Page 2 of The Love Bus

ADD A PINCH OF GUILT

S ix years ago, Leo swept into my life like a whirlwind—sophisticated, charming, impossible to ignore.

I was twenty-two, living in a tiny basement studio in Newport instead of a college dorm, trying to make a name for myself in the food world.

I spent my days working part-time as a sous chef to gain experience, waitressing at night to cover rent, and filming videos for a little YouTube cooking channel I’d started mostly for fun.

Then Leo showed up—nine years older, intense, passionate, and newly hired as the restaurant’s head chef. When he said he’d seen one of my videos and actually seemed impressed, it felt like winning something I didn’t even know I’d been hoping for.

Like most people in the restaurant world, we were night owls by nature.

After the last tables were cleared and the kitchen lights dimmed, we’d roam—poetry readings in town, late-night diners down winding back roads, live music in Providence, and sometimes even Boston, if we had enough time and caffeine.

We watched more than one sunrise through the windows of eclectic cafés that felt like hidden worlds, always sitting close, holding hands.

Leo’s dreams seemed to match mine. It had felt...magical.

When he suggested moving in together at the six-month mark—and turning my little YouTube channel into something bigger than I’d ever dared to imagine—it felt romantic, like we were chasing fate.

My family disapproved, of course. But I believed Leo was the love of my life.

Now, I knew he obviously hadn’t felt the same.

The worst part wasn’t just losing him . It was losing the pieces of myself that had folded into his—grieving the life we’d imagined together.

What would it take to pull myself out of this? To scrape the burned bits off the bottom and move on? To stop feeling like my life was over because of one very public, very humiliating mistake?

I could still see it, still feel it, playing on a loop in my mind. The moment I’d destroyed everything. The show. My career. My reputation.

Gone. All of it, gone.

I hit the off button on the remote and then stared at my reflection in the blacked-out TV screen.

Pale. Messy. Pathetic.

The image brought me back to my sister’s advice. Not about being dragged around the southwestern United States on a bus with a bunch of strangers, but that I needed to get out.

She wasn’t wrong. I needed to do something. Anything.

I glanced around the room—the abandoned set of our relationship.

The first few days after it happened, I had stayed glued to my phone, masochistically scrolling through articles, social media posts, and comment sections.

At first, it was morbid curiosity. I wanted to know what people were saying. But then it became something else. A desperate need to see if anyone understood. If anyone would say, You did the right thing, Luna. He deserved it.

A few had. A lot hadn’t.

And now? I realized I’d descended to a really bad place.

I couldn’t even think about cooking without feeling nauseous.

I’d turned off notifications and avoided social media like it carried the plague.

After getting a text from my mom, suggesting I apply at the post office, I’d put her on mute too.

The only person I responded to was Ashley.

I closed my eyes, feeling my heart start to race, and trying just to breathe…

The public nature of the whole thing wasn’t even the worst of it.

It was the fact that I’d been completely blindsided.

There must have been some sign that I’d missed, some indication of what was happening, but in my mind, everything had been perfect.

I should have seen it coming. Why hadn’t I seen it coming?

I just...I didn’t understand how I’d gotten to this place. I followed my heart and look where that got me.

If I couldn’t trust my instincts, then what could I trust?

Hours after Ashley’s call, I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, the blue light of my laptop casting vague shadows across the room.

My grandmother, my mom’s mom, had always told me I was an intuitive person—like her. She’d said I saw the world in ways the rest of my family couldn’t understand.

“Trust your heart,” she’d told me when I’d made the decision to strike out on my own instead of going to college like my mom wanted. “This is your life.”

I moaned, rolling onto my side. Because I had trusted my heart when it came to Leo. Of course, I had.

And…I’d been wrong.

About all of it.

I climbed out of bed and stumbled into the hall, trailing my fingertips along the textured walls.

I’d loved this place—carved out of a restored historical building from the 1790s. It had everything I wanted when I first moved in—location, history, and character.

Technically, Leo had bought it, but we’d picked it out together. He always called it our place, since we’d shared the payment.

He hadn’t kicked me out, exactly. No, he’d graciously offered to let me stay “a little while,” like it was some kind of favor. As long as I was willing to cover the entire mortgage.

