Page 15 of The Break-Up Pact

“Got it?” Sana asks, her attention pointedly aimed at me.

“Right,” I manage, just as Levi lets out a quick “Of course.”

“You’ll also have to diligently loop me in on your plans so I can document them.” She taps her computer with one of her bright red nails. “I’m the one here with a finger on the pulse of your mildly unhinged fan base. I’ll figure out which outlets to send material to and when. All you guys have to do is eat scones and look pretty.”

This is all happening so fast that I think I might have main character whiplash. Yesterday, Levi and I were sad B-characters in other people’s romances. Now we’re hijacking the stage.

Before I can overthink it and ask a dozen more questions, Sana hoists her backpack and blows us a sloppy, wide-armed kiss on her way out the door. “Text me details for the first fake date. I have no plans. I’m around literally every moment of every day. Weird how that sounded less pathetic in my head! Good night!”

The bell on the door clangs and leaves a tense silence in its wake. I’m half expecting Levi to come to his senses and call this whole thing off. He wasn’t built for this. He’s so wary of attention that even when we were teenagers and he and Annie were talking about writing bestsellers one day, he swore he’d write under a pseudonym.

But he must really want Kelly back, because when he clears his throat, he seems as determined now as he was a few minutes ago.

“Well. I also have no plans, and you’re tied down here,” says Levi. “So let me know when you’re free, and I’ll figure out someplace we can go.”

I take a step back to lean into the edge of the front counter, leveling with him.

“That’s sweet. And I want to trust you with that task. But know that if you take me to another scream poetry reading, I will fake break up with you so loudly they’ll think I’m in the performance lineup.”

Levi lets out a sharp, gratifying laugh. “I swear I thought the flier said slam poetry.”

My lips curl as I remember the look of absolute bone-deep alarm on Levi’s face when the first poet took the stage and started bellowing about her cat sitter ghosting her at the top of her lungs. That was the last Friday night Levi was allowed to pick where we all hung out for a long time.

“Sorry, what?” I lean in closer. “I can’t hear you. My ears are still ringing.”

Levi leans in to meet me, and I think he’s going to say something teasing. But his tone is nothing but sincere when he says, “Fake dating aside, it’ll be nice to hang out again like we used to.”

Levi’s smile settles, and something in my chest does, too. We’ll be fine. This friendship we have now might feel fragile, but that doesn’t make the foundation of it any less deep. The world will think we’re dating, but in reality, we’ll just be finding our way back to what we once were—Levi and June, two people who shared friends and made-up stories and long runs on the beach. In some ways, that alone makes this worth it.

Then Levi shifts his weight to his other foot. “Sana’s right, though. We should talk rules.”

My eyes sweep to the floor. “I don’t think we need to make any.”

The thing is, if we set rules, it’s only going to make this seem like a bigger deal than it is. Like we’d be taking a microscope to every gesture between us, every touch. And I can’t have that. This is about saving Tea Tide. This is about Levi fixing his relationship. The more we focus on the intangible things, the less personal the extremely tangible touching will feel.

“I’d just worry about doing anything that might make you uncomfortable,” Levi says carefully.

Ah. He’s worried about sixteen-year-old swoony June coming out to play and getting her little heart crushed all over again. It would be a down-and-out lie to pretend I’m not attracted to Levi—the thoughts I keep having about him every time he gets close are absurdly too loud to ignore—but I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman in full possession of myself. I can set aside some biological rumblings for common sense. And common sense says even if Levi weren’t trying to win Kelly back, he doesn’t belong here. Not in Benson Beach, not in the old stories we used to make up together, and certainly not with me.

“How about this?” I propose. “Instead of rules, we just promise to be honest with each other. If one of us is uncomfortable, we just say so. And if either of us wants to call this whole charade quits, we drop it—no harm, no foul.”

Only after I say the words do I realize the deeper root of my unease. It’s not the pressure of playing this trick with Levi—it’s whatever comes after. We’ve only just started to repair our friendship. If this goes south, it might set us back all over again.

But if we walk away from it, we both have a lot more on the line than we’re prepared to lose.

Levi considers me with a long, searching look, as if he is considering this exact risk. I flush under the weight of his eyes on me but hold them with my own. Then he reaches out and puts a steady hand on my arm, the warmth of it tingling against my skin so immediately that some distant part of my brain thinks, Oh, shit.

“I’ll text you the address for scream poetry tomorrow.”

The grin that erupts on my face seems to spread right into Levi’s, whose eyes crinkle with delight.

“Perfect,” I say. “I’ll be the one in the giant earmuffs holding a warrant for your arrest.”

Levi nods. “It’s a date.”

The words are still rattling between my ears as he leaves, the full impact of them settling in. It’s a date. It’s a pact. It’s a new chance.

But more than that, it’s something to feel. Something other than brewing panic or gnawing guilt or grief. Something electric, something that gives energy instead of draining it; something I want to know the shape of so I can hold on to it even when it’s gone.

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