Page 98 of All the way home

Dismay trickles through her in rivulets. When had this happened?

The lump at the base of her throat has grown tight and hot, large enough that it’s hard to swallow. She wants to grab Lucas by the shirt and shake him. She wants to stare right into his eyes and ask, Do you know me? Have you been listening?

When was the last time she and Lucas got coffee together?

She can’t remember.

“Are you okay?” Lucas asks her. “I can get you another coffee, if that one’s bad.”

“This one’s fine,” Rena manages, finally swallowing down the knot in her throat, willing her hands to stay steady. Maybe caffeine isn’t the best idea. In case he doesn’t believe her, she adds, “Thank you.”

It’s not that she doesn’t like coffee with cream.

It’s—it’s that little details used to matter.

In the beginning, they’d mattered.

One evening a few weeks after their first kiss, when they were studying at a café, Rena looked up from her work to find Lucas frowning at her, like she was a puzzle he was trying to put together.

She frowned back. “Are you thinking about something upsetting?”

The frown vanished. With a little shake of his head, he said, “No, not at all.”

“Okay.” She returned her attention to her books.

“You haven’t touched your drink.”

Rena had been stuck waiting for a piano lesson to end, so she’d been late to their date. The lesson had taken longer than usual because Kieran was being—to quote Mrs. Buchler, “obscene about Chopin,” whatever that meant—so by the time she’d arrived, Lucas had already bought her a black tea.

In his defense, she’d told him she liked tea, so it was a fair assumption.

“Is there something wrong with it?”

Rena winced.

But Lucas had asked, so it was a fair assumption that he wanted to know the real answer, even if it wasn’t one he would like very much.

So she told him, “I just don’t really like black tea. Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“It was very sweet of you, though.”

He ran a hand through his hair, seeming a little bit embarrassed, which was exactly what she’d hoped wouldn’t happen. “What kind of tea do you like?”

“White tea best,” she told him. “Green is good too.”

Lucas pulled out his phone and tapped something quickly into the Notes app—Rena recognized the color of the background in the split second before he tilted the screen away.

“What’s that?”

“It’s—nothing.” Cheeks pink, Lucas pocketed his phone.

“No, it’s not,” Rena said, even though it was obvious, because she had a feeling it might make his ears go pink too.

It did.

“What is it?”