608 Alpha Avenue (Cherry Falls)

Her enthusiasm over my outing with Grayson nearly matches mine. That’s why she’s my friend and has been my friend for years. Despite our age difference, her being a single mom and me being just a few years older than her child, I can’t imagine being closer to anyone.

“Will you be mad if I tell you that I didn’t notice?” I cringe as she gasps. “I know, I know. Failure on my part.”

“Major failure.” She shrugs, bringing the pizza to her lips. Finally. “Just pay a little closer attention next time. I want the full visual.”

She grins bigger as my smile falters. The pizza lowers again.

“What?” she asks.

Energy pulses through me and I spring to my feet. I have nothing to do, no reason to be up and moving. So, I head to the kitchen that opens up to the living room and grab a few paper towels off the counter.

My stomach is a storm of excited butterflies and nervous ants. It’s a flutter of happiness and a scamper of anxiety all at once.

“I don’t know,” I say slowly, “if there will be a next time for me to pay attention.”

The words are mine. They came out of my mouth. But, somehow, they sound hollow and disconnected from me. I hear them cutting through the air. I recognize my voice. I even know what I’m saying is based on facts. Still, maybe it’s that I don’t want to believe it—that I want to hold on to the tiniest thread of hope, and that’s why it doesn’t resonate. That’s why it’s hard for me to lasso the concept and reel it in.

I’ve stayed away from you. I’ve made it my fucking life’s mission not to be alone with you or get involved in your life from the day we met … You’re a problem for me … I’m not interested in the things you’re interested in. I don’t do relationships. I don’t want to take care of someone.

I don’t want her to be my problem.

I lift my gaze to Kaylee and shrug.

Grayson was brutally honest with me, so it’s better that I accept what he said and move on … let him stay who he wants to be.

“Did I not tell you—was I not right when I said he was into you?” she asks.

“Yes, you said that. But—”

“No.” She shakes her head from side to side. “No. I saw this coming a mile away. And, since my Love Detector is—”

“Oh, no,” I say, cutting her off. “Let’s put away that nasty four-letter word.”

She sighs.

“This was … he fucked me, Kay. That’s all it was. Let’s put down the radar gun and calm down.”

A dollop of sauce falls off the side of her hand, and I can’t take it. I take the bundle of paper towels, march across the room, and cover her thigh. She doesn’t even appear confused, and I wonder if she was aware of the dribbling the whole time and just ignored it.

Weird.

I sit back on the sofa. “It’s fine. I mean, do I hope he’s sitting at home right now thinking about me? Sure. Have I already mentally played out how our second time together might work? A few times. Is it true that I’ve been both excited and nauseous about the idea of him sitting across the bar from me while I work every day and wonder if it will be different? Yes, ma’am. The hopeless romantic inside me is straight-up dying right now—wilting away with visions of the bad boy and good girl, the broody mechanic and the forever romantic.” I pick up a pillow and slam it onto my lap. “But I’ve had visions before, and they did not end happily, dammit. So I have to be pragmatic.”

“Pardon my French but bullshit.”

I rest my head against the tired couch and look at the popcorn ceiling.

What Kaylee is saying right now is what I’m usually telling myself. Forgo common sense and statistics. If you want to try it with the ski instructor, Haley, give it a go! Who cares that every red flag is waving in the wind and that he ticks every box of a commitmentophobe? You can make this work. Miracles happen! He said you’re pretty, and he is the one initiating this. Go for it, girl!

The girl—read me—should not, in fact, have gone for it. Because all I now have is unreal memories of exceptional fucking.

“I want to pick up on that can-do vibe you’re tossing out,” I say, noticing a cobweb in the corner that I know I’ll be forever too lazy to remove, “but maybe I need to be a little more guarded this time.”

“You only live once.”

“And I’d like to do it without testing how many times I can break my own heart.”

The sofa dips as she moves. I think she finally puts the pizza on the coffee table, but I’m afraid to look.