Chapter 25 - Luna
I don't make it ten feet from the motorhome before everything Mars just said starts replaying in my head.
"Every time I look at you, every inch of me wants to touch you, kiss you, love you."
My heart did something embarrassingly soft when he said it, and that feels like a betrayal of the very firm conversation I had with him yesterday.
I meant what I told him then. Forgiving him for believing Atlas's death was his fault is one thing and trusting him with my heart again after he disappeared when I needed him most is something completely different.
Except now he's here. He's alive, close enough to touch, and every time I look at him I keep finding pieces of the Mars I loved mixed in with this changed version.
There are moments when he looks at me and I remember exactly what it felt like to be his.
Kissing until my lips hurt, laughing into his chest, believing him when he told me we had all the time in the world to figure out what came next.
Then I remember waking up after losing my entire family and discovering I'd lost him too.
Both things are true, and I have no idea what to do with that.
It would be so much easier if Mars was the only man screwing with my head.
A hysterical laugh almost escapes me as I cross toward the Escalade.
Not that long ago I told Gage all of us needed to start living again, that we should start dating.
At no point during that conversation did I think the universe might interpret it as, Excellent idea, Luna. How about you date all of them?
I drag a hand over my hot face. This is insane. I can’t have feelings for all of them and they sure as heck can’t all have feelings for me. It just won't work.
"I’m losing my mind."
Kara is leaning against the Escalade when I reach it, arms crossed over her chest and sunglasses hiding her eyes.
I head toward her because right now I need another woman, preferably one who isn't my grandmother and therefore won't immediately suggest an orgy as a practical solution to my romantic problems.
Before I can say anything, the motorhome door opens behind me. Mars steps out carrying a travel mug, and I tell myself not to look, then look anyway. He pauses at the bottom of the steps, scans the rest area, and heads toward the Jeep.
Kara follows my gaze, and I feel her attention shift back to me even through the sunglasses.
"Please don’t."
Her mouth curves. "I haven't said anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to ask a perfectly innocent question."
"Nothing about that smile is innocent."
She pushes her sunglasses up onto her head. "Didn't you just come out of there?"
I let my head fall back against the Escalade. "Yes."
"And then Mars came out after you."
"Yup."
"Have a nice chat?"
My head turns enough to look at her. "I don't know if nice is the word I'd use."
"Oh?"
That one tiny sound somehow contains enough interest to power a gossip column for six months. I sigh before answering her. "I asked if we could try being friends again."
Her brows lift. "And?"
"He said yes."
"That seems nice."
"He also told me he's never going to stop wanting me, never going to stop loving me, and that he's going to keep fighting for us."
Kara's eyebrows climb higher.
"Awkward."
"Again…yup."
"But..." She draws the word out while she studies me. "Is that something you would want?"
I stare at her until she holds up a hand. "I don't mean right now. I'm not saying you should climb back into bed with the man during a ten-minute bathroom break. I mean someday. If he actually proves he's changed and you trust him again, would you want him back?"
Yesterday my answer was immediate. Today it gets tangled somewhere between my heart and my mouth.
"I said no when he asked me yesterday." I fold my arms across my middle and look toward Mars again, standing beside the Jeep with his back to me. "And I meant it, Kar. He left me. I can't just forget that because I understand why he did it now."
"I'm not saying you should forget."
"I know." I scuff at the pavement with my boot while I struggle to explain something I barely understand myself.
"But damn it, seeing him again brings back all these feelings I thought were gone.
I really believed they were gone. For two years I turned loving him into hating him because that was easier than admitting how much it hurt that he left. "
Kara stays quiet and gives me room to get through it.
"Now I don't hate him anymore, and all the other stuff is still under there." I press my lips together. "Then there's..."
The rest of it dies in my throat, and Kara's slow smile makes me want to rewind those last two words.
"Ah."
"There is nothing to 'ah' about, Kara."
"There's the other problem."
"There is no other problem."
"The feelings you have for every one of the of the guys and their feelings for you?"
My head jerks toward her. "I do not have feelings for all of them."
She laughs directly in my face.
"Kara!"
"Please. Remember who you're talking to."
"I know exactly who I'm talking to, which is why I expected more support and less mocking."
"This is support." She straightens away from the SUV and turns toward me. "Luna, there is no judgment coming from me. None. But I'm also not going to stand here and pretend I don't have eyes."
Heat starts creeping up my neck. "What does that mean?"
"It means not one of those men looks at you the way a friend looks at a friend, and you already know it."
My cheeks are burning now. "That's ridiculous."
"It's really not."
"What about Atlas?"
"What about him?"
"They were his friends. I'm his little sister."
"You're a grown woman who has been making her own decisions for a long time."
"That's not what I mean."
"I know." Her expression softens. "When your family died, everything changed, and those four built their whole lives around you. Something that size doesn't stay friendly."
My stomach flips, because part of me wants to deny every word while another part starts replaying a thousand small moments in a completely different light.
They never left, not one of them, not once, not even on the days I made it almost impossible for anyone to want to stay.
My throat tightens, and then my brain helpfully reminds me of all the moments with each of them over the last two days that have felt different…
more than the friendships we’ve had for so long.
"This cannot be my life."
Kara grins at me. "Could be worse."
"How?"
"Well, they're all good looking. You could have five ugly men obsessed with you."
"Shut up." I groan.
She laughs and hooks her arm through mine. "Look, I'm personally all for you having your cake and eating it too."
"Kara!"
"What? Why should you have to choose?"
"Because that's how relationships work."
"Who says?"
