No. It will be fine. It’ll be the same as hanging out at home, except with better views.
“There probably won’t be any punch buggies, but I’m sure we’ll still have fun,” I say.
Luke rolls his eyes and smiles. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 2
Harper
Luke stays at the café for a while to discuss the trip. Ava is mostly quiet while we go over the details, only speaking up about what her half of the trip cost. But she keeps staring at me, blinking and making faces like she’s trying to talk with her eyes and doing a terrible job at it.
“Got it.” Luke looks up from his phone. He holds up the screen, showing me that he was able to book the same flight as me. He was even able to get the seat Ava had previously reserved.
“Perfect,” I say.
He gets up and takes the empty coffee cups sitting in front of Ava and me. “I have to head to work. But I’ll text you tonight so I can figure out what to pack.” He turns to Ava. “Let me know if you think of anything else I owe you for.”
“Will do,” she says.
“Bye.” I give a gentle wave as he throws our empty cups in the trash before heading out. I can feel Ava’s eyes on me, her eyebrows raised.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says in a way that I know means it isnotnothing.
“Ava,” I say, exasperated.
She gets up from her chair to make her way to the café exit and gives me a knowing look over her shoulder. “You know what.”
I follow her, looking ahead to make sure Luke is out of earshot as we step out of the café. I don’t see him.
“We’re not like that,” I tell Ava. It’s certainly not the first time we’ve had this conversation. When Ava met Luke for the first time, she assumed he was my boyfriend, but even when I explained how we’re childhood friends, she never fully accepted it.
“Uh huh,” she says in a way that is not agreeing.
“Ava!” I say, stepping in front of her to stop her from walking away from me.
“Oh, come on, Harper. You two are going on vacation together. Just the two of you. You’re not meeting up with other people. You’re not staying in separate rooms. The only thing saving you from making it a romantic trip is that it’s not a beach getaway where you’ll both be half naked all the time. Thank God for Iceland—you two will be bundled up in winter jackets. Unless you want to go in hot springs, which you do.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “Time to pull out the swimsuits and hang out half naked after all.”
I think of all the times I’ve seen Luke half naked or even fully naked. Granted, he hasn’t run around in the nude since he was little, but I’ve definitely seen him without his shirt on recently. It wasn’t weird or romantic like Ava is trying to make it out to be though.
“We’re just friends,” I tell her. “It’ll be just like how we hang out all the time, but instead we’ll be in a different country.”
“Sharing the same bed.” There’s that eyebrow of hers again. She’s lucky I like her as a roommate, or the thought of shaving the eyebrow clean off would be too tempting.
I’m about to say something in defense, but I realize I have no defense. We will be sharing one bed. When it was going to be me and Ava, it was fine. But Luke? Yes, we’re super close. But not share-the-bed close. I’m not dating Dustin anymore, but if he learned I was sharing a bed with Luke, he’d assume I lied when I said there was nothing between us, no matter how PG the situation was.
I make a face, realizing what I’ve gotten myself into. “This is weird, huh?”
Ava laughs. “I mean, your friendship has always been a little weird.”
I frown. Ava has always been a little perplexed about the friendship between me and Luke, but I feel like most people look at a guy-girl friendship with confusion, assuming it must always lead to falling in love. But it hasn’t for us. We’ve always been close, and we’ve always dated other people.
“Should I ask him not to come?” I ask, second-guessing the entire trip now.
“Why—you afraid if you share the same bed, you’ll fall in love with him?” She smirks at me in amusement.
No,” I say, a little too quickly. “It just might be weird. I mean, neither one of us is dating anyone right now, but if we were, I’m sure the person we were dating would be upset.”
