“Luke?” Harper says, pulling my attention back from where I’d been having a mini-meltdown inside my brain.
“It was a joke,” I say so quickly the words sound harsh. Ha ha, there’s nothing funnier than me having a crush on you. “You know Wes. He doesn’t get how the two of us can hang out without there being more to it.”
She looks a little confused. “A joke?”
“Yeah.” I struggle to sound convincing. “When I told him we were going on the trip together, he just started making fun of me for hanging out with a girl.” Oh, that didn’t sound good. “Not that you aren’t cool. I’d rather go to Iceland with you than with Wes.”
That was the truth, at least. Also the truth: I’m going to kill Wes when I get home.
“Oh,” she says, her face still puzzled, but she collects herself and stands a little straighter. “Good. The text kind of freaked me out a little.”
She gives a nervous smile, and it feels like there’s something more she wants to say, but if it has anything to do with the text, I’m not sure how much more I can subject myself to.
“Yeah, sorry. That must have been awkward for you,” I say, desperate to end this conversation.
Chapter 27
Harper
Time to dig my grave and hope that when I get reincarnated into a new body, no part of my soul ever remembers trying to find out if my lifelong friend has a crush on me.
That must have been awkward for you.
The words make me laugh because Luke doesn’t even know the half of it. If I thought reading the text was awkward, I had no idea of the humiliation to come when I confronted him about it.
I wish now, more than ever, that I had never read the text and that we could go back to being friends. Because now it doesn’t feel like friends. Now it feels more than that, but also less somehow. More than friends, but with the awkwardness of two people who broke up, even though we never dated.
When I used to daydream about the type of guy I’d want to spend the rest of my life with, it was always someone who knew me deep down to my core, protected me, and helped me see that even my flaws weren’t something to be ashamed of. That’s Luke. I feel like part of me always knew this but wasn’t willing to risk losing him.
If I was going to cross this line with Luke, I needed to be sure we were on the same page, which is why I finally confronted him about the text.
And it backfired in the worst way possible.
The idea of having feelings for me is a joke. It’s so far out of the realm of possibilities that he and Wes laughed about it. I’m not sure whether to cry or laugh about it.
What was I thinking? He didn’t want to kiss me at the beach. It was all in my head. A big delusion I’d built up for myself.
“What’s next on the itinerary?” Luke asks when we get back to the car.
“Um,” I struggle to come up with something. I don’t have anything else written down for today. I’d assumed visiting the beach and this canyon would take up most of the day. “Want to go back to the Airbnb to regroup?”
Luke seems a little confused by my answer, mostly because any other day, I’d refuse to go back until I was sufficiently tired from a day of sightseeing. But here I am, wanting to call it a day when we haven’t even eaten dinner yet.
“Did you want to take a nap?” Luke asks.
The question is so sweet it makes my heart flutter, which I promptly tell to stop. I needed to get Luke out of my head now more than ever.
“No, I’m good,” I say.
“Maybe we just drive around a bit and see if we find anything?”
I’m about to protest and say I’m tired, but I’m not. I’m just humiliated for the second time today and would rather lick my wounds in privacy, which won’t be an option at the Airbnbseeing as we share a bed.
“Sure,” I agree, settling into the passenger seat and buckling up.
Luke sits in the driver’s seat and starts the car. “If you fall asleep, I won’t tell anyone.”
The words almost sound flirty, but I kick myself again, reminding myself that clearly my ability to tell when someone is flirting with me is way off.
