Page 56 of The Break-Up Pact
“Your students let me into the ‘Professor Díaz’s SWEAT!!!er Vests’ account on Instagram,” I finally confess. “I don’t think they’ve seen this one, so I’m earning my keep.”
Mateo’s mouth drops open. “For someone who’s been dodging literal paparazzi right and left, I’d think you’d be a little more sensitive to the sanctity of my Friday vests.”
Indeed, this one featured a subtle pattern of knit comets and dinosaurs in a deep navy and royal green he’d opted to pair with a short-sleeve button-down. It seemed like a waste for him to spend it here indoors all day, changing sheets and recounting Dylan’s grudges against a Precious Moments knockoff.
Dylan leans in and puts a loose arm around Mateo’s shoulders, mouth half-full of a granola bar he liberated from the pantry. “Leave my fiancé alone, you monster.”
“He was my best friend before you realized you wanted to suck face with him,” I remind Dylan with a pointed look.
“Hmmm.” Mateo plants a quick kiss on Dylan’s cheek and shoots me a placating look, but otherwise continues to rearrange the mantel. “It must have been nice to have autonomy outside the Hart family, but I can’t seem to remember what it was like.”
To be fair, Dylan has been absorbed into the Díazes every bit as aggressively as Mateo has been into us. Dylan first won their love with his bottomless appetite and appreciation for all of Mateo’s family’s cooking, secured it with the uncanny lifting abilities he’s put to work at every Díaz wedding, quinceañera, and baby shower for the last decade, and immortalized it by proposing to Mateo in his parents’ massive backyard so that the Díaz cousins could immediately descend on them with enough wine and cake that they probably could have just gotten married on the spot.
“Also, please tell me this irrational fear of ceramic babies isn’t a manifestation of your actual fear of children,” says Mateo. “Because as we’ve discussed, my mom is expecting no less than three.”
Dylan looks offended. “Only three? That’s not enough for our soccer team.” The tenderness of the moment is slightly undercut by Dylan side-eyeing the ceramic piece and saying, “Plus I assume none of our kids will be possessed by Satan like this thing is.”
Dylan uses the arm he still has slung around Mateo’s narrow shoulders to squeeze him into his side, the gesture so innate and familiar that I feel an unexpected pang in my heart. I wonder where Levi is right now. I wonder what he and Kelly are saying to each other. I wonder enough to check my phone yet again, because I am nothing if not a sucker for an empty screen.
Except it isn’t empty. There’s a text from Griffin. Just checking in about that special! They could even squeeze us into the New York studio next Saturday—they’ll book you a hotel and everything!
I roll my eyes and tuck the phone back into my pocket, getting back to work.
“Seems weird that strangers sleep in here, huh,” says Dylan when we reach the one room we always come to last.
For the most part, Annie’s room is exactly the way she left it—bubblegum-pink walls, massive seashell collection, ancient Sims CD-ROMs, and all. But the dressers were cleared out for guests, so everything worth saving is now kept in a locked cabinet in the walk-in closet.
“Yeah,” I agree, my chest too tight to say much else.
“And strange that things just keep moving without her.” Dylan reaches out and picks up one of her debate trophies, one of the many where they misspelled our last name as “Heart.” Annie never corrected them. She liked it better that way. “Especially now. Me with Mateo. You with Levi.”
I let out a breathy laugh. Dylan turns to me and says, “I bet that’d make Annie happy.”
My throat feels thick with all the mounting guilt. I’ve been so wrapped up in my feelings for Levi that I’ve forgotten there are other people in our crossfire, too. That if we don’t work out, Dylan might find out we lied the entire time. That if we do, it might not have made Annie happy at all. That years ago, Annie was so intent on me and Levi not happening that she got into a screaming match with Levi over it.
I haven’t even had time to process that yet. It doesn’t know how to settle in me. Maybe because I don’t think Annie’s anger had much to do with me at all—she just wanted Levi to be in California with her, and I was a factor standing in the way of it.
But I was also her sister. And I think that’s why I can’t peer at that argument too closely, can’t follow it all the way down. I know she was only seventeen when she said it, but at one point her own plans with Levi were so important to her that she didn’t care if I got hurt so she could keep them. She didn’t care if Levi did, either.
“Yeah. Maybe,” I say.
Dylan sets the trophy back down. There’s nothing reverent or careful about it, which is its own kind of respect, I’ve come to realize. I always tiptoe around everything, but he treats the idea of Annie the same way he treated her when she was here.
“Gotta say, though,” says Dylan. “As fucked up as it is, what happened to you and Levi—it’s… nice.”
“Nice?” I say, raising my eyebrows at him.
“I mean—nice having everyone around again.”
I fluff one of the pillows on Annie’s bed. “You missed your buddy Levi, huh?” I tease him.
For once, Dylan isn’t ready with that easy smile. “I’ve missed you, too, sis.”
I lean my knees against the edge of the mattress, feeling suddenly uncertain. “But I’ve been home a long time now.”
Mateo knocks softly on the doorframe. “Hey, Cassie says we can swing by and take a look at some mock-ups for the cake, if we want to meet her at the bakery.”
“I can finish up here,” I offer.
