Page 38 of The Breakup Artists

I wipe off my damp arms, avoiding his eyes. “Nope. I was just looking for one of my notebooks in the garage,” I lie and instantly regret it. Covering it up only makes it seem like I was doing something wrong. And I wasn’t. Plus, I never lie to August. So I divert the conversation. “How was job hunting with your mom?”

“Same as always,” he says with a resigned shrug.

I open my mouth, wanting to fess up, but the words don’t come. Luckily, he doesn’t see the indecision on my face because he’s scrolling through his phone.

“Here.” He hands me the phone with his screen open to a conversation with Ella.

I abandon my thoughts of admitting my lie and dive into the welcome distraction of reading their conversation.

“Nice,” I say when I finish, and grab my keys from my purse on the table. I toss them to him. “Go work your Star-Crossed Bestie magic.”

August catches the keys midair, and as he heads for the door, I plop down on my couch, all the air whooshing out of me in an audible huff. I grab the fuzzy blanket and pull it over my head, where I plan on staying for the rest of the afternoon.

21

august

The rain has downgraded to a drizzle, leaving the air refreshingly cool. I open the door to the café, book in hand, and I’m greeted with the uplifting scent of coffee and flaky croissant. Ella is already here, sitting on the same stool in the window where I first dumped coffee on her. And like last time, she’s immersed in her computer.

I order a black coffee, triple check the lid is on tight, and slide into the empty seat next to Ella.

This time, instead of ignoring me, she turns. “Whoa,” she says, eyeing the coffee. “Ten-foot rule.”

I smile. “Is that a thing?”

“Oh, it’s a thing. There’s a mandatory safety radius for clumsy dudes carrying hot drinks.”

“And what about clumsy girls?” I ask. “Or elbows. Clumsy elbows?”

She rolls her eyes, her wavy hair falling over her bare tanned shoulder and her lips pulling up slightly at the corners. Disdain and humor, humor and disdain—a complicated marriage of emotions that I’m more familiar with than I care to admit.

She takes a sip of her drink, something frothy and sugared, and returns to typing.

“Contrary to popular belief, raindrops aren’t shaped like teardrops,” I say, accessing some of the random knowledge I’ve acquired while doing these cases. A guy last summer was meteorology obsessed.

Ella stops typing. “Cool, but I’m trying to work.”

“They start out round,” I say, but still she doesn’t look at me.

“Fingers typing on keyboard. Very important blog deadline.”

“And because of the resistance of the air, as they fall, the raindrops end up looking like jelly beans the closer they get to the ground,” I continue.

“Not relevant.”

“I beg to differ.”

“You can’t differ,” she says. “You don’t even know what I’m working on.”

“You just said. You’re writing your astrology blog,” I counter. “I read it last night. There was a reader’s note on the home page about how you were almost finished with the monthly horoscopes.”

Now she turns to look at me. “No, I will not sign your boobs. Please move along, sir.”

I laugh. “Ouch. Is that how all famous bloggers address their fans?”

She returns to her computer. “Yup.”

“So the thing about these raindrops—” I continue, but she cuts me off.