“Sure.” Damn it. Five minutes in the grocery store, and I’m already dredging up memories of him.
My cart is packed with enough produce to open a roadside stand, and it looks…too wholesome. No one actually eats this healthy. Not even reformed New Yorkers with something to prove.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, steering toward the other end of the store. “We need balance in this cart. Something with high-fructose corn syrup and artificial colors. For morale.”
Mom laughs. “Some things never change. Don’t forget those chocolate sandwich cookies you used to hide under your bed.”
With my mission for junk food firmly in place, I round the corner toward the promised land of processed sugar and bright packaging and bad decisions and then I stop cold.
None other than Jake Matthews stands in the meat section, holding a package of ground beef with the grave concentration of a food inspector. It’s been four years since that awful breakup. His shoulders are broader now, body filling out the charcoal suit to a tee, and his brown hair has gone longer, curling at his collar in soft, almost unfair waves.
My body recognizes him before my pride can remember to hate him. My heart doesn’t merely skip a beat—it omits several.
I knew we’d run into each other eventually. Small town, small odds. But not like this. Not right after I landed.
I swerve behind a towering man in overalls, clutching my purse to my chest like it can shield me from the past. My pulse pounds in my ears, drowning out the store’s too-cheerful version of “How Deep Is Your Love.” I swallow hard, throat tight. Deepenough to still hurt after four years. Deep enough that my body hasn’t learned how to forget.
I peek around my human shield’s shoulder for another glimpse, my mouth suddenly bone-dry, gulping at saliva that isn’t there.
It’s not only the way he looks that sets my anxiety off. It’s what’s still hanging between us, unfinished and sharp. The questions I’ve carried for years, heavy as stones, demanding answers I never got.
And yet, despite the hurt he’d caused, my traitorous heart still sparks at the sight of him, bright and stupid and immediate. He’s traded the leather jacket I used to steal on cold nights for a tailored suit, and somehow, infuriatingly, he looks even better than he did at twenty-one. Life was supposed to have ravaged him without me, left him rough-edged and regretful, not polished him into this older, more handsome version. Apparently, my cursing his life like a witch on my worst nights had the opposite effect.
The man I’m using as cover turns, raising a bushy eyebrow. “Can I help you with something, Miss?” His deep voice carries enough to make a nearby shopper turn.
“Sorry.” The word emerges high-pitched, thin and unconvincing. “Just...browsing snacks.”
His confusion deepens. “In the meat department?”
“Umm,” I blurt nonsensically, then scurry away, keeping my head ducked low.
I weave between displays with the desperate focus of someone fleeing a crime scene, cart squeaking like it wants to announce my whereabouts to the entire store.
Jake hasn’t spotted me yet, and I intend to keep it that way. I never really let myself imagine what I’d say if I saw him again, because for the longest time it hurt too much to even hold his face in my mind without something inside me cracking. And Iam sure as hell not ready now. Staying out of his line of sight becomes a kind of prayer, a thin, frantic shield that keeps the bad memories from clawing up from wherever I buried them.
My strategic retreat, so confident and so stupid, leads me directly into a pyramid of canned beans. For one horrified beat, it holds. Then the entire display gives way, collapsing in a loud, merciless clatter that echoes down the aisle like an announcement. Cans ricochet, rolling toward strangers’ shoes, and I go cold, because that sound is going to carry. That sound is going to draw eyes. His eyes.
“Perfect,” I mutter, my face blazing with heat that could probably cook the beans right in their cans. I crouch down, frantically gathering the scattered cans while using a family-sized box of Honey O’s I snatched from a nearby shelf as a makeshift shield.
A teenage employee rushes over, his expression hovering between amusement and pity. “Don’t worry, Miss. I’ve got this. Happens all the time.”
“No, no, I insist.” I continue stacking cans with the determination of someone building a fortified wall between themselves and embarrassment. My hands shake slightly, but I manage to create a respectable foundation for the new bean pyramid. “I’m so sorry about this.”
The boy bends to grab another can, shooting me a look like he’s just found a loony-bin escapee loose in aisle seven. “Seriously,” he says, shoving the can back into place with practiced ease, “it’s my job.”
“I’m fine, really,” I insist, peering around my cereal box barricade to check for any sign of Jake approaching. I’m in the clear.
With the display somewhat restored and my dignity in tatters, I abandon my snack mission and power-walk back to find Mom,who’s comparing bunches of kale like she’s judging a beauty pageant.
“We need to leave. Right now.” I grab our cart handle, ready to steer us toward the checkout lanes.
Her eyes narrow with immediate concern. “What’s the matter?”
I tip my chin toward the meat section, where Jake still stands, now scrutinizing steaks with the same relentless intensity. Mom follows my gaze. The instant she sees him, her posture snaps rigid, like she’s been jolted by a live wire.
“Oh,” she says, and the word lands heavy, dense with four years of resentment she’s been storing up like ammunition… Just like I have.
“Let’s go.” I push our cart forward. “I cannot deal with this right now.”
