Page 53 of The Break-Up Pact

For years, I waited and waited to fall asleep second so I could have a few moments on my own. Moments to finish myself off or collect myself, to rationalize the disconnect. But Levi pulls me in with his arms and wraps his leg around me, the weight of his upper thigh pressing against mine, and before I know it, my eyelids slide shut. There is nothing to question. Nothing to overthink. I am heavy, I am fulfilled, and for once, I am entirely still.

Chapter Sixteen

I wake up smiling. I wake up with my forehead pressed into Levi’s shoulder, my nose grazing his collarbone, my ankles hooked between his feet. I wake up with Levi’s chin resting on my head and the low, hoarse sound of him saying, “Good morning.”

I breathe in deep, peeling my eyes open. Even then, the whole scene feels like something out of a dream. But there’s no denying the sweetness of this reality—of the warmth of Levi wrapped around me, the sweet ache of last night still thrumming in my core. Flashes of his lips on mine and all over me, of his breath hot against my skin, of our bodies moving in tandem. Moments too bright, too visceral, for even an imagination as vivid as mine to make up.

Levi shifts and I tilt my head up to look at him. His eyes are all sleepy on the edges but bright in the early morning sun gleaming in through the window. I’ve always loved waking up with the sun on my face. I love waking up with it on Levi’s even more. The way it’s catching in his hair right now has turned every mussed tendril golden brown.

He kisses my forehead, and something about that simple gesture—the familiarity, the ease of it—pulses a current of absolute giddiness through me. The kind of moment where you realize you’ve gotten something you’ve wanted, and it’s all you thought it would be and then some. I muffle a laugh, burying my head in his chest.

“Oh, now we’re being shy?” he teases.

I can’t help it. The smile I woke up with is now a full-on grin, the kind that’s threatening to split open my face. I lift my head and aim that grin at him in full force, and he smiles back with that same slow smile from last night.

“I’ve had a lot—and I mean a lot,” I emphasize, pressing myself closer to him, “of time to think about how good that would feel. And I didn’t even come close.”

Levi nods. “I’m pretty sure you broke my brain. I haven’t slept in past six thirty in my entire life.”

I glance at the clock on my nightstand, relieved to see it’s only around eight. I have one of our full-timers open the shop on Fridays, so I don’t need to be there for a few hours. When I look back over at Levi, my eye catches something that makes me entirely too smug.

“I gave you the biggest hickey,” I tell him, tracing the red mark on his neck with my finger.

“Boy, do I have some news for you about the state of your own neck right now,” he says, brushing the tangle of my loose hair off it to take a look at his handiwork.

“We’re going to need a whole lot of foundation,” I tell him. “Do you think we can get the Revenge Exes sponsored by CoverGirl?”

“We can have Sana look into it, right after…” He settles a knuckle under my chin, tilting my head up to kiss me. We’re warm and morning-stale and everything about it is slow and easy and perfect. I pull away from him, basking in the simplicity of this, in the seamless way we’ve transitioned from the people we were to the ones we are right now.

I already feel the heat of last night coiling in me, the anticipation of another round of it. I pull away from him to ask if he has anywhere to be, and then something distracts me—Levi’s phone screen lighting up on the nightstand behind him, flashing Kelly’s name.

My stomach lurches. Somehow, conveniently, I’d forgotten she existed. Forgotten everything that led up to last night, all the tangled roads that led us here.

Levi follows my gaze to the phone. He shifts just far enough to flip it over, screen down.

“You’re sure you don’t need to get that?” I ask cautiously.

He leans in and kisses me again. “I’m sure. But I should charge it in case my dad wants a hand in the shop today. You mind?” he asks, holding up my cable.

For the first time, I actually regret taking over Tea Tide, because the idea of blowing everything off to sip iced tea and watch Levi fixing up a car in faded denim and a T-shirt is more appealing than anything else my brain can conjure.

“Go for it,” I tell him.

He connects his phone, presses a kiss to my forehead, and says, “I’ll be right back.”

Even with the phone turned over on the nightstand, I can see it glowing again almost as soon as he closes my bathroom door. I watch it, transfixed. I can’t help myself. It’s the part of me that’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop since Levi got to town, the part of me that wants to protect itself even now. I flip the phone back over.

Sixteen missed calls. Sixteen missed calls. All of them from Kelly.

His phone is on silent, so he must not have realized when we were tangled in each other, his back turned. Shit. It could be an actual emergency. My hands are shaking when I set the phone back down and call, “Hey, Levi?”

He can’t hear me over the sound of the sink. I reach for my own phone and impulsively google Kelly’s name, and boom. There’s the headline. Not All Cinderella Stories Have Happy Endings—Inside Roman Steele and Kelly Carter’s Split.

I click the link. It’s an interview exclusive with Kelly. “He’s just the loveliest man, through and through. Exactly what you hope he’d be,” she’s quoted as saying. “But I know my heart, and it belongs with someone else.”

The electricity of last night starts to numb. I stare at that quote for so long that it brands itself into my eyes. Even after I skim to the bottom, see the photos of Kelly the publication embedded from her Instagram, see the other quotes she gave them about the charity work of Roman’s she’s going to continue with, all I see are those words. I know my heart, and it belongs with someone else.

That someone else walks out of the bathroom and sees me sitting on the bed with my knees hiked to my chest, staring with wide eyes at my phone, and immediately says, “What’s wrong?”

---