Written in the Stars(62)

Hadn’t the sun gotten the memo that it was the weekend? That Elle had nowhere she needed to be, nothing she needed to do except laze around in bed and—

Bed.

Darcy. Elle had had sex with Darcy. Great sex, too.

Elle smothered her grin against her pillow.

Now with an incentive to face the day, Elle flipped over.

The other half of her bed was empty, the sheets pulled up to the pillow and tucked neatly beneath.

A quick glance revealed that Darcy’s clothes were no longer lying on the floor, no longer tossed haphazardly across the room. Darcy was gone.

Pain bloomed between her ribs, jagged and sharp like someone had jabbed a knife into her side and wiggled until the blade found its mark. No good-bye, nothing.

People liked to say the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Maybe Elle was crazy for expecting this time to have been different, for Darcy to be different. Maybe she’d lost her mind for assuming something real could come from a fake relationship, but last night had felt real. Standing up on the observatory and baring her soul to Darcy, Elle had felt seen in a way she never had before. Seen like there was something inside her Darcy recognized.

There was no word that existed in the English language that meant the opposite of lonely. Some came closer than others, but nothing did justice to the feeling of someone looking into your eyes and connecting with you on a soul-deep level.

A connection was what Elle craved. To see and be seen, then to take that one step further and for someone, for Darcy, to like what they saw enough to want to stick around and see more.

But Darcy hadn’t stayed. For whatever reason, a reason Elle would probably never know because there was only so much rejection she could handle, so much battering her heart could take before the hope of something better could no longer sustain her. She’d confronted Darcy once before, but that had been before. When there’d been significantly less at stake. Darcy hadn’t known Elle then; the rejection had barely been personal. To confront Darcy now, to demand to know why she’d left, why Elle hadn’t been worth staying for . . . if Elle had to ask, wasn’t it obvious?

No, she could take a hint.

Clutching the sheet to her bare chest, Elle bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Vision blurring, Elle shut her eyes and sniffed hard because she didn’t want to cry. Crying sucked.

She sniffed again. Someone in the building was cooking pancakes. At least it smelled like pancakes. Buttery, vanilla-sweet heaven. Either that, or her brain was self-soothing similar to how cats purred, manufacturing her favorite smells where there were none. Was that a sign of an impending stroke? A seizure? WebMD would tell her she had a tumor or some fatal one-in-a-million neurological condition.

Elle sniffed again. No, the smell was unmistakable, stronger each time she took a whiff.

She threw back the covers and rifled through her mountain of unfolded clothing, plucking a robe out from the bottom of the stack. Tying the sash tight, Elle stepped out into the hall to investigate further.

Margot was sitting at the breakfast bar and—

Darcy was in the kitchen, in her kitchen, wearing one of Elle’s shirts, a bright marigold tee with Hufflepuff Puff Pass scrawled above a blunt-smoking badger. And she was cooking. There were pans and bowls and a spatula—since when did they own a spatula—and the whole apartment smelled like pancakes because Darcy Lowell was cooking inside Elle’s apartment.

Darcy had stayed.

Because she couldn’t just stand there, Elle cleared her throat, body flushing with warmth at the way Darcy’s smile lit up her whole face when she looked at Elle. “Morning.”

Darcy wrinkled her nose in that adorable way of hers that Elle loved, before turning and fiddling with one of the knobs on the stove. “Barely. It’s after eleven.”

They hadn’t made it back to Elle’s apartment until after one, hadn’t fallen asleep until easily after two. Not such an egregious lie-in, all facts considered.

Margot spun on her stool, eyes widening as she mouthed the words Oh my god.

Elle tugged on the sleeve of her robe, bare toes curling into the carpet. Oh my god was right.

Margot shut her laptop and hopped down off the stool. “All right. I’m off. Don’t have too much fun.” She waggled her brows.

“Where you going? It’s Saturday.”

“Interestingly enough, I’m going rock-climbing with your”—she turned, pointing finger guns at Darcy—“brother.”

Darcy’s lips pulled to the side. “Oh?”

“Settle down. I won’t say anything incriminating.” Margot paused in the doorway. “Speed dating didn’t go the way he planned, apparently, so he’s got it in his head that maybe he needs to join a gym or something. Meet someone out in the wild. I offered to take him rock-climbing. I’ll be back in a few hours.” Margot slipped through the door. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Knotting her fingers in the sash of her robe, Elle stepped into the kitchen. “You’re cooking?”

That Darcy hadn’t left was a relief. Pancakes? Those were promising.

Darcy tucked her hair behind her ear. “It was either that or order in from Postmates and I don’t know what’s good in this neighborhood.”

Elle stepped into the kitchen and sidled up beside Darcy, peeking into the bowl of batter. “Um, everything? It’s Capitol Hill.” At the sight of a short stack of pancakes sitting on a plate, Elle’s mouth watered. “How are you even making pancakes? We don’t have flour. Or eggs. Or milk. Or . . . whatever else you need for pancakes.”