Page 22 of The Perfect Heart

The defensiveness in my tone said otherwise, and so did Jonas’s eyebrow.

“Will you put that thing away?” I snapped.

My friend only chuckled and stuffed another pretzel in his mouth, crunching loudly.

“I’m still trying to get used to our new dynamic. And the new person Halle’s become, and who I’ve become, which has changed everything. And I still don’t want to scare her or push her away. There’s a good chance she’s not talking to me because I asked her about her relationship the other night.”

“And you’ll never know unless you ask her,” Jonas said around a mouthful, one leg crossed over the other as he leaned back again, safely across the kitchen and out of my grasp because he knew I wanted to wring his neck. His smirk told me so.

“I have no idea how to approach the situation,” I corrected him through gritted teeth.

“And, yet again, you’ll never know unless you ask her.”

I rolled my lips, clenching and unclenching my fists. As much as I hated to admit it, Jonas was right—I had to ask Halle. The only thing continuing this way would do was drive me crazy. I had to ask her what was going on, get it out in the air, figure out what was happening between us so we could resume our friendship.

Sighing, I let my head drop, running a hand over my hair before turning around and grabbing another beer from the fridge. Jonas must have known he had won because he chuckled, snatching the beer from my hand as he shuffled past.

“Come on. The game’s on. Don’t want to miss it.”

I wasn’t sure what game he was watching in the late afternoon—probably some random sport no one had heard of on one of the upper sports channels. But I grabbed another beer and followed him to the living room anyway.

“By the way,” Jonas called over his shoulder, “do you have a crush on Halle?”

I didn’t dignify the question with an answer, glad his back was to me so he couldn’t see how my cheeks had heated. Thankfully, the sensation had disappeared as we dropped onto his old, misshapen couch. As I had known, we drank through the twelve-pack, and I didn’t get up until total darkness had settled over the house. We said our goodbyes, and I left, trudging through the snow to my car.

I had just opened the door when my phone went off, and I slipped it out of my pocket. It was an unknown number, a text: I hope you haven’t forgotten about me.

I froze for a heartbeat, gaze moving over the words again before I jammed my phone back into my jeans, gritting my teeth as I ignored the message.

Chapter 11

Halle

I SAW EMILY ACROSS the room at a table for two, sipping from a martini glass. She had a bubble of space around her, which was unusual in the packed bar. But I was glad for it, too. It was a small town, and the last thing I needed was for someone to overhear me and have it get back to Nash.

Slipping and pushing my way through the crush of people, I finally reached the table. Emily looked up, her smile cool as always, but her eyes warm, and she patted the table across from her as an invitation to sit.

“When did this place open?” I asked.

“I don’t know, three or four years ago?” Emily’s gaze wandered the exposed beams and dark wood that gave the place an odd industrial chic-slash-Alpine ski lodge vibe. I supposed they were going for a different crowd than Nash’s place—a younger crowd, trendier clothes, jazz in place of classic rock, young adults instead of locals and families. But it was kind of impersonal, too.

“I think I like Nash’s bar better.” I had leaned forward, my whisper barely qualifying as one in the noise.

“I do, too, but the martinis here are better. More like the places in New York.” Emily’s lips curled up in a small, ironic smile.

We’d all come back for some reason or another, some because they had to, like Emily, others because they wanted to, like me. Like a rubber band stretched to its limits and snapping back, here we were, back in the place we had left, thinking we would never return.

Yet here we were, though whether that was a good or bad thing, I didn’t know.

“So.” Emily leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her martini. “What’s up?”

“Well—”

Where did I start? At the beginning, I supposed.

“So last week, Nash took me out to dinner. I think he was trying to check on me, see if I was okay, but I brushed him off and felt bad, so I invited him back to watch a movie. The same thing we used to do, nothing different, no suggestion. But this time, something happened. I don’t even know what.”

This caught Emily’s attention, her regular expression, which always bordered on disinterest perking to curiosity, and she sat up.