"I don't know, society?"
She glances around the completely deserted truck stop. "Society seems to be having some attendance issues."
That gets a reluctant laugh out of me, and Kara squeezes my arm.
"I'm serious. You have spent two years learning the hardest possible lesson about how fast people can be taken away.
If you love them and they love you, then maybe stop worrying so much about what the correct shape of that love is supposed to be. "
"I don't even know if I love them like that."
"Then figure it out before they start planning the wedding orgy."
My mouth falls open. "There will not be a wedding orgy."
"Fine. Reception orgy. More room once the tables get moved."
"Why did I come talk to you?"
"Because deep down you appreciate my wisdom."
I shake my head, but I'm smiling anyway, because this is too ridiculous not too.
Kara turns serious again. "You deserve all the love you can get, Luna. However much that ends up being and whoever it comes from. Take it. Take all of it."
The low growl of an engine cuts off whatever I might have said, and both of us turn toward the highway entrance.
A large charter bus is pulling into the rest stop with two work trucks following close behind it, and every trace of humor drains away.
Kara's arm slips free of mine as we straighten.
Gigi comes up beside us with Briar trailing a few steps behind her, while Dana, Kim, Sheila, and the kids stay closer to their own vehicles.
Gage, Torrin, Jules, and Reid converge on us without anyone needing to call them over.
"Well," Gigi murmurs. "Company."
The bus and trucks cross the empty lot and turn into the row opposite ours.
Mars shifts farther forward, putting himself between the new vehicles and the rest of us. Anders notices and heads his way immediately, with Stu and Gord falling in beside him.
The guys tense around me. I can feel the change in Gage without even looking at him, and Torrin comes closer to my other side while Reid watches the bus with suspicion.
Jules takes off his sunglasses and folds them slowly before sliding them into the neck of his shirt.
Nobody moves but every one of them is ready to if needed.
The charter bus door stays closed while the work trucks shut off. Silence settles over the whole lot and makes it feel too large, with two groups of strangers staring at each other across empty pavement.
One of the truck doors opens. A man in work boots and a reflective jacket climbs out, another gets out from the passenger side, and three more emerge from the second truck.
Gigi studies them. "Pass," she says quietly.
My head turns toward her. "What?"
Another man climbs down from the truck.
"Pass."
Kara makes a choking sound beside me.
I stare at my grandmother. "Are you rating them?"
"Pass."
"Gigi."
"What? We're just standing here. Why not?"
A younger guy with a baseball cap steps around the back of the truck.
"Pass."
Kara presses her fist against her mouth.
"This is not the time," I whisper.
Gigi slides her sunglasses lower down her nose. "There's always time."
The charter bus door finally folds open with a pneumatic hiss and a man steps down first, maybe in his late thirties, wearing jeans and a work jacket. He stops at the bottom and looks toward Anders and the others.
"Pass," Gigi says.
The next man down is older, maybe late fifties or early sixties, tall and broad through the shoulders. He has thick silver hair, a matching mustache, and a weathered face that belongs on a billboard for expensive whiskey.
Gigi perks up, then pushes her sunglasses back up.
"Oh, my. Hellooo, Smash."
My mouth drops open while Kara explodes into laughter.
"Gigi!"
"What?"
"That's so inappropriate!"
She rolls her eyes and pats my arm. "Sweetheart, please. You know my middle name is Inappropriate."
I look toward the men across from us in horror, praying none of them heard her but Gigi isn't finished hammering her point home.
"Never forget, you owe your existence to a drunken threesome that resulted in your mother."
My brain stops working entirely.
"What?"
Beside me, Kara doubles over. I can only stare at my grandmother while the full horror of that sentence fights its way through. "What do you mean a drunken threesome resulted in my mother?"
Gage's head turns toward us slowly, Torrin does the same from my other side, Reid's mouth falls open, and even Jules blinks. All four of them stare at me.
"Why are you looking at me?" I demand. "I didn't know!"
Jules is the first one to recover. His gaze travels over me, one corner of his mouth rises, and he gives me a slow, cocky wink. Heat floods my entire face.
Torrin bites his bottom lip fighting a smile. Gage looks ready to scrub the last thirty seconds out of his brain, and Reid has suddenly become fascinated with a crack in the pavement.
"Stop it," I hiss at all of them.
"I didn't say anything," Jules says.
"You winked."
"Can't a man blink anymore?"
"That was not a blink, it was most certainly a wink. There's a difference."
"Aggressive accusation, Cin."
Gage drags a hand down his face. "Can we maybe focus on the bus full of strangers?"
"Thank you!" I say with relief.
"Excellent idea," Reid mutters.
The guys move forward to join Mars, Anders, Stu, and Gord, and Gage gives Jules a shove between the shoulder blades that earns him a laugh. I look at Gigi in disbelief, and she winks at me.
"There. Now we've welcomed all these new people with laughter instead of suspicion. My work here is done."
"You just told my entire friend group that my mother was conceived during a threesome."
"Information is power, granddaughter."
"What possible power does that information give anyone?"
"None whatsoever, unless you count the power to make you uncomfortable - but look how much less tense everyone is."
I cover my face with both hands. "Jesus Christ, Gigi."
Kara is still laughing beside me while my grandmother pats me on the back.
"You're welcome, darling."
I glance toward the men. Mars and the other four have formed a solid line beside him across the front of our group. Anders, Gord, and Stu haven't relaxed by a single degree. Across from them, more people are stepping down from the charter bus.
Maybe we aren’t as tense, but I definitely don’t think we’re relaxed either.