21
I WAKE UP to the smell of bacon, a rumpled Luka yawning at the edge of my bed with a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. He’s not wearing a shirt, his sweatpants are on backward, and there’s a distracting line of hickeys that starts just below his collarbone and drifts down the center of his chest. I shift onto my back and stretch my arms above my head with a pleased little smile.
“Yeah, yeah,” Luka mutters, sliding a mug of coffee onto my nightstand and curling his hand around my ankle. He squeezes up my leg in a new twist on his familiar one-two-three, thumb just below the crease of my thigh. He strokes there once, and my whole body shivers, brown-gold eyes smiling down at me. “Awfully proud of yourself.”
“You didn’t sound like you were complaining last night,” I say, remembering the way he had pressed his head back into his pillows with my mouth on his skin, my hands at his hips holding him steady. How he grit out my name in three separate syllables when I sucked the hot skin just below his belly button. Stel-la-la.
“Smug doesn’t suit you,” he tells me archly, mug at his lips.
I snicker and pat my hand around on the nightstand for my coffee. I slept with my best friend last night. I slept with him two . . . three times last night.
After we had collapsed in a boneless heap the first time, I woke up sometime around two in the morning, stomach rumbling. I snuck into the kitchen for a bite of pie out of the tin, only for Luka to shuffle in the kitchen after me, sleepily steal a bite from my fork, and then prop me up on the kitchen counter.
“Want this,” he had mumbled as he ducked down, teeth grazing my thigh, his mouth hot and wet on the inside of my knee. He had put his head between
my thighs until I slammed my head back into the cabinets and then gently urged me down, turned me with my hips tucked tight to the counter, and fucked into me until I fell apart. I’m surprised he hadn’t needed to scrape me off the kitchen floor after that one.
As it is, my body is sore in the very best of ways, and I indulge in another groaning stretch. Luka watches the bare skin at my chest with avid interest as the sheet slips down another inch.
“Hand me a shirt?” I don’t like the idea of coffee burns on my boobs.
He grumbles but does as I ask, and I slip the warm faded material over my head. It’s the same band shirt he was wearing under his jacket the other day, and it still smells like him. He is never getting it back.
I watch him sitting on the edge of my bed as we sip our coffee and wonder when this is supposed to feel weird. I thought maybe after Luka and I slept together, I would feel a combination of panic and regret, but instead, I just feel . . . settled. It’s a relief and gives me hope that at the end of this week when the ambiguity around our relationship disappears, when the consequence-free mindset we’ve both adopted vanishes, I’ll be able to fit myself back together just fine.
“I was thinking—” Luka kicks back on my bed, resting on one elbow over my hips. I’m distracted by the stretch of skin across his torso, the way his freckles dust down to the hem of his sweatpants. “I’ve got to move my stuff from New York next week. Maybe you could come with me if I go on Tuesday. It’ll be slow, yeah?”
That should be fine. Beckett and Layla can handle a nonrush day. I’ll have to check our reservations just to be sure, but I don’t see why I can’t. “Wait.
Move your stuff?”
He curls his hand over my knee, the thin sheet muting the feel of his skin on mine. My seven hundred pillows are scattered around the room like they’ve survived a bomb blast. There’s one balanced precariously on the lamp in the corner. “I told you about the job in Delaware.”
“You told me you were thinking about it, not that you’ve made a decision.” A giddy feeling sweeps through me. “You’re doing it? You’re moving to Delaware?”
He nods, his face lighting up when he sees my excitement. “Yeah, sorry. I thought I had told you, but I guess I didn’t want to distract you with Evelyn here. Found a place and everything. It’s a little house just off the beach. You can hear the waves when you open all the windows.”
“That’s—” I’m smiling so hard it feels like my face is going to split right open. Luka, a twenty-minute drive away. I can drive to his house for a cup of flour if I want. I can drive over in the morning, come back to my house, and then see him again in the evening. The possibilities are endless. “Luka, I’m so happy.”
