Page 22

Mia lay very, very still, eyes fixed on the ceiling, body unwilling to move. Like if she shifted, then the reality of what had happened the night before might change. Hot sun painted golden stripes on her duvet and a breeze slipped in through the open window.

Her skin still tingled from Luna’s touch, warmth lingered inside her. She felt physically tired and mentally jumpy. After a few minutes, she turned her head slightly, as if she expected to see Luna there. Of course, she wasn’t. The other side of the bed was empty.

She took a deep breath and blew it out again. She should feel happy. She was happy. Last night had been… magical. That was the only word for it. Magical and special and so different to anything that had ever come before it.

But without the moonlight, in the hot bright light of a new day, uncertainty was starting to creep in again. What was she doing? What was she thinking? A part of her couldn’t help but think that this could all just be part of the act. Or maybe a moment of passion and nothing more.

She’d spent her whole life planning, structuring, doing everything right in the right way. And the other half of her brain was telling her that last night had felt right, just in a completely different way. A spontaneous, reckless, real life kind of way. Like she’d spent her whole life learning the theory of something, only to discover that the practical application was so much better, rawer, meatier.

But was it all real to Luna?

Who could tell?

She exhaled and finally sat up, running her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t at all sure that she was ready to face all these feelings yet. But she knew that avoiding them wouldn’t make them all disappear.

***

Luna woke up in a tangle of sheets, her body sore in the best way possible, a lazy smile curling at the corners of her lips before she even opened up her eyes.

Mia.

She could smell Mia on her skin, could almost taste her.

The memory of last night danced in her head. The way Mia had looked at her, the way she’d touched her, kissed her, like she was the only thing in the world. Like they were the only people in the world.

Last night had felt like they were the last people on the planet, like the moon was shining only for them. And Luna’s lips were swollen and chapped from kissing. She had always prided herself on being unshakable, unattached, but last night… something had shifted in her.

She turned over, opening her eyes, almost expecting to find Mia there and experiencing a jolt of coolness when she found the bed empty.

She sat up and rubbed at her face, running fingers through her tangled curls and coming up with a leaf from the night before. She looked at it, sitting in her palm. She wasn’t one for morning-after nerves, but something about waking up alone made her chest tighten. It wasn’t that she was worried about whether or not Mia had enjoyed herself. She was confident enough in herself to know that Mia absolutely had. No, what worried her more was what last night had meant to Mia.

With a sigh, she pushed back the thin sheet that she’d slept under. Maybe she was overthinking. Maybe Mia was just as shaky and scared as she was.

But there was one glowing thought lurking in her mind. She had spent so much of her life running. Perhaps it was time to stop. And that made her nervous, terrified even.

***

Mia had deliberately waited until after lunchtime to get her usual cinnamon latte. She’d waited until the vast heat of the day had slowed the world down and then wandered into town thinking that she might avoid seeing Luna.

It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t want to see her. It was more that she wanted a little time. Time to sort out the jumble of thoughts in her head. Time to try and figure out what both of them wanted from all this.

But the moment she stepped into Helen’s, she knew that she’d made a mistake. Luna was sitting on a barstool, an Italian soda in front of her, looking stiller and quieter than Mia had ever seen her look before.

Mia thought that she might turn and run away, but the ding of the bell over the door gave her away and Luna looked up.

The second their eyes met, an invisible tension snapped between them, thick and heavy. Luna hesitated, and then slid off her stool, coming over to the door and stopping just a little too far away.

Mia took a breath, then another, before deciding that at least one of them had to speak. “So,”

she said, voice hoarse, so that she had to clear her throat. “Did you, um, sleep well?”

Luna tried to smirk, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She nodded. “Yeah, you?”

Mia shrugged. “Fine. Just…”

But there were no words there yet, not for this, not for her worries, not for anything. “Just a little tired,”

she finished.

“Same,”

said Luna, looking like she wanted to add more but not doing so.

Silence stretched between them, palpably filled with unspoken words that neither of them seemed ready to say. Luna swallowed and Mia breathed. How had something so incredible turned into something so awkward overnight?

“Well…”

Mia said finally. “I’d better, er…”

She nodded toward the coffee machine.

“Right, right,”

Luna said, biting her lip. “And I’d better, er…”

She nodded toward the door.

“Right,” said Mia.

Luna tried and failed to smile, before ducking out of the door and into the summer sunshine.

