She and Shayla had been inseparable since the third grade, when they bumped into each other in the cafeteria and spilled spaghetti sauce all over their clothes—on school picture day, of all days. Instead of getting in a fight, which the classmates who had crowded around them immediately started to chant in favor of, she and Shayla had both laughed at each other. They’d instantly recognized that they were kindred souls.
Throughout their years of schooling and in all the years beyond, Shayla was the first person Paxton called whenever she had news to share, a problem to solve, or just time to kill.
But she had never told her best friend about the one-night stand she’d had with Sawyer. In fact, she’d never told Shayla about her true feelings for Sawyer, stretching back to their years in high school. She didn’t want to put Shayla in the position of telling her that he was out of her league. Paxton had known that all along.
Yet it suddenly seemed as if Shayla didn’t feel that way at all.
“Why would you think there would be magical sparks between me and Sawyer? I’ve barely said two words to him since high school. In fact, Sawyer and I have never had much to say to each other. I wasn’t even on his radar before we started working on this project.”
Shayla looked at her as if she were a foreign object underneath a microscope. “Wait—are you seriously still in the dark about this?”
“About what?” Paxton asked, reaching for her iced tea.
“Oh, comeon, Pax.” Shayla groaned. “Seriously? Sawyer has had a thing for you since high school.”
“What!” Paxton screeched.
“Just stop it,” Shayla said. “I refuse to believe you are this freaking blind.”
“You’re insane.”
“Really? Don’t you remember how he used to come over to the animal shelter all the time?”
“He used to come there because you were tutoring him.”
“The boy was half crazy over you! Think about it,” Shayla continued. “Sawyer graduated fifth in our class. He had more academic scholarships than football scholarships. Do you really think he hung around the animal shelter because he needed tutoring?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Paxton said before she took a sip of tea. Sure, they’d slept together as adults, but there was no way Sawyer Robertson had any kind of thing for her back in high school.
Maybe you should have given the football players achance…
Paxton sat up straight. “Wait a minute.”
“You catching a clue?” Shayla asked.
Paxton had never considered the fact that Sawyer was indeed an excellent student. He was a jock. Jocks were dumb—at least, that was what she told herself in those days.
“The entire time he was being ‘tutored,’” Shayla said, using air quotes, “he would steal looks at you. He even asked me if you had a date for prom, but you’d already told me that you weren’t planning on going.”
“Prom?” Paxton asked, her mind still reeling from the thought of Sawyer coming to the animal shelter where she and Shayla volunteered as teens to seeher.
She had been so sure that no one would ask her to the prom—or, even worse, that someone would ask her as a joke or a stupid juvenile bet—that she had declared early on that she would not participate in the silly, time-honored tradition. Instead of going to the prom with her classmates, she’d spent that Saturday night as she spent most of her Saturday nights back then, hauling ice, slicing lemons, and washing glasses at Harlon’s. And thinking about all the fun she was missing out on.
Was it possible that she could have spent that night with Sawyer?
Shayla reached across the table and covered her hand. “Do yourself a favor and lock Mean Paxton in the basement for a while. Sawyer is a good guy. You should give him a chance.”
Paxton gave her a subtle nod, but she didn’t say anything else. Apparently, that was enough for Shayla. She dropped the subject of Sawyer and switched to the lineup of events she had planned for The Jazzy Bean’s Friday Jazz Night.
As her best friend rattled on, Paxton’s mind remained on their previous conversation. That Sawyer felt a certain attraction toward her now was undeniable. She’d managed to convince herself that it was purely physical and based solely on his drunken memories of the few naked hours they’d spent together. But if there was some truth to what she’d gleaned today—first from Sawyer and now from Shayla—there was a possibility that the boy she’d pined over for more than twenty years had felt the same way about her.
It was too unbelievable for her to comprehend.
She made a show of checking the time on her phone and said, “I’m sorry to drink your tea and run, but I need to get to Landreaux.”
“And I need to finish up here so I can pick up Kristi and Cassidy,” Shayla said as they rose from the table. She pointed a finger at Paxton. “And I’m serious when it comes to Sawyer.”
Apparently, the subject had not been forgotten.
