Chapter 12
TWELVE
“I’M NOT IN LOVE”/“SHADOWBOXER”
We met at Randy’s Donuts, which were awesome, but we were a Bosa family, so it was highly unlikely anyone would catch us there, exactly why we were meeting at Randy’s.
I didn’t know why I came.
That scene a couple of weeks ago at Knox’s house, when what we were went up in smoke, was enough to end a girl.
Especially when that girl had to pretend, every day with everyone in her life, that it never happened at all.
But part of me was hoping Knox asking me here was about him having had some time to think about what he said, how he said it (loudly), his demands, that they were totally out of line, and he wanted us to figure it out and get back together.
I arrived first, which sucked.
But I was able to get my favorites, and his, and buy us both a cup of coffee, so at least I was fortified with caffeine and a couple of hits on a buttermilk glazed.
He showed…and damn.
Watching him walk in, tall, broad and beautiful?
I hadn’t come close to resuscitating myself since we ended.
But still.
I died another death.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen him since. In the world I never wanted to live in, where we gave it a go and discovered we were awesome, and then it all fell apart, this was what I’d been trying to avoid.
At the look on his face, I had hope, because his beautiful hazel eyes ringed with their dark, dark lashes never left me from the second he entered, and he looked as wasted as I felt.
After he sat across from me, I slid the apple fritter and bear claw his way, then his paper cup of coffee—milk, not cream, no sugar.
He looked down at it then at me with a soft, poignant smile on his face.
And there was another death.
“Remembered,” he muttered.
“It was only a couple of weeks ago,” I replied, took a sip of coffee, then said, “Okay, I’m here. You’re here. But why am I here?”
“Shit has been weird between us.”
Well…duh.
“Around the others,” he continued.
I’ll repeat…
Duh.
“What happened at the Christmas party can’t happen again,” he carried on.
Yeah, at the Oasis Square Christmas party, we’d gotten into it.
It was silly shit.
I’d told him I had a present for him, bought before we broke up, and I wanted to get rid of it by giving it to him.
Okay, so perhaps in an alternate universe I’d admit that using the words “get rid of it” were not the strong choice if I wanted to avoid an altercation (but I’d only admit that in an alternate universe).
He told me he was uncomfortable accepting it because he hadn’t gotten around to getting me anything (men and their last-minute Christmas shopping, ulk).
I told him that didn’t matter, my gift didn’t really matter, but I couldn’t return it because the return window had closed, and I couldn’t use it.
He told me, if the gift didn’t matter, then I could just give it to one of the other guys.
I told him I didn’t buy it for one of the other guys, I bought it for him.
He suggested that our discussion was not about the gift, but about something else, and maybe we should take time to have a chat (and now I suspected the chat he’d been suggesting was supposed to be like the one we were having now at Randy’s).
I told him we’d said what needed to be said, and that was not going to happen.
This degenerated to some harsh words, some curse words, me poking him in the chest (yeah, I did that, so lame) and both of us storming off in opposite directions.
Though, obviously since then, I changed my mind about the chat.
“We need to figure this out, Luna,” he concluded.
That was exactly why I changed my mind about the chat.
“And what do you want out of this, Knox?” I asked.
“I want you in my life,” he stated immediately and inflexibly.
My heart leapt to my throat with hope.
“We were friends before, babe. We can get there again,” he went on.
My heart shriveled to nothing.
Friends.
He wanted to be friends.
The fuck of it was, to keep things copacetic with our crew, neither of us had any choice.
We had to go back to being friends.
“What we had, Luna,” he said softly before I could share my thoughts, “it was fantastic. I’ll never remember it any other way. And you’re you. I can’t lose you. So I want you how I can have you, and that’s how I can have you.”
I thought what we had was fantastic too.
But it wasn’t.
It was just fantasy.
I knew this because, in the intervening time, he hadn’t thought on things and come to me to work it out.
He hadn’t talked to Cap about how Cap didn’t really love Raye being an Angel, but it was a huge part of who Raye was, so he found a way to deal with it.
He hadn’t talked to Eric, who had lived through some of the Rock Chick/Hot Bunch stuff, and had definitely been around for their decade plus of being married, happy, making babies and raising them.
All of those men and women finding a way for everyone to be just who they were without someone demanding they excise a chunk of that to have their man.
No.
He'd come here knowing we were done and wanting to be friends.
