“Hey.” I take a sip of the beer and sigh. “How’s it going?”
He laughs. “Long day.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Yeah, you look like hell. What were you doing?”
I shrug. “Flipping a house. The usual.”
Manuel shakes his head. “Of course. Just start today?”
“Yeah. Got the crew together, it’s a few houses. Tight deadline. But it should be good when it’s done.”
“Over on the edge of town?”
I frown. “Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Jack was driving by. Said that he saw a bunch of people working over in Reject’s Corner. And that there was a blast from the past.”
“Do tell.”
He knocks back the last of the beer and signals for another one. “You remember Klutzy Klara? From high school? Guess she was over there and looking fucking hot.”
That’s the other thing about living in a small town. Anything that’s out of the ordinary spreads like wildfire. I’m glad I noticed her car before anyone else. Not that I think she would have fallen into the bed of the first man that said hello, but the selfish part of me is relieved that I’ve had her to myself. “Yeah,” I say. “I remember her.”
“Jack said that she’s completely different. Barely recognized her. Gotta say, I’m curious now.”
I roll my eyes and grin. “And how would Ella feel about that?”
Manuel makes a face and punches me in the arm. “I said that I was curious, not that I wanted to hit on her for fuck’s sake.”
“Well,” I say, laughing, “I can tell you that your curiosity is well-deserved.”
My friend’s eyebrows fly into his hairline. “You’ve seen her?”
“You could say that. Reject’s Corner is her project. I’m helping her with it. I actually put together the crew.”
“Wow.” He clinks his bottle against mine. “Well, is Jack right?”
I shrug before I smile. “Yeah, he’s right.”
“Good to know,” he chuckles.
“She’s actually the reason I have to ask your advice tonight.”
He stares at me for long moments. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I shift on the bar stool. “’Cause I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Manuel turns towards me. “All right, let’s do this. Give me the rundown.”
This is what we’ve done since high school. A completely honest friendship where we can tell each if we’re being a fucking idiot. So, I tell him a condensed version of the story. Of seeing her again and falling into bed—without details that I’m sure Klara would rather I did not share. “But it feels different.”
“How so?”
“It’s hard to describe,” I tell him. “It feels like we’ve literally known each other forever, and in a way, I guess we have. But this is natural. Like falling in together wasn’t an accident but was meant to be. And that feels crazy. Shit like that doesn’t just happen, and I’m not sure if it’s hormones or the excitement of something new or if what I’m feeling is actually real.”
Manuel shakes his head. “Damn.”
“Yeah.”
One long sip of his beer later, he looks at me again. “What are you looking for me to say? You want me to validate what you’re feeling? Or tell you that it’s nothing?”
“I want you to tell me what you really think.”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure. I obviously haven’t seen you together. But I will say that I’ve never heard you talk like this about anyone. Never. Not once.”
He’s right. I’ve never felt like this, and until I walked in the door of the bar, I was really trying to push away everything that’s been bubbling up. But I can’t ignore it. Especially when I’m going to go home and find that gorgeous fucking woman in my bed.
“Why wouldn’t I have seen her?” I ask him. “I mean in high school. She was right there. And if this was a thing that’s meant to be, wouldn’t I have noticed her back then?”
Manuel rolls his eyes. “Not necessarily. Just because something could be meant to be now, doesn’t mean that either of you were ready for it back then.”
Klara was, but I don’t tell him that. She wanted me back then, and I was fucking blind. And I don’t know how to not feel guilty about that. Is that because we’ve lost time? Or was I pushing something away that I knew and never acknowledged?
Either way, a slithering feeling of loss pools in my stomach at the idea that I threw away something special without even knowing it.
“I guess,” I finally say, realizing that I’ve gotten lost in my thoughts.
“What are you really thinking about here?”
“I don’t know.” I knock back what remains of my beer until it’s entirely gone. “I really don’t. I just know that it’s been days, and she’s folded into my life in a way that feels effortless. That I can’t get enough of her. I had to come straight here from working on those houses because if I’d gone home with her, believe me, I would have had to cancel. And you would have been lucky to get a text.”