Chapter 28 #2
I . . . stared at her. Laughed quietly to myself at the way she wrinkled her nose when she passed the butcher counter, how she hovered indecisively between the risotto station and the pizza oven.
“I can’t pick,” she finally whined, spinning toward me with her hands dramatically outstretched. “Everything looks too good.”
“You always did have commitment issues.” I teased her, grabbing her by the wrist and gently steering her toward a quieter corner. “C’mon. Let’s sit before you faint from indecision.”
She rolled her eyes but followed, and we snagged a small two-top tucked near the back, surrounded by shelves of olive oil and wine.
“You good?”
“Yeah. That was . . . fun. I forgot what it felt like to just be.” She glanced around the restaurant. “You okay?”
My brows pulled together. “What?”
She nodded subtly toward the display. “Being around all this booze?”
I followed her gaze, then leaned back in my chair. “Yeah. I’m not drinking, obviously. But I’m fine.”
She let out a little breath and nodded. “I won’t drink either.” Then she looked down at the table, suddenly quiet. “I was an asshole to Austin.”
“Shit. I forgot you saw him over the holidays. How is he?”
She looked up. “Good. Sober.”
“That’s . . . that’s good.”
There was a beat.
“So what’d you do?”
“I brought in a bottle of wine,” she admitted, eyes darting away from mine. “Nova and Dirks thought it was a dick move.”
I blinked, then rubbed my jaw. “Kinda is, Lune.”
She groaned, burying her face in her hands for a second. “Fuck, I know. I-I wanted to see if he was legit sober. Because Nova has a baby now. Scarlette. I needed to be sure before . . . ”
“Fuck.” I leaned back, watching her wrestle with the guilt. “But Luna . . . ”
She cut me off, hand flying up. “Please don’t ‘But Luna’ me. I know it was fucked up.”
I nodded slowly. A lecture wouldn’t help, and it wasn’t my place anymore. She already knew she’d fucked up. She wouldn’t be bringing it up now if she didn’t.
“I’m glad he’s doing well,” I said quietly.
She looked down at her hands, thumbs fidgeting against each other. “Was it hard?”
I tilted my head. “What?”
“Getting sober.”
I stared at her for a long moment, the noise of the restaurant fading out behind her words.
“Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done—and not because of the drinking. That part . . . I could white-knuckle through that. It was the sitting with myself part. The silence. The shame. The shit I did to you. To him. To me.”
She swallowed, her lips parting slightly like she wanted to say something, but didn’t.
“Some days it still sucks, but it sucks less when I remember why I did it.”
She looked up then. “Why did you?”
“For me, and maybe, somewhere under all that, for the chance to be sitting here like this.”
She blinked fast, like she was trying not to cry, then reached toward the small basket of bread that had been waiting at the center of the table since we sat down. She tore into a piece like it gave her something to do with her hands. “Don’t get soft on me, Jeremy.”
I smirked. “Wouldn’t dare.”
She snorted, and for a split second, I swore I felt that old magic again. That spark that lived in the cracks of our broken past.
We were tucked in the pasta section, warm lights glinting off silverware, the smell of garlic and butter clinging to the air. The waitress brought our steaming bowls of pasta over.
I reached for my water and cleared my throat. “So . . . what made you come back?”
“Will.”
I stilled. “Will,” I repeated, careful not to let it come out like a punch.
“Yeah.” She gave a hollow laugh. “We were together in London. Almost four years.”
I swallowed. “That’s a long time.”
“Felt longer.” She poked at her pasta, not eating. “He was good to me. Stable. He made it easy to stop thinking, stop reaching, stop . . . dreaming.”
“You loved him?”
She hesitated. “I loved the idea of him. The quiet. The safety. But not him—not the way I needed to.”
I nodded, jaw tight. “So why stay?”
Her eyes flicked up to mine, stormy and brimming with something I couldn’t name. “Because I was tired. Because it was easier to be someone else than face the version of me that got left behind when everything fell apart.”
“Luna . . . ”
“He never hurt me,” she added quickly. “But he didn’t see me. Not the way you did. Not the way Dirks does.”
My chest tightened.
“I stopped laughing. I taught, I came home, I existed. One day, Dirks called. I don’t even remember what he said, but his voice . . . ” She looked up, tears glassing her eyes. “It pulled me out of whatever fog I was in. Like—like I remembered I had a heartbeat again.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
“I realized I missed home a lot. I went to London for my best friend, but I needed to come back home for . . . me.”
“Does it feel like home?”
“No. Not until now.”
I let out a slow breath. “Lune . . . ”
She looked at me then, full-on, no flinching. “I didn’t come back for Dirks. I came back for me. But also . . . I think I came back hoping I hadn’t lost you. Not completely.”
Something cracked inside me.
“I used to think you were the only person who really saw me,” she whispered. “Even when I didn’t want to be seen.”
I swallowed. “This friends shit is hard.”
Luna gasped so loudly, heads turned. She dropped her spoon and slapped a hand over her chest. “Did Jeremy . . . share his feelings?”
“Shut up,” I muttered, fighting a smirk as I shoved a forkful of pasta in my mouth.
She was still laughing when she leaned over, eyes gleaming. “Gimme a bite.”
I rolled my eyes, but my hand was already holding the fork out to her. “You’re lucky I like you.”
“I know,” she said with a smirk. “I’m everyone’s favorite.”