“I want you in my life too, so I guess that’s where we’re going,” I mumbled.
He smiled, and this one was relieved. He then reached out to grab my hand.
His was bigger than mine. Stronger. He had calluses that felt good when they were scraping over my skin, but now, they were a form of torture as he stroked the palm of my hand with his thumb.
“We’ll work this out, Loon,” he whispered. “We mean too much to each other not to.”
“You’re right.”
And he was.
That was the kicker.
He’d find somebody, for sure, and I’d have to watch that shit.
I’d find somebody, maybe, and would he care?
A couple of weeks, he’d moved on.
It was over.
I was eating donuts with the man I loved but I’d never have.
“And we were right to make that time just ours,” he continued. “Now, no one knows, and no one needs to know.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
I mean, could I go the rest of my bestie eternity with Raye never telling her I had a thing with her man’s best friend?
I didn’t think so.
I didn’t even want to.
“Promise, Luna,” he said in his soft, sweet voice. “We need to make a pact right now to keep that just ours so that’s all it’ll ever be. Ours.”
Ours.
Well, since he put it like that.
“Promise,” I muttered.
He smiled and gave my hand a squeeze.
I let that happen before I pulled free and grabbed my buttermilk.
“Eat up, bud,” I invited.
He gave me another smile.
We ate and drank coffee and chatted, just like friends.
For my part I did it not because I wanted to.
But because I had no choice.
* * *
I came to work the next morning twenty minutes late on purpose, just to be a bitch.
I was at the register, clocking in, when Raye was on me like a rash.
“Back off,” I said to the register.
“Can we go to the staff room and talk?” she requested.
I turned my head to look at her.
She recoiled when I did.
I knew why.
My eyes were puffy and bloodshot from practically zero sleep and a whole lot of crying.
“Luna,” she whispered.
I turned fully to her. “You know, I’ve tried to be a good sister to Dream.”
“Honey.” She was still whispering.
I could see the mortification in her face, and I knew how bad she felt about what she’d said.
Even so, I kept talking.
“I did my best. Recently, as I’ve already told you, I’ve been trying something new.
And it’s coming to me that I was doing what I thought she needed, but she might need something else, and I have to figure out what that is.
I think I’m actually making headway. I’m not sure we’ll ever be best buds.
What I am sure of is that I went to her after Knox got shot, and she didn’t shovel even the minutest amount of shit.
She took care of me. It didn’t last long, but she has sister in her.
I just have to find out how to dig it out. ”
“Okay,” she replied.
“I know you never got that chance with Macy.” Macy, not incidentally, was Raye’s sister who’d been kidnapped and murdered. “There’s no debate what you lost and what I’ve struggled to have are two entirely different things. But that was tremendously uncool, you threw that in my face.”
“It was. Totally. I’m so sorry. I don’t—”
“I know Knox gave his version of events to Cap.”
She shut her mouth.
“And Cap gave them to you.”
She didn’t confirm or deny verbally, but I saw the confirmation in her eyes.
Right.
“You are absolutely correct. It was not okay I lied to your face for so long. But I did it because Knox asked me to. I’m in love with him, it was the last thing I could give him, that last thing we could share, so I agreed.
Maybe you don’t think that’s right. I don’t even know if it was right.
But even if I had it to live again, I’d probably do the same damned thing. ”
Her eyes were full of hurt for me, and that was somewhere I couldn’t go because I felt it a hundred-fold, and I wasn’t about to burst into tears at the SC register, so I just kept talking.
“I’m not going to give you shit about how entirely fucked up it is you didn’t ask me where I was at before you let what you were feeling guide your mouth.
I’m gonna let you sit with that. The other thing I’m not going to do is tell you my version.
Knox clearly doesn’t feel this same way, but I actually give a shit what you all think of him.
So even if he is what he is, we’ve become what we’ve become, and I already know I’m all kinds of stupid, I’m still going to keep being that and protect him from anyone knowing.
Protect him from the peanut gallery having their takes on something that’s none of their business.
I might someday change my mind, when it doesn’t hurt so damned much, but now, that’s where I’m sticking. ”
“I…you…you’ve been crying.”
“That wasn’t you. It was him. We had it out last night like planned and it didn’t go well. He and I are done and the rest of you are just going to have to deal with it.”
Color ran from her face. “Done?”
“So very much done.”