The boy every girl wanted to date and every guy wanted to be.
The boy who punched my at-the-time boyfriend, Roger Callahan, when he caught the jerk kissing Chloe Connors under the bleachers during the homecoming game our senior year.
The boy whoeveryoneswore was in love with me despite his revolving door of beautiful but short-lived girlfriends in high school.
And lastly, he’s the boy who brought homeSadieto meet his parents when I finally got the courage to transfer home to the local college from Texas to admit that I’ve loved him forever.
We have history—and far too much of it. And he’s right. I must play nice, because the holidays are going to be miserable if I don’t suck it up and be a big girl. Of course, he doesn’t know why the very sight of Sadie makes me ill. And I’d like to keep it that way.
“I like her, okay?” I finally answer.
“Well, great, cause your mom invited us to join your family for dinner tomorrow night.” He’s smirking. I don’t have to see him; I can tell. Call it my superpower, if you will.
“Wonderful,” I say, panicking just a little.
“See you tomorrow, Harper Marie.”
I end the call and smack my forehead against the steering wheel, inadvertently honking the horn. An elderly couple just happens to be walking by, and they jump at the noise. They turn to glare at me, and I shrink into my seat.
Just wonderful.
CHAPTER TWO
With a wee bittoo much exuberance, I stab a cupcake with a toothpick to check if it’s done. It is, of course. It’s perfect. They’re always perfect. That’s the thing about baking—you follow the recipe, and everything turns out exactly as it should.
You know how men say women should come with instructions? Well, men should come with a recipe. And if it doesn’t work out, at least you get to stab them with a toothpick.
“Riley, I swear this is the third time we’ve heard this song in an hour,” I gripe as I slide the second cupcake tin on the cooling rack.
My eighteen-year-old sister bops her head to a single off a new Christmas album that our local radio station insists on playing constantly. She has her long, blond hair loosely braided today, and she wears her genius boyfriend’s Colorado School of Mines sweatshirt. Riley’s best friend, Lauren, sits next to her, looking like she stepped out of a winter clothing advertisement.
“It’s catchy,” Riley argues, and she has the audacity to turn up the volume.
“Mason Knight could start singing alternative grunge, and you’d still fawn over him.”
Riley shakes her head, vehemently disagreeing. “I like his music—not him.”
Considering she had no less than four Forever Now posters in her room when she was thirteen, I have to disagree. Now the boy band has broken up, and Mason’s gone solo. He released a Christmas album that came out the day after Thanksgiving. And this particular song is everywhere—it’s the official holiday tune for a major teen clothing store commercial, it’s blaring from speakers in our local mall, and the radio plays it at least twenty times a day.
It doesn’t help that Mason Knight, Mr. Forever Now, the teen heartthrob himself, is from our Montana town. In fact, he and I were in the same grade. If we’d gone to the same school, we might have had classes together.
Of course, that was before he was discovered at fourteen and whisked into the rosy glow of national tours and multi-platinum albums. Still, for at least a year, fourteen-year-old Riley bemoaned the fact that we lived five minutes north of the school division line.
But me? I couldn’t care less. Not then, not now. I don’t have to meet him to know his type—entitled, rich-boy snob. And can he change a tire? Throw a football? Start a fire? Basically do half the things Brandon can with his eyes closed? I think not, and therefore, he holds none of my interest.
And yes, I do know it’s not healthy to continue to compare every guy I meet to Brandon, but old habits die hard.
Especially when that habit comes waltzing into the kitchen. Granted, it’shiskitchen, but that’s not the point. Brandon’s supposed to be out with Sadie—Lauren swore it.
But he’s here, with a bead of sweat dripping from his brow, his T-shirt damp from whatever game he got all sweaty playing. As if he doesn’t see the three of us, he opens the fridge and takes a swallow of milk straight from the carton. Then he turns, casualas you please, and leans against the counter. His eyes are the darkest blue—the kind of eyes you can get lost in, and they’re trained right on me.
I fumble an entire container of cocoa powder into the whipped butter I was prepping for the frosting. Almost cursing, I rip my gaze from his and try to save the recipe.
“Hey, Harper,” he says with a wicked smile. “Lauren didn’t say you were coming over this afternoon.”
I can feel his gaze on me, making me all hot and tingly.
“Cupcakes,” I say as if that’s any kind of answer. Playing all casual and nonchalant, I turn on the mixer…only to have it puff the powdered sugar and newly added cocoa powder in my face. I yip and turn it off, feeling like an idiot.
