Finally catching on that something is not quite right, Harper asks, “Wait. Do you two know each other?” She glances between me and Douglass, noticing her friend’s unhappy reaction to supposedly meeting me for the first time.
Without taking my attention off the woman I used to know from my past, I inform Harper, “Douglass is Amelia’s little sister.”
Douglass and I both turn a sharp glower at Harper when she bursts out laughing.
Chapter 2
Me: Running a little late. Will be there soon.
Harper: We’re sitting at a table in the back. Can’t wait to see you!
I toss the phone into the passenger seat with a defeated groan. I can’t believe I just lied to my friend. Over a text. Have I really becomethatkind of person?
I’m not running late at all. I’ve been sitting in the crappy Toyota Celica rental I picked up two days ago after I flew into Bush Intercontinental Airport and have been staring at the front of Mickey’s Bar and Grill for the last twenty minutes. It’s like returning to the scene of a crime. A potent cocktail of dread mixed with a little anger and a whole lot of humiliation sits upon me like a weighted anchor until I can’t move. My lungs constrict the longer I stare at the simple brick building with its flashing neon signs in red and white hanging in the large windows that say “Welcome,” and “Open for Business,” and “Cold Beer.”
When Harper arranged for us to meet here tonight, I should’ve suggested somewhere else. Anywhere else.
It’s been five years since I left this godforsaken town to relocate halfway across the country to the lovely state of North Carolina. The college campus of Carolina University is where I first met Harper. She was a sophomore, and I worked at the campus café she and her now-husband, Bennett, would come to almost every morning. Once she and I started making small talk across the counter as I mixed the ingredients for her usual iced caramel mocha latte, things just kind of clicked from there, and we’ve been friends ever since.
Out of the tens of thousands of towns in the country she and Bennett could’ve moved to, the chances that they would choose Woodspire, Texas, the town I grew up in—the town I still hate and couldn’t get away from fast enough—should have been mathematically non-existent. Funny how life loves to throw those little curveballs at you, tripping you up just to watch you fall down like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
I wasn’t a CU student like Harper. Couldn’t afford college, even if I wanted to go. So, I worked all day and was able to scrape enough money together to take one evening class at the local community college per semester and during the summer. At least, it was something; a foundation to slowly build upon to give myself a better life from the one I grew up in.
I glance up in time to watch a couple coming out of Mickey’s. Big smiles on their faces and hearts for eyes as they hold hands and talk while walking to their car to leave. When the man opens the car door for his date, she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him, her giggling and effervescent happiness making me cringe.
That was me five years ago. For a few short hours, I got to be her—full of hope and love and giddiness because out of all the women that night at the bar,hechoseme. I was a fool.
Knowing I need to get out of my car and go inside, I reluctantly unbuckle my seat belt but still make no move to open the driver’s side door. Mickey’s brings back too many memories. Ones I’ve locked tight and shoved deep down into that pocket of space in my subconscious where I leave things to wither and die. I’ve gotten very good at burying my emotions, blocking out the bad ones that carry the most hurt. The ones created the nighthebroke me. Broke isn’t a strong enough word. Eviscerated or maybe massacred fits better.Hebeing Jordan Hammond. My high school crush. The man who I had been desperately in love with since I was fourteen years old. The guy who never noticed me because he only had eyes for my older sister, Amelia. The guy who was supposed to become my brother-in-law until my sister screwed everything up and cheated on him. The guy who I made the mistake of sleeping with that one night five years ago, and the reason I left Woodspire. I handed Jordan Hammond my beating heart on a silver platter, and he crushed it under his size twelve boot.
Because I’m both mentally and physically exhausted, I take a deep breath and roll my shoulders, my mind trying to settle into a semblance of calm but failing miserably. I don’t know why the Wishing Tree pops into my head at that moment, but I allow myself to drift away into that image.
