Torment - Lauren Kate [67]
“I’ll hurry.” Luce laughed, closing the door. She stood before her closet, trying not to think about Thanksgiving or her parents or Callie or why so many important people were slipping away from her at once.
She yanked a long gray sweater from her dresser and threw it on over a pair of black jeans. She brushed her teeth, put on big silver hoop earrings and a squirt of hand lotion, grabbed her bag, and studied herself in the mirror.
She didn’t look like a girl who was stuck in some bickering power struggle of a relationship, or a girl who couldn’t go home to her family for Thanksgiving. At the moment, she just looked like a girl who was excited to open a door and find a guy there who made her feel normal and happy and really sort of all-around wonderful.
A guy who was not her boyfriend.
She sighed, opening the door to Miles. His face lit up.
When they got outside, Luce realized the weather had changed. The sunlit morning air was just as brisk as it had been on the roof’s ledge last night with Daniel. And it had felt icy then.
Miles held out his enormous khaki jacket to her, but she waved it away. “I just need some coffee to warm me up.”
They sat at the same table where they had sat the week before. Immediately, a couple of student waiters rushed over. Both guys seemed to be friends with Miles and had an easy joking manner. Luce certainly never got this level of service when she sat with Shelby. While the guys fired away with questions—how had Miles’s fantasy football team done the night before, had he watched that YouTube clip of the guy pranking his girlfriend, did he have plans after class today—Luce looked around the terrace for her roommate but couldn’t find her.
Miles answered all the guys’ questions but seemed uninterested in extending the conversation any further. He pointed at Luce. “This is Luce. She wants a big cup of your hottest coffee and …”
“The scrambled eggs,” Luce said, folding up the small menu that the Shoreline mess hall printed up each day.
“Same for me, guys, thanks.” Miles handed back the two menus and turned full-focus on Luce. “Seems like I haven’t seen you around much recently outside class. How are things?”
Miles’s question surprised her. Maybe because she was already feeling like a guilt magnet this morning. She liked that there was no “Where have you been hiding?” or “Are you avoiding me?” tacked on at the end. Just a question: “How are things?”
She beamed at him, then somehow lost track of her smile and was almost wincing by the time she said, “Things are okay.”
“Uh-oh.”
Horrible fight with Daniel. Lying to my parents. Losing my best friend. Part of her wanted to unleash all of that on Miles, but she knew she shouldn’t. Couldn’t. That would be taking their friendship to a level she wasn’t sure was a good idea. She’d never had a really close guy friend before, the kind of friend you shared everything with and relied on like a girlfriend. Wouldn’t things get … complicated?
“Miles,” she finally said, “what do people do around here for Thanksgiving?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never stuck around to find out. I wish I could sometimes. Thanksgiving at my house is obnoxiously enormous. At least a hundred people. Like ten courses. And it’s black-tie.”
“You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “I wish I were. Seriously. We have to hire parking attendants.” After a pause: “Why do you ask—wait, do you need a place to go?”
“Uhh …”
“You’re coming.” He laughed at her shocked expression. “Please. My brother’s not coming home from college this year and he was my only lifeline. I can show you around Santa Barbara. We can ditch the turkey and get the world’s best tacos at Super Rica.” He raised an eyebrow. “It’ll be so much less torturous to have you there with me. It might even be fun.”
While Luce was mulling over his offer, she felt a hand on her back. She knew the touch by now—soothing to the point of having healing powers—Francesca’s.
“I spoke to Daniel last night,” Francesca said.