Tension unfurled in my chest, drifting away.
A date with Mallory Carpenter. Who would have thought?
“Yup. I guess I am.”
After that I almost did kiss her, both of us leaning in too close, her lips parting as she tilted her chin up to me, her eyes sparkling for the first time today.
But then her phone rang.
And my head cleared.
She wasn’t staying.
Mallory would be gone soon, and the ache in my chest when that happened would swallow me whole.
Chapter 3
Mallory
Kelly’s apartment looked just like I imagined it would. Colorful and vibrant, full of life.
Rose was already there when I arrived, sitting cross-legged on Kelly’s living room floor, labeling boxes in her loopy handwriting. The apartment was cheerful chaos, stacks of books and framed prints leaning against every wall.
“She lives!” Rose announced, throwing her arms up when she saw me.
Kelly appeared from the bedroom doorway with her hair in a messy bun and a smudge on her cheek, grinning so wide it made my chest ache.
I’d missed both of themsomuch.
“Get in here. I havesomuch stuff to pack. This is going to take all day,” Kelly grinned as she held her arms open for a hug.
She wasn’t wrong. The bedroom was a disaster of open drawers and half-filled boxes. There were clotheseverywhere.
Kelly had moved in with Brady, a fact that made my heart warm.
She’d crushed on him for about as long as I’d been crushing on Zane.
If those two could find their way to each other, there was something to be said for staying put long enough to let life catch up with you.
I pushed that thought aside before it could take root and grabbed a stack of sweaters to fold.
The difference between Kelly and me was that her crush had left the Ozarks while she’d stayed behind. And I hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out if Zaneeverplanned to ask me out.
We all caught up on each other’s lives while we worked through the morning. The three of us fell back into the easy rhythm of old friendship the way you fall back into a comfortable chair… without even having to try.
Rose made terrible jokes while Kelly kept second-guessing which things should go to Brady’s and which should head off for donation.
I sorted and folded and wondered how I’d walked away all these years.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this town and everyone in it until I was sitting in the middle of Kelly’s mess, creating a keep-and-go pile for her extensive tank top collection.
Kelly emerged from the closet with a bulging black garbage bag. “I almost forgot. This is yours.”
I looked up from the pile in front of me. “Mine?”
“You gave me these clothes when you moved away, but they didn’t quite fit.” She dropped the bag on the bed with a thump. “Do you want any of them back before I donate them?”
Rose abandoned her tape gun immediately and came to dig through the bag with both hands like it was a treasure chest.
