Page 20 of What Happened Last Night

Were marriage and kids something Luna wanted? I suddenly wanted to know, but I stayed quiet.

“He wasn’t a douchebag,” Luna went on. “He introduced me to his mother, his family. He took me on dates. He didn’t have any weird sexual proclivities. He was reasonably well groomed.”

She lowered her hand with the counting fingers and looked at me.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Luna shrugged.

“What were the negatives?” I prodded.

Her brows scrunched and she lifted the counting hand again. “Well, he lost interest in sex really fast—after only a few months. So it didn’t happen often. He had hobbies he was into, sports, friends, and he didn’t invite me to any of it. He thought the money I spent on my wardrobe was a waste. He didn’t think any of my jokes were funny.” She lowered her hand. “But my mother loved him. So did my brothers. He came to Christmas and Thanksgiving. And he checked a lot of boxes.”

A pulse was pounding in my temple, hard and painful. I knew this relationship. I knew it well. I’d spent five years in my own version of it.

“He wanted a relationship with someone,” I said. “Not necessarily with you. You checked his boxes, just like he checked yours. It wasn’t about you at all, not really. Any other woman who checked his boxes would have sufficed just as well.”

We were silent for a minute, eyes locked through the computer screen.

“How long was the relationship?” I asked.

“Two years.”

I nodded. She’d gotten out of hers much sooner than I’d gotten out of mine. “Who ended it?”

“I did, because he made a mistake. He said he wanted to go away for the weekend with a woman from work. He said it was just a friendship thing. It was completely absurd, and I think he knew it. I think he was pushing me to break up with him so he could be with her. So I did. And he did.” She shrugged. “It just fizzled, really.”

“He wanted out,” I said. “He did you a favor in a shitty way.”

“He should have just broken up with me.”

The pulse pounded in my temple again, hard. “Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know.” She sighed. “It ended eighteen months ago. And here I am. I’m not sad about it, and I’m not sure that’s normal.”

“Why not?” I scratched the back of my neck. “Being single is just fine. It’s pretty great, actually. Do it for a decade if you feel like it. Take lovers and then kick them out of bed. You’re a woman of the world, right?”

She looked pointedly down at herself, in her flannel and cardigan, then back up at me. And we both laughed.

“The next time I talk to my mother and she lectures me about marriage and babies, I’m conferencing you in,” Luna said.

“Please do,” I replied. “I owe you one.”

NINE

Luna

I felt like I had a hangover the next day. Except it was a hangover from the completely sober conversation with my boss.

I had talked about my exes. Project Boyfriend. My sex life. With Will.

I had fleeting urges to cringe, to apologize, to beg him to forget everything I’d said. Was amnesia a thing outside of books and TV shows? How could I inflict it on him? I’d talked to my boss the way I talked to Katie, and I hadn’t even been drunk.

Also, I’d loved it, and I wanted to do it again.

Maybe it was because we weren’t in the same room at the time, so I hadn’t been under the powerful influence of his pheromones for once. I hadn’t stuttered or blushed. I’d talked without censoring myself. Will was a great listener, insightful, witty, understanding. Talking to him so honestly was its own kind of high.

Oh, God, this was so bad.

---