“Yeah?” He looks relieved. “Good. Me too.”
“Tell me there’s a taco stand close by.”
He takes a long sip of his coffee, holding me in suspense. “There is a taco stand close by.”
Luka within driving distance and tacos on the way. Life truly doesn’t get any better.
“We can drive up on Tuesday to New York, pack up my stuff, and drive back the same day. I don’t have too much, and I was planning on donating most of the furniture.” He drops his mug on the nightstand and gathers mine too, placing it next to the open box of condoms. I blush. I really should put those away.
Luka crawls on top of my body and cages me with his arms, a gentle kiss on my nose. Gentle is the exact opposite of the ideas being laser-beamed at me from hooded, chocolate brown eyes. He drops another kiss to my jaw.
“You could stay with me at the Delaware house.” He scrapes his teeth over my neck. “We could find a creative way to break in the swing on the back porch.”
It takes a second for my brain to catch up. I only had two sips of coffee before Luka took my mug, and his tongue is doing something interesting under my ear. But when it clicks, when I realize what he’s just said, I go rigid
underneath him.
Oh, hello panic. There you are.
“Wait. What?”
Luka presses up on the palms of his hands, wincing. Pink lights up the tips of his ears. “Sorry, I was joking about the swing. Sort of. Too much?”
I shake my head, change my mind, and then nod. I chew on my bottom lip and then shake my head again. Luka pushes back until he’s sitting on the edge of my bed, his palm next to my knee. He scratches at the back of his head, confused.
“But Tuesday—” I try to collect the thoughts zigzagging through my brain. “Tuesday is next week.”
He nods, eyebrows slanted low. “Yeah, it is next week.”
“Our agreement was for this week.”
“Our agreement?”
“Our trial run. You said we’d use this week as a trial run.”
“Oh.” His shoulders relax, the confusion melting from his features. I’m glad he understands. We can’t keep . . . doing this past this week. We tried it; it was amazing; it’s done and over. Out of our systems. We can go back to the way things were, and I don’t have to ever risk losing him. He tries a smile. “I think it’s safe to say the trial period was a success.”
“Right. But it’s called a trial because a trial comes to an end. We’re not— Luka, we’re not—” The words wither on my tongue. I can’t say it. What does he think? That I’d be willing to continue a friends-with-benefits type of relationship with him? I look down at the twisted bedsheets, the box of condoms mocking me from the corner of my eye. I guess my actions didn’t
exactly dissuade him.
My cheeks burn hot, humiliated.
“I don’t want that kind of relationship with you,” I say quietly. “Last night was really fun, but I care about you too much for . . . for that.”
Luka is basically a statue at the edge of my bed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I refuse to look up from my bedsheets. “I don’t want to be friends with
benefits.”
“Great. Neither do I.”
I look up so fast, my neck cracks. “But you just said—”
“I phrased it wrong. I’m sorry, I just—your hair is all mussed from my hands and your bottom lip is swollen, and I guess I’m having trouble getting my mind straight.” He grins at me, gathering my hands in his and tangling our fingers together. “I want you to see the house in Delaware, okay? We’ll get tacos on the way. Custard too. If you want.”
“Okay.” I drag the word out until it’s fifteen syllables long. “That means no sex, right?” I feel like I have to be crystal clear on this.
Luka is back to confused. His mouth opens and closes several times, his hands squeezing mine. “Well, I mean. At some point, yes, I would like to have sex with you again. But it doesn’t have to be Tuesday if you don’t want to.”
“I thought you just said you don’t want to be friends with benefits.”
“I don’t. Stella.” He laughs, probably amused that we’re going around this conversational circle again. I’m glad one of us is having a good time. “I want to be your boyfriend.”
“Oh. Um.” Not a single coherent thought enters my brain. “You do?”
He frowns. “Yeah, I do.”