The Wishing Tree was an old oak tree that stood in the main quad on the CU campus across from the café where I worked. Students would hang paper stars along its many branches—stars they had written wishes on. Over time, they would disintegrate, the paper being quickly eaten away by rain and the elements. Once that happened, your wish was supposed to come true. I think I hung about a hundred stars on that tree, wishing for something I knew would never happen. Even knowing that, I continued to hang the same wish, hoping that one day… just maybe… But wishes are for fools and dreamers, and I’m the biggest, stupidest one. Well, I used to be. I know better now.
Heaving out a breath, I muster the courage to finally get out of the car. The mouth-watering smells of honey barbeque and meat cooking on the grill waft out from Mickey’s and hit me full force, making my stomach lurch. I have a love-hate relationship with food, which led me down a very dark road that I’m still slowly trying to navigate and recover from. If you’ve ever had to do anything in baby steps where it’s one step forward, two steps backward, you know how arduous the journey is, and how some days absolutely suck, making you feel like a complete failure.
Smoothing down my dark lavender off-the-shoulder blouse, I give one good tug on my black Capri pants to readjust the waistband after sitting in the car for so long. My favorite pair of rhinestone-bedecked black Chucks crunch on the gravel-littered parking lot with each step I take. Living in North Carolina made me forget just how freaking hot Texas was. It’s the end of February, mid-winter, and the temperatures must be at least eighty degrees already. Beads of sweat are popping along my neckline, making me regret wearing my hair down instead of up in a ponytail.
As soon as I pull open the door to Mickey’s, a wash of cool air envelops me right before the cacophonic noise does. The place is busy for a weeknight. Much busier than I remember it ever being when I used to come here. I search through the sea of unknown faces, past a group of women at the bar and a few older couples sitting at tables, until I spot Harper at the back. We haven’t seen each other since she and Bennett graduated from CU. Her hair is longer, and I notice how the bar lights catch on some new blonde streaks woven throughout her darker brown locks.
Harper notices me immediately from across the room and stands to wave me over. Seeing my friend’s smiling face pushes all my anxiety away, and I walk toward her—until I see there’s another person sitting across from her at the table.
My footsteps falter to a snail’s pace because the man isn’t her husband. This guy is taller, leaner, with a mop of artfully shaggy, sandy-brown hair. I only see the back of his head as I approach, but something feels familiar… and off.
After traveling the world together for the past several months, Harper had mentioned in an earlier text that she and Bennett had recently moved into her brother’s estate—well, her half brother, Jorey, who I guess I’m about to meet—instead of finding a place of their own closer to Houston.
Harper rushes over to me and grabs me in a tight hug. “Oh my god! You look absolutely gorgeous! I’ve missed you so much!”
The warmth and enthusiasm of her greeting has me smiling as I hug her back. I’m about an inch taller than she is and have to bend slightly to accommodate her enthusiastic embrace.
“I’ve missed you too,” I reply with genuine sincerity.
The man with Harper visibly stiffens in his seat at the sound of my voice. As if in slow motion, he gradually rises from his chair, and that feeling of sickening dread flash-freezes my thumping heart and sends it plummeting into my stomach seconds before he turns around.
The universe must hate my guts, because there is absolutely no way that Jordan Hammond is staring at me right now. Okay, not only staring, but eyes roving me up and down with a look of utter disbelief, shock, and undisguised male appreciation. His vivid aqua irises lock on my face, and everything from that night comes flooding back. Every. Damn. Thing. And curse him for still being the sexiest man I have ever seen whose bright blue eyes rimmed with deep indigo steal the breath from my lungs.
Hate and longing pummel me in equal measure until I’m dizzy. When my expression of elation at seeing Harper transforms into menacing rage at the man who callously ripped my heart out, he has the audacity to look confused at the contempt and repugnance I’m flaying him with my narrowed eyes alone. My skin starts to prickle and overheat. My muscles coil almost as tightly as the fists my hands contort into, and everything around me fades until all I see is a red haze in the shape of Jordan.
Harper loops an arm around my waist, not noticing how the temperature in our corner of the bar plunges below freezing.