Which we both knew was a joke—unless I wanted to burn through my savings just to prove a point.

So yeah. The clock was ticking. I needed to find somewhere else.

As if losing my fiancé, my career, and my confidence hadn’t already been enough…now I was going to lose my home, too.

My heart did that thing where it started beating faster and louder, making everything go out of focus. The air felt thin, useless, like I was breathing through a straw.

No. No. No. No…

I forced myself to pause and take a deep breath. Ignore the tingling in my hands.

Not going there. Not tonight.

In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slowly. Repeat.

I pressed a fist to my chest, trying to loosen it. I was okay. It’s not the end of the world.

After all, I still had my health.

And leftover wine waiting for me in the kitchen.

A minute later, I stood barefoot on the smooth, refinished floors, gripping the bottle of Pinot Grigio I’d opened the night before. The first gulp was sharp and bitter. It wasn’t the good stuff, and it was a day old, but at least it warmed my chest.

For about two seconds.

I took another longer drink.

The townhouse was so quiet I could hear the fridge humming, its low vibration almost taunting me.

It was easy to imagine a family living here during the Revolution. A woman, pacing these very rooms while her husband was away at sea. She’d have cooked over a wooden stove, fetched water from a well…

Living here, even when Leo wasn’t home, I’d never really felt alone.

But I was now.

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead against the refrigerator door.

I hated him. But…part of me still loved him, too.

Why couldn’t it be simpler? Why couldn’t I just hate him and be done with it?

And why—God, why—did I also kind of hate myself?

I pulled my head away from the fridge and then slammed it forward again, making a thunk ing sound. Maybe a little pain might knock some sense into me.

I hate him. Thunk. I hate him. Thunk.

The echo bounced off the quiet kitchen walls, and although I was vaguely aware that this wasn’t helping anything, I couldn’t stop. It distracted me from the tight feeling threatening to seize my lungs.

Not sure how long I would have gone on if I hadn’t heard the intrusive buzzing from my phone in my room.

My stupid, traitorous heart jumped hopefully, like it did every time I received a call, and I straightened.

Could it be him?

No, it couldn’t be him. But what if it was? Calling to say all of this was a mistake. That he was sorry. That this thing with Kensi was just a momentary lapse in judgment caused by…

Caused by what, exactly?

Me?

Had I done something wrong? Could we work through this?

“No,” I muttered to myself. I knew better. Even if Leo begged me to forgive him, I couldn’t. He wasn’t the man I thought I’d loved.

I waited for the vibrating sound to stop, then grabbed the wine and headed back to the bedroom.

But then it started again, and the name on the screen wasn’t Leo’s. It was Ashley’s.

Ashley never called this late. My eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of the screen: 1:47 a.m.

Nothing good happened at 1:47 a.m.

I answered, trying to sound calm. “Ashley?”

She spoke quickly. “Don’t panic or anything, because she’s okay now, but…” I heard her take a deep breath. “Mom’s in the hospital again...”

“What? What happened? Is she?—”

That drop in my stomach, the cold rush of dread—I knew it too well. It didn’t matter that this call came in the middle of the night and the call about Dad had been in broad daylight. The panic felt the same.

“She’s fine,” Ashley interrupted. “But she tried going to the bathroom without her walker, which she wasn’t supposed to do.

Looney, she fell. Thank God she was wearing her Life Alert pendant,” Ashley continued, her voice a little shaky now.

“I can’t imagine what she’d have done if Beckett and I hadn’t bought it last month.

She pressed it right away, and the paramedics were there in, like, fifteen minutes. ”

Images flashed through my mind, uninvited: red and blue lights in her driveway.

Mom lying on the bathroom floor, trying to wave the EMTs off because she didn’t want the neighbors knowing her business.

I choked back a laugh—or maybe a sob—because it would be just like her to be more worried about what the neighbors thought than her own health.

My mom was like that. A little fussy—a lot fussy. Rigid. Bossy. The opposite of her own mother, Gran. And the opposite of me.

Growing up in the shadow of her constant disapproval had made our relationship…difficult.

Still, the thought of her lying there, hurt and alone, waiting for help…

“Did they take her to Providence?” I asked, standing and grabbing my sweatshirt off the chair. I really should have taken that shower Ashley suggested earlier.