Page 68 of The Odds of Happily Ever After
Cesar
Do you have plans this Christmas?
Gabe
I’ll be working.
Cesar
On Christmas?
I was leavingthe deli where I stocked up on cold cuts and rye when I saw her. Luna sat at a table with a boy in front of the Pizza Shack.
Kai Walker. He’d been in my class last semester. From my angle, I could only see his profile, but I could tell he was grinning at her while she laughed.
My steps slowed.
Earlier, she’d said she had a study session with her friend Chloe. She hadn’t mentioned anything about dinner, much less a date. Why would she, though?
Realizing I was staring, I tore my eyes away from them and strode across the street to the corner parking area.
Kai. He’d been one of the more participative students in his class, and he seemed to have an ever-ready smile. Compared to the other boys I’d seen with Luna, he had a wholesome air to him, like she could easily introduce him to her friends and family and be sure that he would charm them.
They were just eating together. It didn’t equate to them dating—and if they were, why not? Like Luna, Kai was a junior. That put him at twenty, twenty-one years old.
A shudder ran through me. That period of my life felt like decades ago. Back then, I hardly visited this part of town because the establishments here drained my budget faster than it took me to prepare a sandwich at home.
Something that I, ironically enough, did to this day—and also still alone.
The realization needled me as I drove home and fixed myself a club sandwich. My ears rang with the silence, so I switched on some music, only to recognize the song as one that Luna had sung along to on our road trip.
How could it have been just four months ago? It felt like a year had passed since we’d sat together in my car, Luna mouthing the lyrics and eventually singing out loud, arms outstretched, eyes closed. She didn’t hit the right notes, yet I couldn’t tell her to stop because she poured so much emotion into it.
At the end of the song, she’d burst into laughter and told me to sing with her next time.
Next time couldn’t come soon enough.
Fighting the impulse to check my phone, I ate my sandwich as I skimmed through the latest edition ofJournal of Finance. My food could have been cardboard and mulch for all I tasted.
Finally, my phone pinged. I picked it up so fast I embarrassed myself.
Luna
Hyping myself up to study macroeconomics Tell me again why you volunteered to study more than you have to??
I’d asked myself the same thing these past couple weeks, and I gave her the same answer I repeated every time?—
Gabe
To finish what I started. Do you need help?
Almost immediately, dots appeared on the screen as she typed. Then they disappeared, and my phone rang instead.
I grinned. “You couldn’t text a reply?”
“Calling is easier,” she said with a laugh that sent a lightness through me.
I’d missed that sound. “Is this you procrastinating?”
