything.”
He stared at her hand knowing that if he took it, she would walk away from this and he’d stand there collecting pieces of himself he didn’t even recognize yet off the floor.
She shook her fingers, still waiting hand for him to shake and sign his signature on the end of this deal. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to ask anymore.”
That was the worst thing she could say. If he didn’t need to ask to touch her anymore, it meant she didn’t plan on being around him from then on.
Who had the worst timing: him, her, or the universe?
What else could he do but take her hand, shake it, and watch her walk away.
By the time the words he really wanted to say left his lips, she was already gone.
“I don’t want it to end yet.”
fifty-three
tully
“Somethingreallyinteresting just happened.” Stephanie slid off her winter coat and draped it over the back of Tully’s desk chair before claiming her spot on Tully’s bed.
It wasn’t made, the sheets and floral quilt were strewn about from her endless nights of so little sleep. She tried to convince herself it was because of the break, but deep down—barely below the surface—she knew it was because she felt like utter crap. Sitting next to Stephanie in the same pajamas she’d worn for two days didn’t help with that.
She ran her fingers through her hair trying to stealthily test the knots that formed since her ‘breakup’ with Nathan.
If you could even call it that. Do you break up with someone you weren’t really dating?
The twisting in her chest sure thought so.
