Page 84 of Scorpio Season

Jemma stares at her, looking stricken. “But . . . I thought . . .”

Suddenly, Luca feels very close to tears. She’s relieved when a customer chooses that moment to come up to the counter. Fixing a drink allows her to turn her back on Jemma and will back the horrible burning behind her eyes.

Her last relationship ended a little over two years ago. Heather made a point of listing every single one of Luca’s shortcomings: She wasn’t a good listener, she was messy, she was always late. Somehow, Luca doesn’t think that any of these things are the problem now. Maybe there’s a deeper, hidden flaw that Florence found out. Or maybe Luca just can’t compete with the music.

This band is the most important thing to me. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that my priorities had changed.

She doesn’t know if she can do it—keep playing in the band and pretend like there was never anything between them. She wants more than the life she’s living now, but she doesn’t think she can stand being near Florence if an almost is all they’ll ever be. What does that leave her with?

“I’m sorry,” Jemma says when the sudden rush of customers is over. “I didn’t mean to pry. It just seemed so obvious in the videos.”

“It’s all right.” Luca offers her a strained smile. “You couldn’t have known.”

32

Florence spends the night at The Hare and Oak. Sleeping on the lumpy old sofa feels like a fitting punishment for the predicament she’s landed the band in. Her back cracks as she gets up. With the thready old blanket she found still wrapped around her shoulders, she drifts upstairs and into the kitchen. Her distorted reflection in the electric kettle shows her looking like a very rumpled, deeply pathetic ghost come to haunt the pub.

Sitting at the bar sipping a severely oversteeped cup of Earl Grey, she turns on her phone for the first time in over twelve hours. The messages that come pouring in immediately make her want to turn it off again, but she forces herself to open her messenger app. Because she’s an angel who couldn’t hold a grudge to save her life, Miray texted her twice last night asking if she was all right. Florence shoots back a text telling her not to worry and that she’s at the pub.

After that, she sets down her phone and takes another bracing sip of tea. Her head is pounding the way it always does after an extensive amount of crying. The shutters of the pub are drawn—with mere slivers of light slanting through the grimy windows and the sounds of the street muffled, it feels like she’s in her own safe little cocoon, far away from the world. There’s a part of her that wants to stay hidden away here forever. In here, no one can see her and make assumptions and measure her against her father.

Knock. Knock.

Florence almost jumps out of her skin at the sound of someone rapping on the pub’s front door. She waits a few seconds to see if she imagined it. After a moment, the knocking starts up again.

Gathering her blanket around her, Florence floats over to the window. A peek through the gap between the shutters shows her a sliver of pavement—and Juno Wilde, dressed in high-waisted jeans and a white blouse and, inexplicably, holding a brown paper bag from the bakery down the street.

She fumbles to unlock the door, certain that she’ll open it and find the doorway empty. But Juno is still there, smiling warmly at her as she says, “Sorry for the ambush. Can I come in?”

Florence can do nothing but step aside. She has to blink a few times to confirm she isn’t experiencing some kind of visual hallucination. Juno Wilde still hasn’t disappeared.

Florence can do nothing but shut the door behind her and follow Juno to the bar. Taking the seat next to her, she is suddenly very aware of her unkempt hair and the fact that she’s been wearing the same clothes for twenty-four hours now.

“Miray told me I might find you here,” Juno says after a few beats of prolonged staring on Florence’s part. “I brought croissants.”

Florence’s eyes dart down to the paper bag. In place of an intelligent response, all she comes up with is a disbelieving “Why?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all right,” Juno says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Opening the bag, she asks, “Chocolate or plain?”

“Chocolate,” Florence answers automatically. “Please.”

“Good choice.” With a smile, Juno hands her a pastry. It’s still warm and smells heavenly. Staring down at it, Florence feels like she has stumbled into some parallel universe.

Juno tilts her head. “How are you doing, Florence?”

“I’m—” she begins before her throat closes up and she falls silent again. She’s already a mess; she refuses to cry in front of Juno Wilde, of all people.

In the face of her helpless silence, Juno’s eyes drift to the pictures on the wall behind the bar. “You know,” she says, “I had my first big scandal when I was your age and the press found out I was pregnant.”

“What did they say?”

“That I was a slut.” With perfectly manicured fingers, Juno plucks a piece off her croissant. “That I was a bad role model.” She pops it into her mouth. “That I was a horrible mother for continuing to make music instead of dedicating my life to raising a child.”

“That’s bullshit,” Florence says without thinking.

“Yes,” Juno agrees. “Just like what they’re saying about you now.”

Florence shakes her head. “It’s not the same. You did nothing wrong. This was my fault.”