Page 43 of The Break-Up Pact

“Bye,” I say, but she’s already hung up.

I stare at the phone with mild concern, because this is the most I’ve heard from Sana in the past two days. After I told her about that call I got from Griffin and she spent no fewer than ten minutes on a rant about why his next reality show stint should be on a ten-foot-wide island in the Bermuda Triangle, she suddenly went very quiet and said, “Oh. Oh.” Then she scooped up her laptop like it was the one thing she was grabbing in a fire and left so fast she almost knocked into the sprinkle shelf.

I’d have asked what was going on, but I got pulled under the current of Tea Tide so fast I’ve barely been able to come up for air since. After all the scrambling with inventory, event scheduling, and keeping up with the steady flow of customers, I still have a mountain of unanswered texts and next week’s shift schedule to work out with the part-timers. That, and the end of the month is fast approaching. While I have a lot of loose ideas for ways to sustain Tea Tide after the chaos dies down, I haven’t had any time to solidify them, to put them into motion.

But at least that time hasn’t been wasted. At this rate, I’ll definitely have enough money to front the first three months of rent. The rest I can get a handle on from there.

I feel a twinge of guilt when opening my texts, seeing one of them is from Dylan, asking when we want to reschedule drinks. I completely forgot to text him a day we could meet up. I know he and Mateo are getting fitted for their suits tonight, but I make a mental note to get back to him as I pull up my thread with Levi.

Sana’s out for tonight. She won’t be able to take any Revenge Ex pictures.

Levi’s response is immediate: Oh no. It’s almost like we’ll have to hang out as plain old friends.

I grin. It’s the answer I was hoping for. Besides, it’s not like we’re incapable of documenting it for ourselves. The universe gave Levi those long selfie-taking arms for a reason.

“Plain Old Friends”—not a bad scone name. Still want to leave at 8? I shoot back.

I’ll be the one in the clown nose trying to shove myself into your clown car.

Only Levi isn’t waiting for me when I walk to the lot behind Tea Tide. I wander over to his condo and see him out in front of it, talking low into his phone and nodding. There’s something intimate in his posture, something so deeply personal that even though he’s out in the open, I feel strange for catching him in it. His eyes sweep up to meet mine and he gives me a quick, indecipherable nod.

I step back, waiting another minute while he wraps up and heads over to me, apologetic.

“Everything all right?” I ask him.

Levi looks down at his phone like he’s considering it. “Yeah. That was Kelly.”

I stare at his phone right along with him, trying to school my face before I ask. Before I rip off the Band-Aid. “So it’s settled, then? You’re getting back together?”

“No.” His voice is light. With surprise, maybe, or relief. His expression is dazed, so it’s hard to tell. “But I think I’m just… done trying.”

The words feel like a faulty firework shooting through me—like something I wasn’t prepared to hear, and now that I have, I don’t know what to make of them, or how I feel about them. Already I feel myself starting to recalibrate, but I can’t do that unless I know what happened. What “done trying” really means.

“Did something change?”

Levi shakes his head. “She’s been half in and half out with me and with Roman ever since this started. Telling me she’s just stuck.” He presses his lips together, like he’s playing it back in his mind. “And the thing is—I think the Revenge Ex thing was working. The last few times she’s been in touch, she’s seemed upset by it. Asking me how serious it was. What I’d do if she left Roman.”

“Oh, shit,” I say before I can stop myself. I hadn’t realized they were talking in terms quite that blunt.

He turns his eyes to me then, plain and direct, and shakes his head. “But talking to you the other day—it made me realize I don’t want the idea of me being with someone else to be the reason she comes back. I don’t want to force it.” He reaches his hand out to nudge mine. “It’s like you said about being settled. I think that’s why she’s waiting. She wants me to be something I’m just not right now.”

My fingers curl into each other like they’re looking for the warmth of his hand again. “I’m sorry,” I offer quietly.

He reaches an arm up to rub the back of his neck. “Honestly… it’s a relief not to try anymore.”

The air between us seems fragile right now. This entire time he’s been back, we’ve been working with a script, of sorts. June and Levi, former friends. June and Levi, the Revenge Exes. Now we’re just June and Levi, and possibly have to figure out what that means for ourselves.

“Do you want to cancel?” I ask. Which is the closest I can come to asking, Do you want to end our break-up pact?

Because that was the deal, the only part that was really set in stone. We’d drop it the moment one of us said the word. Now Levi doesn’t have anything to gain from this, and I suddenly feel like I have too much to lose. Not just with Tea Tide, but with all this time I’ve gotten to spend with Levi, too.

“No, no, I—I want to go. I need to get out of my own head.” He smiles down at me, like he’s coming back to himself, and says, “Besides, when have the two of us ever just been able to have a regular night out? It’ll be fun.”

The swell of relief in me is embarrassing, so much that I have to keep my own smile in check. I’m wary on the short drive over, knowing that Levi is probably in that weird adrenaline state that comes after making a big decision. That sense of relief you get at just being able to make it, before the weight of all its consequences settles in. But I take his cues, and we spend the drive talking about the loose ends we need to tie for the wedding, and by the time we arrive, Kelly feels like she’s in the rearview mirror.

As it turns out, the place is quite literally split down the middle, with the actual bar smack in the center of it. On one side, the walls are deep navy and crowded with sports memorabilia and flat screen televisions pointed at every angle, and on the other, the walls are a deep maroon with a series of cozy booths and high-top tables where they’re setting up trivia for the night.

There’s a game starting, so we decide to scope out the sports section first. “Go grab those last two stools,” I tell Levi. “I’ll get the first round.”

---