His phone buzzed.
“Brek,” he said in greeting.
“Heather came by,” Brek said.
“She broke it off.”
“I heard.”
“I fucked up.”
“Yup.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
Finally, Brek broke the silence. “She’s still here. Talkin’ with Velma and Claire. Figured you’d be lookin’ for her.”
Yes. Yes, he was.
Jase stood, confident in what needed to be done.
He was going to convince her to give him another shot.
29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Heather had moved to lemonade. Sad drunk wasn’t fun, and she wasn’t ready to head home alone yet.
Velma had put on a rom-com, but Heather was only mildly watching from the periphery, bundled on one end of the white leather sofa. Claire was curled up on the other end. Mostly, Heather was planning how she could go through life with as little contact with Jase as possible.
It’d be easier that way.
She toyed with the edge of the blanket, the movie soft in the background.
“Heather,” Jase said her name.
She glanced up over the edge of the sofa. The world pressed pause on her heartbeat.
Jase stood in the doorway, Brek holding the door wide.
She’d never even heard him knock.
But he didn’t just stand there. No, he stood there in his Navy dress whites, his hat under his arm, a stack of papers in his other hand.
“Holy crap,” Velma said.
“Whoa.” That was Claire.
Heather’s heart ached just looking at him. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Couldn’t bring herself to move at all, because this was obviously a hallucination.
“Heather,” he said again. “Hey.”
He shifted the cap under his arm and strode toward her with a military precision that seemed so appropriate with his uniform.
“I’m working on a project,” he said when she didn’t say anything. “I was hoping you might hang a poster for me.” He set the stack on the edge of the sofa and tapped the top copy.
“Jase…” she said.
