The Break-Up Pact by Emma Lord

Author:Emma Lord
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Chapter Fourteen

The earlier heat has been tamed by the darkness and a slight breeze, the parking lot all balmy and sweet with the kind of midsummer warmth that borders on magic. I close my eyes and breathe it in, a little lighter on my feet than I thought I’d be, enough that I almost lose my balance and end up grazing Levi’s arm with my own.

I straighten up to play it off but can’t quite wipe the stupid grin off my face, the aftermath of the kiss still humming in my lips. I can’t remember the last time I felt this electric, buzzing with so much energy it feels like I am outside the edges of myself, soaking in everyone else’s happiness right along with mine.

“Safe to say we can never show our faces at a single trivia night on the Eastern Seaboard again,” says Levi.

“Yeah.” This time I lean into him on purpose, and he seamlessly reaches his hand out and puts it in mine.

That potential is still thrumming between us, unspoken under the words we’re actually saying, but so loud that I’m barely registering anything else. Levi’s eyes catch mine again, and as he leans in, I feel a thrill that starts in my stomach and slides all the way up, arching in my back in anticipation of another kiss.

But instead he says quietly, “What if I didn’t go back to New York?”

The thrill goes flat in me before the words can settle. I blink up at him.

“You mean … what if you stayed in Benson Beach?” I ask.

Earlier I’d been worried that Levi was taking this situation with Kelly too lightly, that at any moment the reality of it was going to come crashing down. Over the course of the night, of the reminiscing and the catching up and the kiss, I forgot to worry about it. Only now it feels like reality is settling in the wrong place. Somewhere in me, instead of in him.

I stop at the edge of the parking lot, searching his face. “That’s a really big decision to make, Levi.”

“I know,” he says, tugging lightly on my arm. “That’s why I want to know what you think about it.”

“I…” Have no way of answering that without feeling like the most selfish person in the world. I glance down at the pavement, and then back up at him, and by then, I can see my uncertainty leaking right into him. “I think you might be getting ahead of yourself. Have you really thought through what that would mean?”

Levi presses his lips together, shifting his weight between his feet. “Do you not want me to be here?”

“Of course I do,” I say quickly. “I just…” I carefully pull my hand out from his, and I don’t miss the quick streak of hurt across his face. “You’ve lived in New York for a decade. We’ve been pretending to date for two weeks now so you could win back someone else. Someone you only decided to move on from a few hours ago.

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