“No, I mean—” I shake my hand free of his and sit up on the bed. “You mean you want to finish out this week as my fake boyfriend, right? That’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he says slowly, patiently. “I mean like actually be together, you and me, for real.” The frown on his face spreads to that little line between his eyes, the one that appears when he’s reading print too small or getting upset. “I thought we were on the same page.”
When I shake my head that, no, we are not on the same page, Luka rubs at that little line with his thumb. Clearly we aren’t even reading the same book.
“So, what—” His eyes dart above my head to my window, my nightstand, the floor. He’s looking for answers in my white, flowy curtains and coming up blank. “What was last night, then?”
“I thought we had an agreement to do what feels right this week. See where it takes us.”
“And you thought sex was a part of that deal? You thought—what—that I’d fuck you, and we’d go back to watching movies on the couch next week
like nothing is different?”
“I had—um, I had kind of hoped so.”
It’s exactly what I wanted, actually. To have this week with him and then for everything to go back exactly as it was before. That’s how everything stays safe. That’s how I get to keep him.
He scoffs, a little bit angry now. “Stella, I wouldn’t—” He rubs the bridge of his nose. “You’re my best friend. You’re not a one-night stand.”
I drag my thumb over the quilt of my bed, wrapping more sheets around myself. It feels wrong that I’m not wearing underwear for this conversation.
“You’ve had one-night stands before.”
“But not with you,” he says, and he’s definitely angry now, the strong line of his shoulders tense. “Why do you keep bringing that up? I haven’t had casual sex with someone in a long time. You keep acting like I’m—like I’m bouncing about town, fucking anyone I see.”
“I don’t know, Luka. This isn’t—”
“I think I need to be more clear.” He steamrolls right over whatever I was going to say, and I’m glad for it. This morning has gone to complete and total shit. Who knows what nonsense would have spilled out of my mouth next?
Luka nudges my chin up with his knuckle and tilts my face until I’m looking right into his eyes, the burst of freckles across his nose.
“I’m in love with you,” he says, frustrated and shirtless in my bed. He yells it at me, really, his dark eyebrows angry slashes over his eyes. “I’m in love with you and I want to be with you.”
My stomach drops. I shut my eyes tight and dig my fingers into my sheets.
“Do you think—” I swallow. “Do you think you’re just confused because of our arrangement?”
“Why do you think I agreed to this arrangement?”
“Luka.” I’m getting frustrated now. He’s pushing too hard. I’m cracking beneath the pressure.
“I wanted you to give me a chance. I wanted to know if you could see me like that.”
I shake my head. “Don’t you see how that could be misleading?” I try.
“Maybe we’re just really good pretenders. Maybe your heart is confused.”
“Stop telling me how I feel, Stella.”
“You can love me but not be in love with me. It’s just—” I grasp for something to explain what’s happening in my head and my heart. “It’s just the—it’s all of this tension. The sex, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Is that what it feels like for you?” He swallows. “Just tension? Just the sex?”
I open my eyes to see Luka gazing at me with such a devastated look on his face, it steals my breath. The best thing I can do in this situation is keep my mouth shut, certain that anything I say will just make it worse. Of course it doesn’t feel like that to me. I’ve loved Luka for so long it feels like it’s a part of me, but I’m also used to hiding it—suppressing it—and that feels like a part of me too. So I say nothing as I blink away and stare at the floorboards instead, one of his socks half hidden below my bed. Christmas lights twisted up and tangled together.
“Shit,” he whispers. He huffs a dark little laugh, and I watch as his hand lifts from the bed, fixated on the imprint he leaves behind. Will I have marks like that on my thighs, my wrists, the swell of my hips? How long will I get to keep them before they disappear too?
“I feel like an idiot,” he says, standing from my bed and picking up his sock. He starts looking around the room for the rest of his clothes, and I sink farther beneath my sheets.
Luka finds one of his old sweatshirts half hanging out of my dresser and pulls it over his head. I stole that three years ago and hadn’t intended to give it back. He turns toward me but doesn’t look up, standing on one foot and trying to slip on his sock. “I’m sorry I made you uncomfortable,” he mumbles.
