Chapter Eighteen

By the time I roll into Tea Tide, I have at least seven fires to put out, the main one being that thanks to a late supply delivery, we're fresh out of Revenge Ex scones. And the customers who came in specifically to get one are not taking it lightly. After a brief panic brainstorm, I send out one of our part-timers to the corner store with the instruction to buy a box of just about any cookie she can find. We break them into chunks in the back, bake them into scones, and dub them "the Levi."

In other words, a giant cookie pretending to be a scone.

I figure he'll be in at some point today, and it'll be a cheeky way to cut through the tension of this morning. And although hours pass without Levi showing up, the Levi sells so dangerously fast that the owner of the corner store moseys in to ask what on earth we're doing with our multiple raids of her entire stock of Oreos, Chips Ahoys, and Nutter Butters.

"Something unholy," I inform her, giving her a giant, Frankensteinian scone on the house.

Sana comes in and delights at it—"It looks so ugly and so delicious!"—immediately taking a picture for Tea Tide's Instagram account. Even that doesn't summon Levi, but it does bring in an unexpected influx of late afternoon customers. We're moving so fast that I barely come up for air, and I'm glad for it. With the day whipping by, I don't have a single second to spare worrying about Levi and Kelly.

That is, until Kelly is directly in front of me, standing at the register with a warm smile on her face.

"You must be June," she says, holding out her hand.

I open my mouth to say something back, but my brain is still too busy processing her to get to the next step. She's beautiful. I knew that, of course, from all the photos of her and Roman Steele plastered all over the internet, but knowing it is entirely different from seeing it in person. Her honey-brown hair is in loose waves at her shoulders, her skin practically poreless, her green eyes wide but keen. She's wearing this breezy white dress and a pair of gladiator sandals, more polished than anyone in here by far but looking right at home.

Her smile widens just slightly, and shit. I want her to like me. No wonder she's so good at selling real estate. There's another world where she might be able to sweet-talk me into handing over the keys to Tea Tide right now.

"Hi, yes," I say, taking her hand. "And you're Kelly."

And you're in my store. Staring at my scones. Talking to me. Without Levi anywhere in sight.

There's something objectively aggressive about the whole thing, but she doesn't come off that way. More curious than anything. Less like she's sizing me up and more like she genuinely wants to meet me.

"I thought I'd come in and grab a bite while Levi's helping his dad in the shop," she tells me. "Plus I've heard so much about you."

"Likewise," I say, still too thrown off to say much more. I have this weird out-of-body feeling, like we're on our own reality show right now.

She leans in to peer at the display case. "Ooh, what's the Levi?"

"Oh, that's…" I watch a little pucker in her brow as she registers the cookie edges poking out of it. "More of a joke," I explain.

She nods, that warm smile still in place when she meets my eye again. "Makes sense. I'll never understand that man's aversion to a good dessert," she says. Her tone is somehow both conspiratorial and possessive. Like she's acknowledging that we both know him deeply, but that she's also not threatened by me in the slightest.

In fact, I'm starting to think that might be the entire point of this casual drop-in.

"Well, if it's named after Levi, I'll have to bring him one," she says brightly.

I feel a dip of disappointment in my stomach. Half the point of the scone was to get to watch his reaction to it.

"And let a perfectly good scone go to waste?" I joke weakly, hoping to change her mind.

She winks at me. Literally winks, so effortlessly it puts every cute girl who's ever starred in a toothpaste commercial to shame. Then she says, "Oh, trust me. I'm used to finishing off Levi's desserts by now."

My eyes go wide and hers just stay trained on mine, unyielding. She pulls out her clutch to pay.

"Oh, don't worry about it," I say. As I bag up the scone, something in me rises to meet her, turning to steel. "Levi's already our best customer."

This may be true only in the sense that he's here more often than not, but her smile goes static. "Well, thanks on his behalf," she says, taking the bag from my hand. "I'd let you know what we think of it, but I'm not planning on staying in town long."

Her unspoken words are almost louder than the spoken ones—she thinks she's going to make quick work of getting Levi back to New York. And now that I've been subject to her combination of stunning beauty and uncompromising resolve, I'm not entirely sure she won't.

My stomach is churning by the time I close the shop for the night. I haven't heard a single word from Levi. I check my phone screen for quite possibly the bajillionth time and realize it's not just because of the dread. It's from plain old missing him. We've gotten into such a rhythm of chatting back and forth at Tea Tide, of texting each other quick updates and jokes, that the day feels entirely off-kilter without it.

I take a deep breath. Last night didn't just change things between us. It solidified them. It bound us in a way we've never been before. Part of me just wants to trust it the way I did so easily when we woke up this morning. But a louder part of me is terrified because suddenly, there is so much more to lose.

But right now, I don't have any control over the situation. What I do have control over is getting the measurements of the beach space outside of Tea Tide so I can figure out the chair rental situation before it's due tomorrow. I pull the measuring tape out of the office drawer and trudge down to the beach.

It's hard to wrangle without a second person, but not impossible. I'm just under the boardwalk finishing the last stretch of it when I hear a laugh carry over the soft breeze. I lift my head and see the outline of two people at the water's edge against the fading light. Even from this distance, I recognize Levi in an instant—the curve of his slight slouch, the lean lines of his frame. Kelly's beside him, the outline of her so indistinct that she can only be leaning into him.

And Levi's letting her. Levi's walking arm to arm with her, mak ing her laugh, soaking in the sunset with her. Levi's looking like one half of a picture-perfect couple, like I could take a photo right now and sell it as a postcard, as a whole life. There isn't a single person in the world who would look at them right now and not want a piece of whatever it is they have.

I blink away, my eyes stinging. It's not just that they're so close, not just that they fit so well. It's that they're so lost in each other that Levi must not even realize he's right outside of Tea Tide.

I stand under the boardwalk long after they pass, utterly still. I wait for it to come crashing down. The hurt. The humiliation. The first crack of a heart about to break.

But I'm just hollowed out. Like last night I opened myself up and made so much room for everything—the feelings I dismissed, the ache I was determined to ignore, the hope that felt too fragile to touch—and I don't know how to be empty of it, now that I've let it in.

It's over, I realize. Maybe not me and Levi, but this little charade of ours. The Revenge Exes existed so Levi could get Kelly back, so I could bolster Tea Tide. Now Kelly's here, and Tea Tide is close to making the money we need to front the three months' rent.

Close, but not entirely there. As far as I know, I'm out of party tricks—at least any that will work in the short-term. I can't make another viral moment fall into my lap to get us through the final stretch.

And then I realize that's not entirely true. In fact, this is a problem with a concrete solution. This is a problem I can solve.

I pull out my phone and bring up my text thread with Griffin. I can do the special next Saturday. What time?

His answer is immediate. AWESOME. I'll send you details as soon as I get them. Is it okay if it's live?

If anything, that's a selling point. The faster we can get a last push of customers through the door, the better. I figure even if Levi and I have fake broken up by then, just being on the show will help me get people in the door.

Sure, I text back.

Thank you thank you thank you, June. Seriously. I owe you one!!!

I lean my forehead against a beam under the boardwalk, letting loose a long breath. I thought maybe I'd feel better, committing to this. Fixing something that could be fixed. But then that hollow part of me fills itself up again, my heart throbbing, my chest raw with ache. I hope it isn't really over. I hope this whole day was just a silly, overblown blip. I hope it so recklessly that there isn't any other feeling left, and then I hold on to it like a balloon, trying my best not to squeeze it so tight that it bursts.