Page 7 of Level Up for Love

An upbeat song I don’t recognize bubbles cheerfully through the speakers, but Mona’s already talking a mile a minute over the music as she pulls out into the street. “Well, how was it? His apartment tower looks nice! It’s got to be new, right? Maybe he just moved here over the summer. Does he go to Yale?”

It’s always this way with her, but at this hour, I can barely string a sentence together to keep up. “Don’t think so. It was fun.”

Mona gives me a knowing look. “Coffee?”

I sag into the seat. “Please.”

“You got it.”

Now that fall semester is in full swing, downtown New Haven is usually bustling with students—once the city wakes up, that is. This early, the streets are still wonderfully sleepy.

It’s not always worth the parking hassle to come downtown, but Mona and I love finding excuses to visit. On one side of the street, glossy new apartment towers like Tyler-Taylor-Trevor’s stretch toward the pink sky. On the other, Yale’s pale castle-like walls peek between the lush leaves that have only just begun to change with the season. Any other day—when I’m not wearing a wrinkled miniskirt at 9 a.m.—Mona would just park in the first space we found, and we’d spend the morning wandering the streets, window-shopping and slurping down coffee. But thankfully, she pulls into the tiny parking lot of one of our favorite cafés—tucked in between a yarn shop and a new gaming store—and tosses me a cardigan from her back seat. I laugh and throw it on. The chunky blue-and-green-striped knit doesn’t quite go with the rest of my outfit, but it’s the best I’ve got.

We walk in, and I hover behind Mona like a ghost as she orders our favorites before finding us a table in the corner of the shop. My sister knows me well and gives me grace as my latte slowly brings me back to life. She chirps through a dozen conversation topics—the new instructor at the yoga studio where she teaches, the cute beekeeper who’s started vending at the farmers market, Mom’s latest kitchen disaster—and takes all of my hmms, mms, and ahhs as the signs of encouragement and interest that I intend them to be.

Once I’ve downed at least half of my coffee, she draws me back in. “Well, would you see him again?”

“Who?”

Her eyes bug a little. “The guy from last night, Rea.”

He was perfectly cute, sure, but—“I don’t want to see him again,” I say before taking another sip. “I never see them again. ‘Don’t get friendly,’ remember?”

Mona wrinkles her nose. That rule was one of my ideas, not hers. “You could see them again without getting friendly, though,” she argues. “I’m sure plenty of people would jump at the chance to keep things casual.”

I hum noncommittally. “Maybe. But I’m not there yet.”

She gives me a soft look. “Reagan, it’s been almost a year since you two broke up.” She curls her fingers around my wrist. “Not every guy will be like Owen.”

I’m suddenly very focused on picking at where the saucer under my coffee mug is chipped. “I know.”

“And not every guy will be like Wes—”

“I know,” I snap.

Nope, I haven’t consumed nearly enough coffee for one of Mona’s pitches to get back out there and date again—and it’s too early for a stiff drink. But not even a hundred drinks would make me want to talk about my ex, or…him.

Even after all these months, the reminder of Owen’s betrayal still stings. In college, he had seemed so sweet and steady, and when we both moved to New Haven after graduation, it just made sense that our friendship would develop into something more. I still don’t know where I went wrong.

Regardless, it’s the last thing I want to discuss. I need to change the subject.

“Hey, do you want to stop in there?” I bounce my head to the right, where the craft store is. “You need more yarn for Mom’s Christmas scarf, don’t you?” Mona always plans these things early.

She purses her lips, but I watch as the corner of her mouth twitches. Twice. I’ve almost distracted her, but then I notice her foot bouncing under the table. Has it been doing that this whole time?

Something’s on her mind.

“Actually…” She draws the word out in a harmonic singsong as she rocks forward. “I do need more yarn, but—No. No, I want to talk to you about something else.” Her mouth bends down in a frown. “It has been a year, Rea. And sure, you don’t have to date until you’re ready, but…” Her head tilts to the left. “Can we go into Game Knight?”

I don’t know what she’s talking about, or how these two things are connected. “Where?”

“Game Knight. The game store next door,” she clarifies.

My eyebrows bounce upward. “Oh. Okay, sure.” But I can’t imagine she wants anything that I don’t already own. In my apartment, I have about as many games as she does skeins of yarn. Board games, card games, TTRPGs, every book and guide published for the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, probably hundreds of dice—not to mention my video game collection. “Do you want to pick up something new?”

Mona clasps a hand over mine. Nervously, she scratches at my thumbnail, where my dark purple polish is badly chipped. Her green eyes are wide, and her lips are pressed in a pitying pout—it’s her Bad News face, the one she always wears when she tells me that she finished my last bottle of wine, or that my least favorite uncle has confirmed he’s coming for Thanksgiving.

“I want to sign up for one of their D&D games,” she says gently.