Page 91 of The Odds of Happily Ever After
Maybe it couldn’t—but it could win him Luna’s affections, and that might be the best prize of them all.
I went still, rewinding that thought in my head. It reeked of jealousy, an emotion I hadn’t experienced in so long . . . at least not in regard to a romantic relationship. Luna and I weren’t involved in that way, so why did my muscles pull tight at the sight of her with that boy?
Suddenly, Luna’s eyes found me. Her lips spread wider, and I nearly stepped toward her, an invisible string pulling me into her orbit. I wanted to stride over to her. To stake my claim in front of Kai and any other boy who entertained notions of being with her.
Only, who was I to do so? I couldn’t even approach her in school without the imaginary noose of my job squeezing tight around my neck.
Out of habit, I averted my gaze before anyone else noticed who I was paying attention to. I continued walking toward my building, maintaining my act of nonchalance.
It was getting harder to convince myself that I still cared about this job. The reasons I’d held on to seemed inconsequential next to the guilt that ate at me for ignoring Luna—again. I kept asking myself if achieving my end goal was worth it, but then I remembered everything I had already sacrificed to get this far.
And it left me back where I started.
luna
Gabe saw mesmiling at him. I knew he did. For a second, I thought he would come over and talk to me. His body turned toward me and his stare seemed to sharpen. Then in the blink of an eye, something changed and he carried on like we hadn’t been texting every day.
I thought we’d graduated to casual nods around campus at the very least.
Now we were back to square one.
My hand lifted up to my pendant. I didn’t need another reminder of him, let alone the one he’d given me literally hanging around my neck. But I couldn’t take it off.
“What about you?”
My eyes snapped up to Kai’s expectant face. I had totally spaced out in the middle of our conversation. “Sorry, I got distracted for a sec. Can you repeat that?”
He didn’t even look upset. “I was asking how you’re doing with your fashion classes. Are you still enjoying them?”
“Yeah, definitely! They’re like my reward for getting through everything else.”
“Are your other classes that bad?”
“Not bad . . . more like boring.” I chewed my lip as I thought of the right way to describe them. “It feels like work, if you get what I mean? Especially when it comes to economics.”
Chuckling, Kai cocked his chin at me. “A hundred percent. That’s how I am with anything math related,” he said. “Hey, I have an idea. I’m pretty decent at economics.”
I had to laugh at that since he was an econ major. “You don’t say.”
He shrugged good-naturedly. “You wanna study together sometime?”
“Are you counting on me being your math source?” I joked. “Cause I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
His brows drew together. “Wait, aren’t you good at it? I’m gonna have to rethink the offer.”
“I mean, I’m decent, but it doesn’t come naturally to me either.” Gabe, on the other hand, could easily solve both our trouble spots.
Kai nudged my arm. “I’m kidding, Luna. I’d bet your decent is still better than mine. Anyway, it would help to have company to make sure we both get our stuff done.”
“That sounds great. You can call me out whenever I get sucked into checking my phone.”
He flashed me an okay sign. “I got you. Let me know whenever you want to set it up. We can do it at my place or yours. The library. Wherever you want.”
“You sure about that? Because I have an econ quiz on Monday.” I gave him a sheepish smile.
“I’m free Saturday afternoon if you are. Around two p.m.?”
“That works. You want to try the quad so we can get some sun? We can transfer to a library if it’s too busy out.”
