Chapter 24
“Actually, no,” Luke says.
I’ve got my computer bag on my shoulder, and I’m walking toward the door of the conference room. I made a beeline for it after touching his face like a moron. Who does that? The whole thing has got my heart pumping, my mind racing, and I just need to get out of this room.
I turn around to see Luke standing not far behind me, looking at me with something akin to determination. His jaw is set, his eyes laser focused.
“No?” I ask.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m not ready to go home,” he says.
“Oh,” I say.
He drops his bag on the table and then takes a step toward me.
“What are we doing here, Claire?” he asks.
I close my eyes. “We’re going home,” I say, trying to deflect.
“No,” he says. “What was that back there?”
He points to where we were just sitting, the place where I lost my stupid mind. Why would I do that? Why?
“I . . . it . . . it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” he says, his eyes steady on mine.
I take a step back and bump into the wall behind me, his closeness making it hard to keep myself in check, making me wish for things I can’t have.
“I think it was much more than nothing,” he says.
“I promise, it wasn’t.”
His brow pinches. “Why do you keep fighting this?”
“Fighting what?”
He pushes his fingers through his hair. Why does it make him even more attractive? It’s not helping. “You’re so frustrating, Claire.”
“I know,” I say, looking away from him.
“Why, though?” he asks, and his hands drop to his sides. “You have to know how I feel about you.”
My heart, which was already beating quickly, picks up its pace at his words. No one’s ever said that to me before.
I shake my head in fast, tiny movements because I need him to see reason. “You’re not thinking straight. It’s all the stress . . . from work.”
“It’s not,” he says. “I promise.”
“We’ve just been spending a lot of time together, that’s all.”
“Claire,” he says, his voice gentle. He takes a tiny step toward me, erasing most of the gap between us. “Do you know why I was glad you didn’t listen to that voicemail?”
I shake my head.
“I told you why I left Pulse, told you that you deserved the job, and then . . . I asked if you wanted to get dinner with me sometime.”
“What?” I ask, not following.
“You had that stupid rule about not dating coworkers,” he says, his lips pulling up slightly, like he’s remembering something fondly. “And I’d been wanting to ask you out from the first day I met you, so I figured now that we didn’t work together, I’d try.”
“You . . . really?”
“I thought you rejected me,” he says. “But then when I saw you again at the handover and found out the truth . . .”
He trails off, so close now that I have to tilt my face up to see him. Reaching up, he gently tucks some hair behind my ear and then slides my bag off my shoulder, setting it on the ground.
He places his hands at my waist, his fingers lightly pressing, his eyes searching my face. “So this isn’t me being tired or stressed or spending too much time with you because . . . there’s never enough time with you.”
His head dips toward mine, and I know what’s coming, what he wants to do. And even though my mind is telling me not to do this, not to let this happen, that there’ll be consequences, I know I won’t stop him.
Because I don’t want to.
Lifting onto my toes, I close the distance, my lips locking with his, my mind still telling me to stop, but my heart telling me to go for it.
I give in, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him down to me, deepening the kiss. His five-o’clock shadow brushing deliciously against my skin, our mouths moving together like we’ve done this before, like we’ve both imagined this moment many times.
Luke’s arms wrap around me, lifting me up as he takes over, his tongue running over my bottom lip, and I feel like I might burst from the sensation. His kisses are a push and pull, wild and then tender, fast and then slow, like he’s forcing himself to take his time.
I’ve never been kissed like this. All forty-nine previous ones pale in comparison. They were nothing, and this . . . this is everything. And now I know what I’m sacrificing, as Luke holds me close to him, kissing me like he never wants to stop.
So I can’t help it when the tears come, quietly moving down my cheeks, and I taste the salt on my lips as Luke’s mouth moves tenderly over mine.
And they come even faster when he stops, mid-kiss, his body going rigid, his hands dropping from my waist as he pulls away and takes a step back.
“Claire?” He looks at me like he’s confused.
