Rebirth of the Broken Luna A Second Chance at Luna's Heart novel Chapter 221

Chapter 221

OLLIE

I stood there holding my ice cream and the crumpled money that was still in my hands, staring at the spot where the ice cream truck had disappeared around the corner leaving me feeling a bit concerned and flabbergasted. The whole thing felt wrong somehow because this hadn’t happened to me before – ice cream vendors were supposed to be happy about getting customers, not running away like they were scared of something.

But what really bothered me wasn’t the strange ice cream man that has shoved the ice cream in my hands roughly and sped off. It was the way Riley had looked while watching that truck drive away.

There had been something in his expression that I’d never seen before, something dark and dangerous that made my twin brother look like a completely different person.

“Riley?” I called out, trying to get his attention so he would look at me instead of staring at nothing in particular. “What was that about? Why did the ice cream man run away like that?”

Riley didn’t answer immediately, nor did he act like he had heard me. He just kept staring down the road where the truck had vanished, his green eyes narrowed in a way that made him look older than five years old.

When he finally turned to look at me, his expression shifted so quickly that I almost wondered if I’d imagined the scary look from

before.

“Nothing, he said, giving me one of those smiles that never quite reached his eyes as he shook his head and continued speaking in a cherry tone.

Just thought the truck looked familiar, that’s all.”

That smile, he gave me trying to make me feel at ease only made my stomach twist with uneasiness. Riley had been getting better at

acting normal around our family, but I could tell when he was pretending or trying to hide his real feelings to avoid hurting Mama.

This was definitely pretending, and it was the kind of fake smile that meant he was thinking about something he didn’t want to share

with me.

I wanted to ask more questions about what was really happening, I wanted to understand why he looked so tense and alert, but I’d

learned not to push Riley when he got like this.

Whenever I tried to corner him into talking about things he didn’t want to discuss, especially anything related to his life before we

found out we were brothers, he would shut down completely and sometimes disappear for hours.

‘Here’s your ice cream,” I said instead, holding out one of the vanilla cones.

‘Two scoops, just like you said.”

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15:07 Wed, Jan 28 M…

Chapter 221

Riley took the ice cream from me, but I noticed his hand was shaking slightly as he reached for it but he held onto it and gave me

another fake smile that made me focus my energy on pretending to be fooled by it. Whatever had spooked him about that truck, it was

still affecting him even now that it was gone.

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“Thanks,” he said quietly, bringing the cone up to his lips.

I was already heading back toward the house, eager to tell Mama about the weird ice cream man who didn’t take money, when I heard

Riley make a disgusted sound behind me. I turned around just in time to see him grimace and spit out the ice cream he’d just tasted, his

face twisted like he’d bitten into something rotten.

Without saying a word, Riley walked over to the trash can near the porch and dropped the entire cone inside, vanilla ice cream and

all. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced around like he was checking to see if anyone had witnessed what he’d

done.

I quickly looked away and pretended I hadn’t seen anything, but my mind was racing with questions that I had no idea the answers to

them. The ice cream had tasted fine to me – sweet and cold and exactly what you’d expect from vanilla ice cream. So why had Riley

reacted like it was poisoned or something?

I hurried inside before Riley could catch me staring, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something important had just happened and

I didn’t understand what it was.

The kitchen was warm and smelled like the cookies Maria had been baking earlier. Mama was sitting at the big wooden table with Aunt Lynn, both of them holding cups of coffee and talking in the kind of quiet, serious voices that adults used when they were discussing

complicated things.

“I just don’t know how to handle the awkwardness, Mama was saying as I walked in. “Being in the same room with them when the tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Poor Zade is dying, Lyn is torn apart with guilt and love, and they aren’t still speaking or saying the words that need to be said. I just wished that there was something that I could do, to help.”

Aunt Lynn nodded sympathetically. “It’s an impossible situation for everyone involved. But at least the antidote Riley provided is

working for now. That buys us time to figure out how to break the curse permanently maybe then all this pining would stop and I would

be able to breathe.”

They both looked up when they noticed me standing in the doorway, and Mama’s expression immediately changed to that of confusion and concern when she saw I was still holding my money.

“Ollie, sweetheart, didn’t you buy ice cream?” she asked, getting up from her chair as she moved towards me, “Where’s Riley’s?”

“I got it,” I said quickly, not wanting to get into the whole complicated story about the weird ice cream man and Riley’s strange behavior. “But the man didn’t take my money. He just gave us the ice cream and drove off really fast, even when I yelled after him that he hadn’t been paid.”

Mama and Aunt Lynn exchanged a look that I didn’t quite understand.

“That’s odd, Mama said slowly. “Ice cream vendors don’t usually refuse payment. Did he say why?”

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Chapter 221

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I shrugged, licking my ice cream to buy time while I figured out how much of the truth to tell. “He seemed nervous about something. Maybe he was new at the job or something.”

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15:07 Wed, Jan 28 M

Reborn From Regret A Second Chance at Luna’s Heart