“Luka.” You didn’t make me uncomfortable, I want to say. You’ve just scared the shit out of me. “Stay, please. We can— I’ll make us waffles. We can clear this up.”
The sound he makes almost breaks my heart clean in two. “I don’t see anything that needs to be cleared up. I’m just—” He hooks his thumb over his
shoulder in the general direction of the rest of the house. I watch as he searches for an excuse and comes up empty. “I’m gonna go.”
“Will you be back?” I hate how thin my voice sounds.
He nods, still looking at the floor. “Yeah, I’ll meet you later. We’re supposed to cut down a tree with Evelyn, right?”
I don’t care what we have to do with Evelyn. Right now I only care about Luka and that faraway look on his face, how it feels like he’s already a thousand miles away and he’s standing right in front of me.
“Yeah, but—”
“I’ll see you then.”
And then he’s gone, the door clicking shut quietly behind him.
I PUT ON some underwear. Wander into my kitchen. See the plate of bacon and waffles and Christmas cookies on the counter and almost start crying. I pick up a sugar cookie and nibble on it as I wander in circles. I’ve officially channeled every sad person in every sad movie I’ve ever watched. I’m listless, hollow.
There are signs of Luka everywhere. His gloves on the table by the door.
Loose change from his pocket in the ceramic blue bowl I use for keys. The mug he was using for coffee this morning rinsed and drying upside down by the sink. That’s the one that hurts me the most, I think. That even though he’s upset and disappointed, he’s still managed to take care of me.
Luka and I have had fights before. We once had a bickering fight in the drugstore below his apartment, the both of us getting so heated, the owner had to ask us to leave before I got the empanada I wanted. But we’ve always ended them with a hug or a peck on the cheek, his arms banded tight across
my back.
This one feels different. I know it is.
I can’t stop thinking about the look on his face, the way his eyes shuttered and fell when I let the silence build between us. I had been a coward, stupid to think this week could happen without one of us getting hurt. I thought it
would be me. I would be able to handle it if it were me. But knowing that Luka is hurting too, that he felt like he needed to get away from me, I’m— I’m having trouble with that.
I go through the motions of getting ready for the day and pointedly ignore looking at the tender skin between my breasts, the place where his scruff left marks on my pale skin. I loop a scarf around my neck and then pull on a hat.
Maybe if I put on enough layers, I’ll be able to cover up this awful feeling in my chest.
I head out into the fields, aimless. The idea of sitting in my office right now with my bottom drawer full of tiny cardboard pine trees fills me with enough existential dread to send me stumbling over the cobblestone walkway. I’m not supposed to meet Evelyn for a couple of hours yet, and a walk through the cold fields feels appropriate. Maybe the fresh air will do me
some good, but mainly I want to wallow.
So I wander.
I start in the west pasture and putter my way through the trees. The snow from last night is already gone, the trees as bright and vibrant as ever, untouched by the season’s first burst of winter.
I am merciless as I recount our argument. Last night was amazing, but I think—I think he’s been homesick up in New York. The new job, the move.
He’s looking for things that are comfortable. That feel good. I know Luka loves me, but he’s not—he isn’t in love with me. And I don’t want to give in, give him all the pieces of myself that I’ve been holding close and have him figure out the difference a month from now. Six months from now. I don’t think I’ll be able to come back from that. Better to be a little bit broken by this than irreparable later.
Because I love Luka. I’ve been falling in love with him for close to nine years. Every day a little bit deeper. And if I give in to him now only for it to break apart later, I won’t have anything left.
I start to get annoyed by pristine tree after pristine tree, so I turn on my heel and change directions. The dirt becomes rockier under my boots, the fields opening up as the trees become less dense. I see the first stump of twisted bark and peer over my shoulder. I’ve somehow managed to wander to
the south pasture with the dead trees. I look at the one closest to me and thumb at a brittle branch, a large piece of black snapping off between my thumb and forefinger. Maybe I should cut one down and put it up in my house. It suits my mood.
