Page 70 of Lost Love on 6th Street

Did I doom us from the start?

23

ELEANOR

I descend the stairs to the archive in a haze. On one hand, I should be grateful Luke is looking out for me. On the other, I’m overwhelmed. He looked without telling me. Planned for my remaining in Austin without telling me. I should be swooning that he’s so invested.

Instead, I’m terrified.

“What was that all about?” Jolene asks as soon as my foot lands on the bottom step.

I freeze and glare at her. “You were listening?”

Jolene shrugs from her place leaned up against the wall. “Voices echo in the stairs. Couldn’t help but overhear.”

I roll my eyes and blow past her toward the archive door. I don’t have time to indulge her antics today.

“From the sounds of it,” she says, trailing after me, “he really wants you to stay in Austin.”

“Yeah, that was kind of the whole crux of the conversation,” I mutter. Which you should know since you were listening.

We enter the archive. I’m hoping Jolene will read the fucking room and leave me alone to get back to the work I was doing before we popped up to the exhibition hall, but noooo, of course she doesn’t.

Before I can even plop down in my chair, she’s pulled a chair out for herself to sit across from me at the table. Maybe I can ignore her into leaving me alone.

“Look, I know that wasn’t what you wanted to hear from the museum, but what you did isn’t a small feat! There are plenty of establishments that would want someone like you on their permanent team.”

I ignore her, pulling open my old, slow laptop.

“And Luke wants you to stay, I mean, that feels like an easy decision to me.”

It’s not.

“Don’t ignore me!” she snaps.

“It’s not an easy decision!” I reply. “I’m not going to stay in Austin just for some man.”

“Some man,” she scoffs. “Please. He’s a babe.”

“Babe or not, he’s a man. And men do stupid things. Like search for apartments without asking you.”

Jolene’s eyes widen. “Is that what he did?”

“Yup.”

She’s quiet for a moment, then twists her lips into a smile. “That’s pretty romantic.”

“Jolene! That is not romantic! It’s presumptuous! It’s stupid! It’s—”

“Don’t act as if you haven’t spent nearly every moment of your free time with him for the past two months!” she quips.

I seal my mouth shut. Damn her for being right.

“Unless you were just trying to pass the time, which doesn’t seem to be the way you do things, I’d say that’s something to consider.”

Since our first date, Luke and I have spent all of his free time together. His being the operative word because he’s the one always working. I have my nine-to-five and he has his whenever to whenever the fuck. Sometimes it’s only a day a week, but other times it’s several.

And he’s been driving me crazy in the best way possible. Holding out on sleeping with me as if to prove his restraint, which only makes me more feral.

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