Mia sighed and watched her go, feeling more confused than ever.

***

Luna tried to focus on arranging bouquets, but her hands kept fumbling with the flower stems. She inadvertently crushed as many flowers as she used. Her mind just wasn’t on the job. Which wasn’t ideal, since Jan had gone to the suppliers and she was alone.

She didn’t even notice that a customer had walked through the open door until she heard someone cough.

“Sam, sorry,”

she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m not surprised, with all the noise around here,”

he joked, looking around at the silent flower shop. “I don’t know how you concentrate.”

Luna snorted. “As it happens, I’m not concentrating at all.”

“It’s easy to see that,”

he said. “I’ll just take a couple of bunches of peonies, if you don’t mind. Something to brighten the shop up, we’ve got bookclub tonight.”

Luna busied herself getting his flowers.

“So, what’s got you so distracted, then? Or should I say who?”

Sam teased, leaning on the counter.

Setting down the flowers, Luna sighed. “It’s… complicated.”

Sam grinned. “Ah, I know that tone. I know that look, too. You’ve got feelings.”

Luna groaned. “I don’t do feelings.”

“Of course you do,”

Sam said. “Everyone does. You just don’t admit feelings. That’s different.”

Ringing up the flowers, Luna eyed Sam. They’d known each other a long time, practically grown up together, like most everyone else here in town. “What do you do when you don’t know where you stand with someone?”

she asked, taking his money.

With a wider grin, Sam shrugged. “Simple. You ask.”

And he did make it sound very easy indeed.

***

Mia had barely stepped into the hotel before Rachel’s knowing eyes locked onto her from behind the reception desk.

“Okay, spill it,”

Rachel said, crossing her arms.

Mia groaned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mia, please,”

scoffed Rachel. “You’re glowing, and you look like you’re about to be sick. What happened? I’m assuming it’s Luna. I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but I’m not not going to ask. Especially if it looks like there might be a chance of vomit on my fine carpet.”

Mia looked down at the threadbare rug beneath her feet, and then the words just sort of fell out of her mouth. “We slept together.”

When she looked up again, Rachel’s eyes were wide. “Oh. Oh.”

She grinned. “Okay, and?”

“Please tell me you don’t want all the gory details,”

said Mia, completely unable to deal with the fact that Rachel might want to know more.

“As if,”

said Rachel. “What I meant was, how do we feel about this?”

“That’s the problem,”

Mia said, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what we are. I… I just don’t know.”

Rachel studied her. “Then might I suggest that it’s time we put our big girl pants on and go and find out?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning avoidance only works for so long. Eventually, people get tired of being avoided and go off and do their own thing. That might be fine for that strapping young fiancé of yours, but it sounds like there are some real feelings here between you and Luna.”

Mia stared at her and then closed her eyes. She made a good point.

***

Luna locked the shop up earlier than the last few nights. The town festival was over, which meant nothing to the herds of tourists that were still around. But there was no live street music tonight, so she thought she could close up and be going… somewhere. Home, perhaps.

The air was still thick with heat and the smell of flowers as she pocketed the shop keys and turned around.

And then there was a vision. Mia standing there, her hands nervously fidgeting as she stood practically in the middle of the street, waiting. No, this was what happened last night, Luna’s brain told her. But her eyes told her different, her eyes said that this was Mia here, again, and hope lifted her heart. There was something about the way Mia was looking at her, uncertain, hopeful, that made Luna’s feet move forward.

Mia gave a small smile. “Hey.”

“Hey,”

Luna echoed. They stood there, the air charged between them.

Finally, Mia took a deep breath and said, “What was last night to you?”

Luna felt her smile flicker, felt vulnerable, and tried to squash the feeling down. But she couldn’t, not this time. She swallowed. “What do you want it to be?”

she asked in return.

Mia hesitated. Luna knew that she was used to having the answers, used to plans and schemes and certainty. She hoped that Mia would be able to settle for honesty over certainty.

“I don’t know,”

Mia said eventually. She looked up, her eyes deeply blue. “But I know that I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Luna let out a breath and took a step closer. “Me neither.”

The space between them shrank. It wasn’t a perfect resolution, but it was something. It was a start.

Slowly, Luna reached out for Mia’s hand, a silent question. Mia didn’t pull away.

And in that quiet moment, under the glow of the streetlights, uncertainty gave way to something far more powerful. Possibility.