Dancing Away With My Heart (Wishful 12)

minders it brought. While she wasn’t sure how she was going to make ends meet the next several weeks, she’d been thrilled to escape more of the shiny, happy teenagers and their parents, who approached the occasion with nearly as much seriousness as a wedding.

“I’m sure he’ll be just delighted to see you.”

Lexi doubted that. They barely qualified as friends anymore. “I’m sure it’ll be good to catch up later. I’ve got time, after all.” Sucking in a breath to calm her racing pulse, she managed another smile. “Listen, Mrs. Landon, it was so wonderful to see you, but I need to be getting on. Mama sent me into town to pick up mochas and brownies from The Grind.”

“Of course, of course. You tell your mama I said hello now, you hear?”

“Yes ma’am, I will.”

“I’ll bring that casserole by later this week!”

“We surely appreciate it. Thanks again.” Before Mrs. Landon could start in on any other subject, Lexi ducked away and hustled across the green to the coffee shop.

As she stood in line, she managed to get herself under control. It was stupid, really. She’d known she’d see him eventually. Wishful didn’t even have a population of six thousand people. Over the past decade, she’d managed to limit those random encounters, coming home only rarely for weekends and sticking close to the house, rather than out and about. Her mother, God love the woman, had never asked for details about why Lexi no longer wanted to see the boy who’d been her best friend from the first summer before she’d started at Wishful High School, back in ninth grade. Lexi had hoped that time would dull the ache of missing him and the burn of embarrassment she felt every time she thought of him. But it hadn’t. Not yet, anyway. So, she’d have to bite the bullet, take control, and arrange to see him on her terms. After she’d had a chance to get her head screwed on straight.

“Lexi?”

At the sound of the familiar male voice behind her, she closed her eyes.

Crap.

Zach stood just inside the entryway to The Daily Grind. All thoughts of the clients he’d just finished with, and the large Zombie Killer with caramel he needed to fuel the late night of editing ahead, spilled out of his brain. The next few seconds unfolded like a series of still shots, each moment captured clear in his mind as she turned. In each one, she transformed a little bit more from the girl he remembered to the woman before him. The woman he’d barely seen in a decade. Every blink was another shutter click, storing away mental images, cataloging the differences between then and now. She was still petite, but the compact body in his memory had added more than a few curves. The rich, brown waves of her hair were longer now, pulled back in a low tail at her nape.

But it was her. It was Lexi.

Joy burst like a barrage of flash bulbs in his brain. But there was something else there, too. A tightness in his chest he didn’t expect. Like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. An inability to look away from those melted chocolate eyes. Had they always been this deep and piercing? Her lips curved as she smiled that familiar, Lexi smile, and the thing in his chest loosened.

Before he could check himself, he’d closed the distance between them, scooping her into his arms, and lifting her off her feet in a fierce hug. “Damn, it’s so good to see you!”

It took a second to register that she wasn’t hugging him back. Realizing he’d overstepped some boundary they’d never had before, he set her down, finding himself strangely reluctant to release her, as if she’d disappear in a puff of smoke the moment he stopped touching her. Lexi Morales hadn’t been a day-to-day part of his life since they’d graduated high school, but he’d never stopped thinking about her. Never stopped wondering how the hell they’d gone from easy, everyday friends, to the keep-up-on-social-media distance they had now.

As soon as her feet hit the floor, she took a step back, and he noticed that smile he’d missed so much was a little strained around the edges. “Hi, Zach.”

Shit, should he apologize for invading her personal space? Not knowing what else to do, he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her again. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

Glancing at the line, she edged closer to the counter. “Only just. My mom broke her ankle.”

Zach frowned. How had he not heard about that? He tried to keep up with Mama Morales since Lexi was more than a few hours away in Texas. “That’s awful. Is she okay?”

“Yeah. But she can’t manage on her own right now, so I’m here for a few weeks to help out.” There was a flash of…something in her eyes before they shuttered.

Zach realized he’d seen that before, when she’d started to retreat at the end of high school. He hadn’t known what to do with that back then. She’d never hidden what she was thinking or feeling before. It had always been one of the things he’d loved about her. He knew exactly where he stood with her. When she’d started pulling away, he’d thought it was a phase. She’d always been an intensely private person, so when she’d put up boundaries, he’d respected them instead of demanding she tell him what was going on. He’d thought she’d snap out of it. She hadn’t. High school had ended, they’d gone to different schools, and somehow…they’d never found their way back to the friends they used to be. He’d been able to keep up with her on social media. Maybe that had made him feel like they were still closer than they actually were because he was painfully aware that he couldn’t read her right now.

He didn’t know where this standoffishness was coming from. Okay, maybe she hadn’t responded the way he wanted when he’d reached out online. They’d both been busy with their respective lives. It happened. But maybe it was more than that. Did she have something going on that he ought to be concerned about? As far as he was concerned, they were still friends. If she needed support for something, he wanted to be there for her.

The line moved, and they took another step toward the register. “Is everything all right with you being here that long?”

The question seemed to take her aback. “What?”

“It’s just, you seem less than thrilled about it.”

Two spots of color bloomed in her cheeks. “It’s not that. I love my mom. It’s just a long time to be away from my life in Austin.”

“And does that life include a significant other?” He hadn’t seen her post anything about a guy on social media, but she didn’t post about a lot of things.

Lexi snorted and sounded more like herself. “Like I have time for a boyfriend while I’m getting my business off the ground.”

Zach felt an absurd sense of relief at the news. Why should it matter if she had a boyfriend or not? It wasn’t like a guy would take her away from him. Life had done that already. And things had never been anything more than platonic between them.