I hear the sound of boots behind me and I turn quickly, hoping for Luka. I want to apologize, beg him to forget this morning ever happened. I just want us to go back to the way it was.
But it’s not Luka. It’s Evelyn staring at our twisted trees with a single arched brow. Another pang of regret hits me for a different sort of lie.
“Is this where dreams come to die?”
Mine do, apparently.
How do I even begin to explain Mr. Hewett and the soil moisture system and his quest for an alpaca farm? I decide it’s not worth the effort.
“These trees got sick during the fall. A root rot, we think.” I think I have a case of root rot. One that starts in my heart and burrows outward. By next week I’ll probably look like one of these trees, hunched over and brittle at my office desk.
Evelyn narrows her eyes at me, zeroing in on my hat. I think it might be on backward. “You okay?”
No. I just made my best friend think I don’t love him after he confessed his love for me over coffee. Oh, and we had an incredible night of passionate, all-consuming sex. He made waffles, and then I kicked him out of my house.
I am unwell.
“Yeah,” I say and try to fix the approximation of a smile on my face.
Judging by Evelyn’s wince, I’m not exactly successful. “Am I late for our tree adventure?”
She shakes her head and takes a step closer, her hands curled in her pockets. “No, you’re not late. I was out here looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I wanted to show you the first round of footage for the farm.”
I get that feeling again, the low sinking in my gut. I hate that I’ve lied to her, made her think that this farm and my relationship with Luka is something it’s not. It’s not fair to her, and it’s not fair to all of the other
people competing in this contest. The ones who have told the truth from the beginning and need the money just as much as I do.
I sigh and make a decision.
“Before you do that, I should tell you something.”
I don’t know what to think about the way she rolls her lips and rocks back on her heels. “What’s up?”
There’s no easy way to say I faked a relationship to make my farm seem more romantic, so I decide to just launch into it. “I lied to you. About me and Luka.”
Strangely enough, her mouth splits into a wide smile. She nods once and takes her hands out of her pockets, slapping her phone into her palm. “I am so glad you said that. I know.”
“We aren’t actually— Wait—” I blink a couple of times, look down at my boots and then up again. “You know?”
“Yes, I know.” She nods and tucks a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I was hoping you would tell me yourself.”
“How do you know?”
“A big part of my job is listening to the things people aren’t saying. And Stella, that’s not hard to do here. The people of Inglewild talk . . . a lot. I was in town for maybe half an hour when I heard about the betting pool in the coffee shop.”
Luka was right. This town is made up of a bunch of busybodies.
“I thought it was weird that you just recently got together with the long- term partner you supposedly own the farm with.” She gives me a gentle smile. “Everyone really loves you guys together, for what it’s worth.”
That is . . . beside the point. “You knew I was lying? From the first day you were here? Why didn’t you say anything?” I didn’t think it was possible to feel any worse, but wonders never cease. I am mortified.
“I was going to ask you about it that first day, but, well, I got distracted.” I remember her face when Beckett walked into the bakehouse. Fair enough.
“And then I met Luka and saw you guys together and thought maybe I just misunderstood the town gossip. So I asked Gus when he drove me home last night.”
“What did he say?” I’m not even upset. Just exhausted. All this trouble, and for what? To lose my best friend and humiliate myself in the process.
“He told me how glad he was to see you two together, that he won the town betting pool. I asked what the betting pool was for and put it together from there. I should tell you now, officially, that I have to disqualify you from the contest.” She says it as gently as she can, but I still feel the twist in my stomach, the scratchy discomfort of embarrassment. “You checked off a box that said all the information in your application was correct, and if any proved to be false, your application would be voided.”
I nod. I had figured as much. “I’m really sorry I lied. I knew it was a mistake from the start.”
I just wanted to have my cake and eat it too, I guess.
She narrows her eyes at me, a secret smile playing on her lips. She taps her phone against her palm again. “But did you? Think it was a mistake?”