I close my eyes, the tears now dripping down my chin.
It happened again.
The conference room door swings open then, and I turn away, covering my face.
“Oh, good, you’re still here,” I hear the measured voice of Victoria say. “I need you to take out one of the clips you wanted to use. It gives away too much.”
It’s quiet for a beat, and I hold back my sniffling, not wanting her to hear me.
Then I hear Luke say: “Let’s go to your office.” The door clicks shut behind them.
I choke out a sob, all alone now. The moment over, the curse . . . in full effect.
I don’t wait for Luke to come back; I already know what will happen anyway. It’ll be too much to take, so I grab my bag off the floor and slip out the door.
Once outside, I order an Uber, walking to the gates just outside the studio where a driver can pick me up.
It only takes five minutes for the car to arrive, and I hop in the back.
The tears keep coming as we drive away, heading toward my apartment. The driver asks me if I’m okay, checking on me in his rearview mirror every now and then.
I’m definitely not okay. I’m not sure I’ve been worse, to be honest.
When we get on the 134, I realize I don’t want to go home right now.
“I’m sorry, can I change my destination?”
The driver takes pity on me, probably because of all the crying, and gets off on an exit before heading back the way we came.
It’s not long before I’m at my parents’ home. I thank him and quickly get out, walking up to the front door.
The house is quiet when I walk inside, but as soon as I enter the kitchen, I find Gigi sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, concentrating on her cereal. She only gives me a quick glance before going back to it.
“Where are Mom and Dad?”
It’s then that she really looks at me, when she hears the thickness in my voice.
She frowns. “They went to go buy more flowers for your mom’s garden,” she says. “Why are you crying?”
I sit down in the chair next to her, my bag slipping to the floor. I can’t stop crying long enough to tell her what happened.
She pats my hand, a tender move for Gigi. “I heard you cry many times growing up. This one sounds to me like heartbreak.”
I choke on a sob.
“The curse?” she asks, and I nod.
Her face softens. “Was it Luke?”
“Yes,” I say, getting the one word out, grabbing a napkin from the holder my mom always keeps on the table.
“I saw how you looked at him at dinner last Friday. Tell me about it.”
I calm down enough to explain everything that happened back at the studio. How I’ve been trying to avoid my feelings and not let the relationship progress because I was worried about what would happen if we kissed.
“So basically, exactly what I was trying to avoid happened,” I tell her, a fresh set of tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Last time we talked, just you and me, you asked me what I would’ve done if your grampa had walked away after he kissed me,” she says.
“You told me you would've been devastated, but you still would've kissed him. Because you had to know,” I say, then hiccup.
She chuckles. “That’s right.”
She sets her spoon down, folding her hands on the table, looking at me the way she does when she’s about to say something she means.
“You know what your problem is? You’ve been treating this curse like a math problem. Like if you just kiss enough men, eventually you’ll land on the right answer.” She shakes her head. “That’s not how love works, my dear. There’s not a formula for it.”
“So what do I do?” I ask, wiping my nose with the napkin.
“You try again,” she says. “I did with your grandfather. And it wasn’t because I was confident it would work—it was because I couldn’t stand the thought of not trying.”
This is stupid advice. “Gigi, you only tried again with grampa because he didn’t run away. He was just confused.”
“Did Luke run away?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, but then I think about it. “No, actually, he got pulled away for work.”
Gigi just shrugs.
“But I was there, Gigi. I saw the look on his face; it was just like every other time. He wasn’t confused. He forgot.”
“Or maybe,” Gigi says, picking her spoon back up, “you saw what you expected to see.”
Later that night while I’m lying in my bed, I think about what Gigi said.
I imagine myself trying again with Luke, but this time with none of our history. Because if the curse did its work, he has no memory of his feelings for me anymore.
Could I try again on the chance that I’m wrong, and stand losing him all over again?
I don’t know. But Gigi’s voice keeps coming back to me.
You saw what you expected to see.