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I narrowed my eyes and read the message a few times. Luke wasn’t a talker. Not about heavy stuff, anyway. So I wondered what the hell this was going to be about.
“Cindy? Are you okay? That’s notLuke face,” Steph said. “I mean, notgoodLuke face, anyway.”
“He wants to meet me at the diner.”
“That’s not that unusual.”
“Totalk.”
“Sounds promising.” Stephanie clapped her hands together, a hopeful smile gracing her face. “Maybe you should wear this,” she offered, pushing the red sundress into my arms. “Maybe it’ll make Luke see you in a new light or something. Or at least give you some confidence.”
I shook my head. “There’s no point.”
“You never know.”
“Yeah, I do. Are you forgetting the little fact that Luke has a girlfriend?”
“Oh, right. Emmeline Van Der Snatch.”
“Van Der Stratt.”
“Like it matters. You know that’s not going to last.”
“It’s lasted almost two years.”
“Yeah, but come on,” Steph started. “They’re so wrong for each other.”
“Steph.”
“No, come on. You don’t have to pretend you don’t see it. Luke is cool and chill and Emmeline is… I don’t know. She just sucks.”
Stephanie rolled her eyes and scoffed again, and I started to feel a little bad. My sister had never met Emmeline, so her hatred of Luke’s girlfriend was purely cattiness by proxy. I hated Luke’s girlfriend, and my sister was loyal to me, so she hated her too. Emmeline had never done anything to my sister.
“Maybe he’s finally going to break up with her,” Steph mused. “I mean, it’s possible, right? You said they weren’t really happy together anymore.”
I shrugged. I knew Luke hated things like waiting around for thirty extra minutes while Emmeline changed clothes three times before going out, and he loathed being dragged around to country club events with her family. But I didn’t suspect there was trouble in paradise.
Trust me. I’d have remembered that.
“Put on the dress, Cindy,” Stephanie told me, encouragingly.
I shook my head. “If Luke needs to talk to me about something serious, he probably wants to see me looking like my old, familiar self. I want him to be comfortable.”
“Ugh, you’re infuriating. If you want a shot with Luke Kane…” She took the dress back. “I’m just saying.”
I knew what she was saying. The same things a lot of people say.You should put on a dress. You should wear your hair down. If you reminded people you’re a girl, they’d treat you like one and maybe you’d have a boyfriend, not just friends that are boys.
I couldn’t help it. I was kind of a tomboy. I preferred jeans and sneakers to dresses. I’d never even worn a pair of high heels. But Luke, like most guys, liked girls who wore skirts and had longer hair. Girls who wore a little makeup and put some effort into their appearance.
“You’re leaving Friday,” Stephanie reminded me.
“Yeah, but come on. Let’s not let tonight get all sad and weird.”
“No, you leave on Friday. You’ve got, like, four more days in Blue Creek. Four more days with Luke.”
“Four more days with Luke,” I repeated. Suddenly, everything was starting to feel very,veryreal.
I took one more look at the red dress before yanking off my T-shirt and shorts and pulling it on over my head.
