“Ness—”
“It doesn’t matter. Notanymore.”
“If it didn’t matter anymore, then you wouldn’t look like you were about to have a meltdown.” He didn’t lower his arm. “You might’ve changed, but I haven’t. I’m still a greatlistener.”
My lips quirked into the smallest of smiles. “I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather gnaw off my arm then have a heart-to-heart with you about boys. No offense, but it would just be weird. And not because of the link, but because you’re aguy.”
He still didn’t lower hisarm.
“Fine. Want to tell me why you broke up with Sienna?” I asked, trying to prove a point, not because I wanted to discuss hisex.
The memory of the other night twisted in my gut like a dagger. Once the initial shock of finding Liam with another woman had worn off, I’d realized that something else had hurt even more: the fact that he’d done this with so many people present. It was tacky.Again, though, he hadn’t cheated on me. I had to stop seeing this as a betrayal. He’d betrayed noone.
“No,” Augustsaid.
It took me a second to remember what question he was answering. “See?”
He finally lowered his arm to let me through. I walked over to Evelyn and Isobel and talked exclusively with them for the next two hours. The skin on the back of my neck prickled more than once. At some point, I turned around to see if I was going crazy or if someone was watching me. I caught Auguststaring.
At least I wasn’t goingcrazy.
I squeezed a smile onto my lips, feeling as though our talk had somehow dismantled some of the tension between us. If only a talk could also dismantle ourlink.
Five moremonths.
What was five moremonths?
34
There wasa knock on the office’s glass door. I looked away from the three tabs I’d opened on the desktop to check who’darrived.
“Hey,August.”
He walked toward me, hands in the pockets of a pair of olive-green cargo pants that had a couple small tears in them, as though they’d gotten snagged on the constructionsite.
“I bought cake for one of the guys. It’s his birthday. Wantsome?”
“Um. Sure.” I started to wheel myself away from the desk when I caught the time on the upper right hand corner of the screen. “Actually, I’m going to have to take a raincheck on that cake.” I gathered up my stuff and wedged it inside mybag.
“Goingsomewhere?”
“Driving test. I sent your dad an email that I’d be taking off for anhour.”
“Oh.” He thumbed the seam of hislips.
“Was I supposed to inform you,too?”
He dropped his hand from his face and shook his head. “Break a leg, or should I say a sidemirror?”
I smiled. “I think that if I break a side mirror, I won’t get mylicense.”
His thick lips crooked into a smile. “Yeah. Try to avoidthat.”
“Will you be here when I comeback?”
He nodded. “I’m working from the warehousetoday.”
“Good. Because I found some discrepancies on invoices from this one lumber company. Anyway I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I come back.” I dashed through the warehouse just as my phone startedringing.
