The Moon and More(49)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Yeah,” I said to Theo. “I’ll be in touch, on both counts, soon. All right?”

“Sounds good,” he replied. “Bye, Emaline.”

I smiled, then hung up, pushing my phone back into my pocket. Then I turned around, to the storeroom, only to find Luke standing there, his eyes level with mine over the towering pile in my arms. I jumped, startled, and the towels collapsed between us in a blur of white.

“Oh my God,” I said, putting a hand to my chest as one last washcloth fluttered past in my side vision. “You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry.”

I dropped down to collect the towels and he joined me on the floor, grabbing a few that were closer to him.

“What’s going on here? Some kind of spa day or something?”

“Margo’s got a new system,” I told him. “What are you doing here?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Well, actually, I was hoping to—”

“Luke!” I heard Benji yelp, and then he was running towards us, footsteps thumping across the carpet. “I didn’t know you were here!”

“Just walked in, bud.” Luke held up his hand for a high five, which Benji delivered with a loud slap. “She’s got you working, huh?”

“Inventory,” Benji explained. “It’s a lot of towels.”

“I can see that.” Luke looked at me, grinning. I almost smiled back at him out of habit, until I remembered what had happened only a matter of hours ago. “Hey, give me a quick sec to talk to Emaline, okay?”

“Sure,” Benji said. “I still have a lot of stuff to move. See ya!”

And with that, he was gone, back into the conference room. Luke looked at me. “Can we—”

“I’m actually really busy,” I told him.

“Ten minutes.” He lowered his voice. “It’s important.”

I glanced across the office where, sure enough, both Margo and my mother were watching us. “Five. And not here.”

He nodded, then followed me as I dropped my pile back in the conference room and walked out to the front porch of the office. Once the door swung shut behind us, I hopped up on a newspaper box. “All right,” I said, crossing my arms. “Talk.”

Luke glanced away, at the traffic passing, then back at me. “Look, so, this morning . . . it didn’t go they way I planned. None of this has. I made a mistake.”

“When?” I said. “Meeting that girl at Tallyho? Or dumping me this morning?”

Instead of answering, he ran a hand over his face again, something he always did when he was stressed out. I knew this, like so many of his tells, as well as I did my own. “I didn’t dump you,” he said. “I said we might need a break.”

“So why are you here?” I asked.

“Because,” he replied, “because ever since I walked out of the diner away from you, I’ve felt sick. Like something’s really wrong and I need to fix it.”

I bit my lip, not saying anything.

“I’m not saying things have been perfect between us for the last few months,” he continued. “But I want to be with you.”

“You didn’t feel that way when you decided to go to Tallyho.”

“Are you ever going to stop with the Tallyho thing? I was trying to be honest with you!” he replied, his voice rising. “I told you the truth. That I was tempted, and acted on it, but not in a way you thought. Now I’m telling you I regret everything. You’ve got to give me something for that.”

“Like what?”

Instead of answering, he stepped forward to stand between my open knees, sliding his hands up my neck in that way that was familiar and thrilling, all at once. As he put his lips on mine, I turned my face up and just a bit to the right, so we fit perfectly, a skill honed from a million kisses over the years. When he finally drew back, he moved his mouth to my ear. “I love you, Emaline.”

My head was swimming. All I wanted, all I ever wanted in moments like this, was to keep kissing him. But somehow, I managed to put my hands on his chest and pushed him back. “I . . . I can’t.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Things have changed,” I said.

“I told you I was sorry, I made a mistake.” He moved in closer, again. “I’ll fix it. And the other problems we’ve had, we’ll work on them, too.”

I shook my head, looking down at my hands. “It’s not just about all that.”

“Then what?”

I didn’t say anything. All I could think about was toasters.

“Something you did?” he asked. Long, awkward pause. Where was that waitress to interrupt when I really needed her? “Emaline, I just saw you, like, four hours ago. What could possibly have happened since then?”

It’s always very pure, that last moment before an ugly, unsettling truth hits someone. The most stark of before-and-afters. I sat there and watched Luke’s face change, right before me. “Oh my God,” he said, stepping back. “It’s that guy, isn’t it? Theo. Did you—”

“Luke,” I said quietly.

“What the hell? You went running to him the minute you left the diner?”

“Hey.” I pointed a finger at him. “You walked out on me, remember? As far as I knew, you were gone for good.”

“Which must have been so convenient,” he shot back. “You could finally jump into bed with Girl Jeans without even having to feel bad about it.”

“I didn’t jump into bed with anyone,” I replied. “God. What are you even saying?”

“What are you saying?” he replied. “The minute our three-year relationship hit a rough patch, you hooked up with someone else?”

“At least I waited until it was over.”

The look on his face as he heard this—hurt, surprised, vulnerable—made me feel sick. I tried to reach out for him, to blunt it somehow, but he stepped farther away, leaving me flailing.

For a moment, we just stood there, this huge space between us. “You said it yourself,” I said finally. “Things haven’t been great in a while. If they had been, neither one of us would have done anything. It means something was wrong.”

Judging by the pained look on his face, though, it was easier to say this than to hear it. “I just can’t . . .” He trailed off. “I can’t believe this.”

“I know,” I said. “Me neither.”