“Of course you were.”
“You believe me?”
She shrugs. “Why would you intentionally jeopardize your job?” Water traces a path along the line of her jaw.
Letting out a breath, I step forward to wipe it off, but she shuffles back as though afraid that her boss might come in.
“Where did you fly here from?” I ask.
“Florida.” Her tone has a sharp form of punctuation at the end, like she doesn’t want me to ask if she was the princessin the video or for any other personal information. The two of us excelled at compartmentalizing the past back in the day. Probably why we became such good friends so quickly.
Though these days, I have no problem talking about myself—though the past remains there, buried deep down and far away. Although a lot closer here in Concordia than across the ocean in Boston.
“Funny that we both ended up here. Almost like fate wasn’t pleased we hadn’t seen each other in so long.” I speak fondly, trying to stitch up my rude arrival, dodge the Cinderella incident, and resume our easy rapport.
Usually, Maggie has a great sense of humor, but I never pranked her directly. She was my partner in crime. She’s also smart, honest, independent, and has a natural beauty that...I give my head a hard shake. That sounds like girlfriend material. Haven’t done that in a very long time. A crackling inside finishes the thought for me. Maggie looks at me for a moment.
The crackling fills my ears.
This is new.
Different.
Unexpected.
So many of the women I encounter these days are overly flirty, fawn over me, and are only interested in doing things other than talking and genuinely laughing. Maggie isn’t like that at all. However, right now, she seems tight-lipped and closed-off. Logic suggests it’s because she’s my coach and wants to be professional, but my Maggie radar suggests something else is going on. Guilt skates toward me because I haven’t been a great friend.
“Do you want to go dry off?” I suggest.
She squares her shoulders and opens the folder. I glimpse a photo of myself looking like a thug. The edges of the contents aredamp. “No, I’m fine, but this is one step down from a mug shot. Care to explain? Should I be concerned?”
“In the hustle to retain our dignity after we realized it wasn’t only Brandon who walked into the room, Chase accidentally elbowed me in the nose. I took it like a man.” I bring my fingers to the bridge, still slightly sore and scabbed over.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I forgot to turn the sound back on after the flight. The message is from a girl I went out with the weekend before. I ignore it and return to the ray of soggy sunshine in front of me.
Planting my hands on Maggie’s shoulders, I say, “How about we start over? As you said, we don’t have to mention to anyone that we know each other. I don’t want the headmistress to replace you with a shrew.” I wriggle at the thought of being with an uptight school marm who wants nothing more than to slap my knuckles with a ruler. “That way, there aren’t any problems on your first day at work. It’s a win-win, right?”
She bites her lower lip as if debating whether to fib or not. “That’s probably the smartest course of action.”
I reach to grip the lapels of my suit jacket, but it’s over her shoulders. My insides crackle again at the sight of her wearing it, reminding me of the times she’d borrow one of my hoodies and it would come back smelling like sweet rosewater.
Yep, it’s time to start over.
9
DECLAN
Iclear my throat and say, “I’m Declan Printz, guilty as charged.” I grin because here I am, reunited with my best friend, and I can’t help but joke around.
A subtle smile plays on her lips. “Nice to meet you. I’m Maggie Byrne, your new lifestyle coach.” She scans a piece of paper in the folder like she isn’t sure where to go from here.
I peer over her shoulder at the file, getting a lungful of that same, familiar sweet rose scent mixed with my cologne wafting from my suit jacket. Up until now, I’d been nose blind to it, but mixed with Maggie’s fragrance, I can’t help but want to take a bath in the combination—or hose myself down in it with a pair of squirt guns.
Stealing a glance, her eyelashes brush the smooth crescents of her cheeks. Her forehead creases slightly as though she isn’t sure about what she’s reading. Wisps of her hair graze her neck and she twists one with slender fingers as the water drips onto her collarbones.
My phone vibrates again, catching me on a hard swallow and I cough into my fist. It’s from another of what Wolf would refer to as Declan’s Damsels.
Little known fact. There’s the public-facing version of me and the private one. No one in the US, except Maggie, has ever seen a glimpse into that side of me, and even with her, it was limited. I left the past in Ireland. But whether it’s geographical proximity, Maggie’s presence—sharpening the image of who I was when we first met like an old Polaroid photo coming into focus—or simply a change in the air, I feel an inner crackling like something is breaking open.
