Page 19

Mia woke to the soft golden light of early morning streaming through the window of her small room. For a moment, she stayed still, staring at the play of light on the ceiling, her heart shaky but still pounding in her chest as it all came back. The festival lights, the music, the way her lips had brushed against Luna’s. The physical feeling had been so soft and gentle, but it was more than that. It was the way the kiss had made the world tilt, as if nothing that had come before mattered anymore.

And after? After the momentous thing that had just happened had sunk in? What had she done?

She’d smiled, walked away, pretended to be tired, pretended that nothing had happened.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. No, not her phone. The spare phone. Which could really mean only one thing.

She picked it up and saw the same number as yesterday flashing on the screen. Mikey. A ghost of her old life. Her stomach churned, and she flipped the phone over, pushing all thought of him out her mind. As if she could really forget.

She groaned and rolled out of bed, her reflection in the mirror catching her attention. She looked… different. Same blonde hair, same blue eyes, but there looked to be a spark there, something lighter. Something hopeful.

Or was it all in her head?

Twenty minutes later, she walked into the small dining area of the hotel to see Rachel arranging muffins in a basket. She poured herself a cup of coffee, feeling Rachel’s smirk all the way from the kitchen and back.

“What?”

she said, finally, slouching against the wall by the window.

“Just thinking that you look like the cat that got the cream,”

Rachel said mischievously.

“What? I—no.”

Mia’s face burned, and she grabbed a slice of cold toast from the buffet and busied herself spreading butter over it.

Rachel cocked an eyebrow, her grin widening. “You’re glowing, love. Like someone who… I don’t know. Someone who maybe something might have happened to at the festival last night, perhaps?”

Mia fumbled with her toast, the butter knife clattering to the floor. She bent down to pick it up. “I… no. I mean, yes. But no. But.”

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Rachel asked, raising both eyebrows this time. “Nothing happened to do with a certain free-spirited florist?”

Mia’s silence gave her away.

Rachel chuckled and reached over to pat her hand. “Listen, love. Life’s too short to pretend that you’re happy. In any context. I think that’s what you learned by running away. Whatever this is with Luna, you need to figure out what it is that you really want. For you, not for anyone else.”

With a sigh, Mia shook her head. “We… Luna and I, we kissed.”

“I know,”

said Rachel, pushing the muffin basket to one side. Then she caught the look on Mia’s face. “This is a very small town,”

she said. “Plus, you did have your romantic moment in front of most of the town. Should I be asking why it took you this long to kiss when you’ve been apparently dating for ages now?”

Mia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Maybe best not to.”

“Did Luna rope you into one of her crazy schemes?”

Rachel demanded. “I knew there was something off about all of this.”

“Rachel, please,”

said Mia, opening her eyes again. “Whatever went on before, this was… This was different. It felt so…”

She didn’t have words to put on it, so she left them unspoken. “It scares me a little.”

Rachel’s face softened. She sighed. “Scares you? Why? Because it’s real? Or because this might actually be what you want?”

Mia opened her mouth to respond, but found that she didn’t have an answer.

***

Luna was back to staring at the familiar cracks in the ceiling above her bed, her arm slung over her face, wondering just when it was that everything had changed. Because everything had changed, she just wasn’t sure how or why, and it scared her.

Her lips still tingled when she thought about it. Every time she let her mind wander, she found herself back at the festival, back on the dance floor, back in that moment when Mia had kissed her like the whole world depended on it.

“What the hell are you doing?”

she muttered to herself. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not for anyone, let alone for Mia. A runaway bride who had more than her own share of problems. And certainly not someone that she had an arrangement with.

Every cell of her body told her to run and run now. Except her heart. Her heart was anchoring her down to this place, to here, anxious to know what was going to happen.

“Luna!”

Her grandmother’s voice floated up the stairs. “If you don’t get up, you’re going to lose the one sensible job you’ve ever had.”

“Coming!”

Luna sighed and swung her legs off the bed. She wasn’t sure which was scarier, her grandmother or her growing feelings for Mia.

And things didn’t get better once she was at work.

“So?”

Jan said, crossing her arms and raising her eyebrows expectantly.

“So what?”

grumbled Luna, struggling to carry a bucket of flowers over to the display.

“Nothing to say?”

“About what?”

