AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He rolled his eyes at my tone. “You’re still gorgeous, even pale and sweating.”
Am I sweating?Mortification cloaked my fear as he asked, “Do you want me to call the police?”
“What? No. No. I’m sure when enough people can’t use the bathroom, they’ll go and complain. I can’t imagine we’ll be stuck here for long. Besides, it’s a bathroom, not a prison cell.” I glanced around me, wondering how long it’s been since someone properly cleaned the place.
“Okay, then, I guess we wait it out.” He leaned his back against the door, sliding to the ground where he sat, against the cool, hard wood. “Soooo . . .” He crossed his feet at the ankles. “You and Luca . . . Did he sweep you off your feet yet?”
I sank down beside him, taking a minute to get comfortable before I answered. Partly because I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. “I’m starting to think the baseball trick was the only grand gesture he had. And I have the distinct feeling he’s done that before for other girls.” My gaze flickered to the single droplet of liquid, still clinging to Barry’s lenses, and my fingers twitched to wipe it off. So I reached out, removing the glasses from his face, noting the rich hue of his eyes as I buffed the lens clean with my shirt, then gently slid them back on, the gesture somehow more intimate than I intended.
Barry’s throat bobbed, and it was a moment before he said, “And I take it you don’t want to end up with another Adam.”
“No”—I shook my head, deflating at the sound of his name—“I don’t.”
Silence settled between us, eyes locked, both of us searching one another’s expressions with earnestness, like a roadmap leading to nowhere. A wave of heat rippled up my spine, and then my thoughts drifted to Mia, and I cleared my throat.
“Wanna play a game?” I asked, breaking the spell and glancing away from him.
Chapter 16
BARRY
FromthemomentIarrived at The Broken Record and Ella instantly bailed on me, leaving me with Mia, I’d resigned myself to the fact that I had zero shot at getting her alone and away from Luca. Once again, it became painfully clear Ella had little to no interest in me, and this was some kind of ruse to hook me up with her sister, who seemed more bitter than surprised by the arrangement.
As if that weren’t bad enough, I had a front row seat when Luca cornered Ella, and no matter how much I told myself to stop watching, I couldn’t pull my gaze from them. Not even when he moved in so close a kiss was inevitable.
I was a masochist of my own making, and I’d been so lost in the misery of witnessing another kiss between them, I hadn’t even seen JT and Mikey approach. Not until it was too late and Mia wore the contents of their cups, which, as it turned out, was a cheap lager they must’ve smuggled inside.
Now I sat in the last place I expected, shoulder to shoulder with Ella on the grimy bathroom floor, taking in her honey-drenched eyes like a bee to nectar while the muffled melody of the band outside the door drifted inside.
My gaze drifted to her lips and the pink gloss she wore, and I swallowed. “What kind of game?”
“Truth.”
“Truth?” I arched a brow and slid my focus back to her eyes.
“You know, like Truth or Dare, but without the dare”—she glanced around us—“seeing as how it’s kind of hard to do much from within here.”
“Okay, sure,” I said, knowing I’d regret it, but I didn’t want to look like a poor sport. Besides, I had nothing to lose at this point and everything to gain.
“I’ll start.” She grinned, and I noticed the faintest hint of dimples below her cheeks. “We’ll ease into it with an easy one. There’s been something I’ve been dying to know since detention.”
I straightened, pleased I’d piqued her curiosity. That had to be a good sign, right?
“What first got you so interested in astronomy?”
I froze. It was a simple question by nature. One I’m sure she thought would break the ice but was far more complicated under the surface. Definitely heavier than the game of Truth required. But with Ella, I never wanted to be anything but one hundred percent genuine, so I said, “I guess it started when I was little and my dad left. I think I was, like, one, maybe? Of course, now that I’m older, I know the truth about why he bailed on us. He was selfish, and he couldn’t hack it as a father. But he used to have a telescope in his office. I always admired it, and for years after he left when I used to ask my mother about him and why he wasn’t around, she always said, “It’s like this. Your father and I weren’t written in the stars, and true love is always written in the stars. That’s all there is to it, Barry. Fate.’”
Ella reached out and placed a hand on my arm, and my skin burned at the touch, somehow giving me the courage to go on. “I never understood what it meant when she said that, not really. The concept of fate for someone so young is kind of hard to grasp. But when she noticed me tinkering with his telescope, she gave it to me. And I remember sitting in my room and staring out my bedroom window for hours, scanning the sky and the stars, determined to prove her wrong. To find the place where my father’s name was written with hers among the twinkling lights. As if doing so would somehow magically bring him back and we’d be a family again.”
I fell silent for a moment, lost in the bittersweet memory, until I shrugged it off. “I guess, somewhere along the way, I fell in love with the galaxy and everything in it.” When I glanced over at Ella, tears shimmered in her eyes, and it took everything in me not to reach out and take her hand in mine.
“And the zodiac signs, did that have to do with him, too?” she asked.
I nodded, and as if she read my thoughts about wanting to touch her, she shifted and placed her hand in mine. “I was determined to find answers to explain how he could leave us. So I studied astrology, because it was a lot easier to tell myself that Aries didn’t pair well with Cancer than it was to accept the truth. That he didn’t want us.”
“That’s . . .” Ella’s gaze softened, searching mine.
“Not what you expected out of a light-hearted opening question?” I laughed to ease the tension, and it worked.
