“Ro, that is so unfair. I’d never tell them something you told me in confidence.”
“Sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
I wasn’t so quick to accept his apology. How many times was he going to take out whatever he was feeling on me? I wasn’t his punching bag. “You’re a jackass.”
“Sorry,” he repeated. He picked up my hand and put it on his lap, running his finger over my lifelines the way we used to do when we were little and telling each other’s fortunes. It tickled, but I didn’t pull away. “I just mean, like, it sucks because Luke is Mr. Perfect. He never does anything wrong. And you—you’re, like, Mel’s best friend. The chosen one. I’m the shit son, who never knows the right thing to do or say.”
“There’s no right thing with this, Ro,” I said, feeling my throat closing up again the way it did whenever I was about to cry. I rested my head on his shoulder. “This is the worst thing that has ever happened to us. This is the worst-case scenario.”
Ro didn’t say anything, and when his fingers stopped moving over my hand, I returned the favor, pulling his hand onto my lap so I could tell his future. His palm felt dry and, thanks to his racket, more callused than I remembered. Once upon a time, I could trace the lines on his palm in the dark. Now there were more and more parts of him that were unfamiliar.
“I wish you’d talk to me, even if everything you say is the wrong thing.”
“It’s not that simple anymore,” Ro said at last.
I didn’t know what he meant by that last word.Anymore.
If he could admit that it had once been simple to tell each other everything, why wasn’t it any longer? What had changed?
NOW
I can’t figure it out.
I’m standing in the rec room of the Winchester Community Center, in the middle of calling roll for my group of squirmy nine- to twelve-year-olds, when I see Luke Cohen standing at the other end of the room, watching me.
At first I try to ignore him.
Keep calling names, look anywhere but at him, and he will disappear.
But when I steal another glance at the west doors of the massive room, he’s still there.
“Willow!” I call, and like the amazing cocaptain she is, she appears.
“Mmhmm?” Her long brown hair is in a perfect fishtail braid and her makeup is flawless, completely out of place for a Tuesday morning at Camp MORE. Especially before eight a.m.
“Can you finish?” I ask, handing her the clipboard and already moving toward the other side of the room.
“Uh, sure,” she says, following my gaze to the figure standing near the doors, watching us.
I brace myself for the staccato beats of my heart, the butterflies in my stomach that always come when I’m in Luke’s presence, but being prepared makes no difference. He runs a hand along his jaw as I reach him, and I notice he’s shaved since yesterday. He looks closer to nineteen today and slightly less intimidating, but neither of those things is to my advantage.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, coming to a stop in front of him. I fold my arms over my chest, trying to seem as confident and in control as I normally am at work.
“What areyou?” He lobs the question back at me.
“I work here,” I say. “And it’s obvious you knew that, or you wouldn’t be here.”
He glances over my head, like I’m barely keeping his attention. “Obvious how?”
“I don’t see you in months, but you show up three times in the last forty-eight hours? You’re clearly stalking me.”
That brings his attention back to me. “Or you’re stalking me.”
“Bullshit,” I counter. “You were lying in wait at my house.”
“That was not what I was doing.”
I push my hair off my face, exasperated. “I don’t want to fight, Luke. Please just go.”