“It’s not like you to be grumpy,”

Jan said, as Luna put down the bucket. She looked worried. “Are you alright?”

Luna rubbed her face with her hands. “I don’t know.”

“You… don’t know? But… isn’t this what you wanted?”

asked Jan, looking confused now. “I thought you liked her. I mean, half the town saw the two of you kissing on the dance floor last night.”

“I just…”

Luna swallowed and looked up at Jan, at her merry red curls and red cheeks and kind smile. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Surely that’s a good thing?”

Luna bit her lip. “It’s a scary thing,”

she admitted.

Jan shook her head. “Luna, sometimes the best things in life are the ones that scare you the most. Surely you’ve learned that by now, with all your traveling and experiences. Don’t overthink this. Just let yourself feel.”

Which was really easier said than done.

***

Mia walked into town for her usual mid-day coffee at Helen’s, not knowing what else to do. There was a solid chance that she was going to run into Luna, and she had no idea whether she wanted to or not.

Sure enough, two minutes after she walked into the coffee shop, Luna waltzed in like she owned the place, her signature easy confidence on full display. In that moment, Mia envied her more than Luna would ever know. What would it feel like to be that sure about what you wanted?

Helen pounced on them both immediately. “My favorite lovebirds! You two were the talk of the festival last night!”

Mia felt herself flush crimson, while Luna just grinned. “What can I say? We aim to please.”

Helen leaned over the counter conspiratorially. “It’s just so nice and refreshing to see young love at work. We all get so jaded around here, especially during tourist season. It’s nice to see something hopeful, the next generation of Little Chipping settling down.”

Mia choked on her coffee at this. Luna reached out and patted her back, her touch lingering just a second too long. “We’re happy to inspire,”

said Luna, her voice light but her eyes flickering with something unreadable.

The espresso machine hissed, and Helen turned her attention to it.

“Could you not?”

Mia hissed.

“Not what?”

Luna said, her voice teasing but her gaze soft. “Play along?”

“Play?”

Mia said, the word stinging more than it should.

“Relax. You’re too tense.”

Mia rolled her eyes, but this was all getting to be too much. She picked up her coffee, said a curt goodbye, and left the shop.

What had she been expecting, she thought as she went back out into the hot sun of the day. That Luna would actually take something seriously for once?

She was about to start walking back to the hotel when a hand grabbed her elbow.

“What?” she said.

But Luna was already dragging her over to the cool alleyway by the bookshop, pulling her into the shade, softly pushing her back against the wall, until Mia was looking into her dark eyes.

“Hey,”

Luna said softly.

“Hey,”

said Mia, her voice just as quiet.

For a long moment, there was silence between them. Heavy, but not uncomfortable. More… charged.

Finally, Mia cleared her throat and blinked. “About last night…”

she began.

“I know,”

Luna interrupted. “It wasn’t part of the plan.”

Mia bit her lip, but she’d started this, so she was going to finish it. Someone had to say something. “It, um, it didn’t feel fake.”

Luna hesitated for an eternal second, then she shook her head slightly. “No, it didn’t.”

The honesty hung before them in the air like a thread of fragile spider silk.

“I’m scared,”

Mia admitted. “Scared that I don’t know what I’m doing, that this is more than I can handle.”

Luna looked at her, her usual bravado stripped away, her face raw and honest. “I’m scared too. Scared of messing this up. Scared of…”

She took a breath. “Scared of wanting more.”

Mia reached out a hand and tucked a stray curl behind Luna’s ear, her heart beating in her mouth as her fingertips stroked Luna’s soft skin.

It felt like hours that they stood there in the cool shade looking into each other’s eyes.

Until Luna smiled just a little. “Come on, I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”

Mia let Luna take her hand, and they walked back together. The silence between them more companionable now, the tension less sharp and more expectant.

When they got to the hotel steps, Luna paused. She let go of Mia’s hand, but looked at her, her gaze steady and warm. “For what it’s worth,”

she said softly. “I don’t think I’m faking this anymore.”

Mia’s breath hitched, her heart fluttered.

But before she could respond, Luna gave her another small, lopsided smile, and walked away, leaving Mia standing there, her world shifting once again.

And as Luna disappeared down the street, Mia pressed her hand to her chest and realized that keeping her heart out of this arrangement was no longer an option.