There was a pregnant pause before I reached for the door and slipped out into the night.
For a blissful second I let myself believe I deserved all that happiness—that I deserved to have Locke the way I really wanted. And now there’s this…silence. It’s like I’m sending feelings into a cave but there’s no echo back.
“You sure?” I venture. “It’s teriyaki.”
Locke will crawl up Mount Rainier on his knees for teriyaki if it’s promised at the top.
He shakes his head with a tight smile. “I’m good, Greer.”
O-kay.
I push back from my desk with tense shoulders, standing so abruptly that my rolling chair flies backward and crashes into the wall beside me.
Damien glances over his shoulder at us, and I feel my cheeks redden.
Crap.
I grab my purse and shuffle to the cafeteria downstairs, where I inhale chicken teriyaki and a pound of rice drenched in soy sauce, trying to stuff my feelings down my throat along with the food. By the time I finish eating, there’s a knot in my stomach that’s only half due to the meal.
Something’s changed between me and Locke, only not for the better. Everything I worried about when he first suggested this plan is starting to come true.
I’m lying on my back on my living room carpet, contemplating where I’ve gone wrong in life, when Molly walks into the apartment and finds me sprawled beside the marble-topped coffee table we found at Goodwill six months ago. The minute she and I spotted it lurking between a wicker settee and a set of squat IKEA drawers with the bottom particleboard shelf sagging in the middle, we knew it had to come home with us. The table was a steal, and one of those rare finds that makes thrift shopping almost worth it, but we didn’t have a way to bring it home with us, so we decided to carry it.
That was before we realized exactly how heavy marble is when you try to drag it three giant blocks up one of Seattle’s infamous hills. We must have had an adrenaline burst to be able to do it, like one of those moms who lifts a car off her trapped kid or whatever, because now I cannot, for the life of me, budge the damn table.
Basically, I’ll be living with this thing until I die.
Molly drops her purse onto the table and shrugs out of her coat. “Bad day at work?”
I flash her a sardonic smile. “How’d you guess?”
The thing is, I don’t normally have bad days at work. I love what I do, and even when things get rough, Locke has always been there to buoy me up. Only now he’s part of the problem.
Molly grins. “You, on the floor.”
“For the record, I’ll have you know I just exercised. Fifty pushups and fifty crunches. In case you were wondering, my abs have abs now.”
My friend’s incredulous laugh fills the space. “I’m sorry, did you say you just exercised? You, Greer Lively, who owns fifteen pairs of sweatpants and takes your bra off as soon as you get home.”
It’s a sign of how desperate I am that exercise actually sounded like a solution instead of a problem, but I won’t admit that to Molly. She tries to get me to drink kale smoothies and do yoga with her at least once a week. Agreeing with her is only going to encourage her.
“A girl has to stay comfortable,” I grumble instead. “And any self-respecting woman who loves her boobs must free them as soon as possible.”
“Point taken.”
I climb to my feet and glance through the living room window. Outside, dark clouds scuttle over a darker sky, and the buildings across the street look damp with fresh rain. Nighttime in December falls early, but the streetlights blaze like an invitation, and my body buzzes with excess energy. “Want to, like, go for a walk or something?”
Molly’s eyes widen, and a quick smile darts over her lips. “Maybe walk to dinner at Bizzarro?”
“You know the way to my heart.”
“Speaking of which…” I groan, and Molly shoots me a sympathetic look as she puts her coat back on. “I’m not saying anything’s wrong, but you’ve seemed a little off this week. And then there’s the exercise. Everything okay?”
“I don’t know.” My eyes prickle with tears, and I pad toward the front door to buy myself a second to get my shit together. My roommate follows quietly behind me, giving me a chance to slide on my shoes and coat before we push out into the brisk December air.
We walk side by side for half a block past storefronts already decorated in Christmas lights before I speak again. Somehow it’s easier to spill my guts when I’m not looking my friend in the eye. “It’s just, Locke’s been weird ever since Thanksgiving.” My voice sounds thick, but I’ll chalk it up to the cold.
“He’s been weird how?” Molly asks.
“He’s really quiet, and he keeps making excuses for not grabbing food with me. Just…off.” Saying it out loud makes me realize how stupid it sounds, but it doesn’t feel stupid.
“I’m sure you’re fine, Greer. Maybe he’s just busy.”
I sigh and jam my hands in the pockets of my coat. “That’s what he said.”
“See? There you go.”
I nod along with her, but it still doesn’t sit right. “What if I did something wrong?” I continue. “I mean, I thought his family liked me, but what if I crossed a line I didn’t know about?” At last I get to the heart of it, a tiny whisper that’s almost swallowed by the street noise. “I don’t want to lose him.”
Molly stops dead on the sidewalk and grabs my shoulders so I face her. “Greer, you’re not going to lose him.” Her minty breath falls on my face, and
