Page 30 of The Break-Up Pact

I hesitate, the guilt wrapping itself around my throat. Dylan misinterprets the silence and lets out a cackle.

“Mom and Dad are gonna be so stressed when we have to throw another Hart wedding hot on the heels of the first one,” he says.

“All right, all right, rein it in,” I tease. “We’re barely a thing.”

I say it as preemptive damage control—I don’t want Dylan getting attached to the idea of me and Levi when we have an unclear but imminent expiration date—but also because it’s true. I haven’t even seen much of Levi these past few days. He agreed to help his dad at his auto shop while the buddy he co-runs it with is out of town. I’ve turned my head an embarrassing number of times in the back of Tea Tide to make quick remarks to Levi in the middle of the day only to remember he isn’t there.

But just under that disappointment is a quiet kind of relief. That body language expert’s words are still echoing in my ear, almost like a warning. Don’t get too close to Levi. Not just in the romantic sense, but the friend one, too. If he lets me down again, it’s going to take a long, long time to come back up. Hopefully these few days apart will be the reset I need to make sure I’ve got him at arm’s length again.

A length I’m about to put to the test, because he’s arriving in approximately five minutes.

“Hey, what are you up to tonight?” Dylan asks. “You could come over and watch a movie.”

“Oh. Actually—Levi and I are going to Happy Shores to check out the replacement DJ for the wedding,” I tell him. They had one picked out who ended up booked this time around, but in a bizarre stroke of luck, he has an identical twin who also DJs for a living. I’m mildly terrified imagining how hard their family must throw down at reunions, but grateful for the boon. “Do you want to join in?”

Dylan laughs. “As much as I’d love to see Levi bust a move in a club, I’ll have to sit that out. Mateo and I are both zonked from work, plus we’re about to call his mom to talk small bites for the cocktail hour and that’s probably going to take a while.”

If there’s one thing Dylan and his future mother-in-law have in common, it is a deep and abiding love for appetizer-based foods. Seeing as the rest of the plan is to have the main affair catered by Mateo’s uncles, whose tamales are so popular there’s often a line out the door at Sirena on weekends, we’re already in good hands.

“We’ll chill some other day this week, then,” I say, still riffling through the closet.

“Yeah. Text me a day that works for you,” says Dylan. “I haven’t seen your face in forever.”

“You could always look in a mirror and squint,” I joke.

He laughs again, but I don’t miss the way it tapers off. I feel that knot of guilt in me tighten again. Dylan was more jarred by our parents leaving for the West Coast after Annie’s death than I was; he’d been here the whole time I was traveling, part of our parents’ day-to-day in a way I never was as an adult. We’re the only family each other has close by now, and while we never take that for granted, every now and then, life gets in the way.

There’s a knock at the door that can only be Levi.

“Yeah, I’ll text you,” I tell Dylan quickly.

“Good. If you need me tonight, Mateo and I are gonna be rehearsing your cake meme so we can use it as our first dance.”

“Can’t wait to deeply alarm your wedding videographer. Love you, bro.”

“Love you too, sis.”

I hang up and call out to Levi to let him know he can come in, then grab the only dress I’ve spotted that fits the bill—a dark red bodycon dress with a V-neck and spaghetti straps that I wore when I was going out with friends in college.

I shove it on quickly, already clad in a pair of nude pumps I borrowed from Sana, my hair curled and makeup in place. I steal a quick glance at myself in the flimsy full-length mirror Annie and I used to jokingly push each other in and out of before school. The dress doesn’t fit like it used to, but not in a way I particularly mind—it’s absolutely tighter in the chest, giving me some subtle cleavage it never did back in my “going out” days, and it rides up a little higher than it used to, exposing more of my muscled running legs.

I walk out of the bedroom and into the front hall, and oh. Oh my. Levi has just hit a very specific kind of synapse I didn’t know my brain had, one that’s practically humming, it’s so pleased with itself. He’s wearing his usual jeans and a white T-shirt, but over it is a worn-out, dark brown leather jacket that is entirely too hot for late August and possibly entirely too hot for my eyes to behold. His hair is subtly gelled on the sides, just enough to give the curls on top a new depth that makes me want to run my fingers through them. He looks like he’s about to toss me on the back of a motorcycle, like he’s on his way to break a dozen hearts without breaking his stride.

What a deeply inconvenient time to discover that I have a thing for leather jackets. Or more specifically, a thing for Levi in a leather jacket.

I swallow hard, then worry Levi’s going to notice I’ve gone about as red as my dress. Only Levi seems to be every bit as distracted as I am. His eyes don’t meet mine, preoccupied with skimming the hem of the dress pressed against my upper thigh, the tight waist, the spot where one of the straps meets my collarbone.

Usually my first instinct would be to slouch or make some kind of joke. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable in my body. It’s just that dresses like this aren’t necessarily my style anymore. Between traveling and Tea Tide and running, I’m not used to wearing something that isn’t just for function. And after dating Griffin for so long, I’m not used to being noticed the way that Levi is so clearly, blatantly noticing me right now.

But I hold myself a little higher, a small smile curling on my lips. One that makes me feel like this dress has a quiet kind of magic I’d forgotten I like to play with. One that makes Levi give me a sheepish smile of his own when his eyes finally catch it.

“That’s a nice dress,” he says, his voice low in his throat.

I take a few steps forward to close the distance between us, relishing the way the heels give my hips a slight sway, the way Levi’s eyes snag on them. I lift a hand and pat the front pocket of his leather jacket, catching a whiff of some cologne that must be lingering on it—something woodsy and deep that’s going to drive me wild by the end of the night, I already know.

“That’s a nice jacket,” I tell him.

Levi’s cheeks tinge pink, and it makes me take my hand off Levi and grab the keys to Bugaboo, makes me take a deep breath meant to uncoil the warm, tight feeling low in my stomach.

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