Her hand lands on mine as I’m placing another cats eye onto the table. “If you tell me you’re not ‘loves me, loves me not’-ing those shells, I won’t believe you.”
I drop the shell.
“Did I say it out loud?”
She laughs. “You might as well have. So. You realise you have feelings for your man, but you’re not sure about his.”
“Things are a little more complicated.”
“Try me.”
Her eyes are too kind. The kind that pulls words out of you. A panicked laugh shoots up my throat, and with it an ache. And then I’m telling her everything, sharing the whole big mess of it right from the beginning.
“Little more complicated?” she huffs a wild laugh. “I wondered how we were keeping the studio afloat.” She looks me in the eye. “That’s... quite the acting job you have.”
“It’s more than a job,” I say, swallowing a hiccup. “They’ve become my life.”
“You’ve been happier these last months. I can see the glow in your eyes.”
“Where’s the part where you tell me off?”
“I get it,” she says finally. “What Trent’s doing for his grandpa—it feels like an act of love to me.” She glances at my love-me, love-me-not shells. “And in the process you two fell for one another. That’s an amazing amount of warm-fuzzy feelings.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Yeah.”
I wait, and stare at her.
“What?” she says.
“Where’s your advice?”
“Oh. Hell if I’d know. Maybe it’s good you’re off to Palmerston North; distance can temper things. Put things into perspective.”
I tap a shell against the back of her hand. “First you tell me not to run away, and now...”
“It’s not running away. It’s just a bit of space to think before coming back to face things.” She nods towards the shells. “So, does he love you? Or does he not?”
I pluck out the rest of the shells and?—
I sweep them hurriedly back into the bag. “It’s just a silly divination.”
“The universal language of smittenhood.”
“Divinations?”
“Silliness. There’s a reason why the saying’s ‘idiots in love’.”
I drop my head onto my arm with a groan.
Moana pats my back. “Just wait. It’ll get worse before it gets better.”
I groan louder. “That’s your pep talk?”
She dings her glass against mine.
breakwater