The lying? Yes, without a doubt. Every night I went to bed with a weight against my chest, thinking about that one line of copy in the application, my biggest lie. But the time with Luka? That part I’m less sure about.
“I don’t understand.” How many times can one person think and say the same sentence in one morning? Write this on my tombstone.
“It didn’t take long for me to figure it out. I only had to see you two together. Do you even realize the way you look at each other?” When I just blink at her, she waves her hand. “Forget about it, never mind. Here’s the deal. You’re disqualified from the contest and the prize money, but I still see a story here. A good one. The kind of story I haven’t told in a while.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. This place is gorgeous. Stella, please understand that even if you were single and living in a tiny cave at the mouth of the foothills eating dog food out of a can, I would think this place is amazing. It’s like the North Pole had a love child with Narnia. I want to live here forever.”
I open my mouth, but she waves her hand again, cutting me off.
“So I’m going to feature you guys on my account. And I’d like to show you the video I made.”
She closes the distance between us and hands me her phone, a video already pulled up on the screen. I stare at my tiny face in the thumbnail, standing in front of my office with a nervous smile and a peppermint hot
chocolate. Her first day on the farm.
“Just watch. It’ll make sense.”
I glance at Evelyn and then back at the phone. I tap play with a shaking finger.
It opens on a quick clip of me standing on the porch of the office, gingerbread decorations bright and colorful against warm brown wood.
“Luka put them up,” I hear my tinny voice say, laughing. “I think I made him redo the licorice four times. He barely tolerates me.”
It switches to another clip, Luka shouldering into my office with take-out coffee in both hands, me behind my desk. I hadn’t even realized Evelyn had her phone out when this happened. He drops the take-out cup on the edge and then reaches for me, gloved hand curling around my elbow, pulling me close.
It’s hard to see the kiss, but I remember how I felt. The low swoop in my stomach. He pulls away and the small version of myself on-screen ducks her head. But Luka doesn’t. It’s just a fraction of a moment, but I see the look on his face. The way his eyes practically glow as he looks down at me. The slow smile that kicks up the side of his mouth. The surprise when he turns slightly and catches Evelyn in the corner. He hadn’t even realized she was there.
The ice-skating rink is next. Luka shooing Jeremy away and wrapping himself around me. I watch as I tilt my head back into his chest and look up, his body moving back slightly to welcome the shift. We look . . . happy together, comfortable, my small body tucked into the security of his, his chin resting on my head as we watch the kids circle the rink.
Its clip after clip, faster now. Luka and me walking in front of Evelyn through the fields, our hands reaching for each other at the same time. Luka in the bakehouse with a grin and a blush, a candy cane half hanging out of his mouth as he says, “She’s amazing and she doesn’t even know it. She’d give you the sweater off her back.” The two of us in my kitchen just last night, our backs to the camera as Luka smooths a hand down my arm. In all of these
clips, he does not look like a man who is barely tolerating me. He looks like — The last clip is an extended shot of me attempting to rehang a string of garland outside the Santa barn, balancing on a stool and rising on my toes.
The camera drifts to the left, away from me, and I see Luka leaning against a fence post. He has that damned candy cane again, tongue twisting it back and forth in his mouth. But it’s the look on his face that has me leaning forward until my nose is practically pressed up against the phone. Soft eyes lit up in the warm sun, a laugh caught on the tip of his tongue as his gaze lingers.
Love and gentle adoration in the curve of his lips, the slant of his brows.
Luka hasn’t been faking for a second.
“It’s actually the second video,” Evelyn announces, and I practically jump out of my skin. As it is, I drop her phone to the ground. God, I hope she has that video saved. “The first video is me explaining that I’m at Lovelight Farms where two idiots think they’re pretending to be in love.” She grins at me, proud of herself. “Do you understand now?”
She scoops her phone off the ground. “You think you’ve been lying to me, but you’ve just been lying to yourself this whole time.”
