Page 31 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

“Needed a drink.” I lifted my beer. “Or three.”

“How are you holding up?” he inquired quietly, glancing at Sadie and then back at me. “It’s got to be weird, with her back.”

If anyone knew what I was feeling, it was Donovan. He’d returned to town after being basically AWOL for a decade when he discovered that the marriage he and Ella thought was fake in Vegas when they were eighteen was actually real, thanks to them using their real licenses instead of their fake IDs. He ended up staying in town after discovering the unrequited feelings he had for his best friend were very much requited and they were now happily married.

Unfortunately, not everyone got that sort of rom-com HEA ending. And I hadn’t accidentally married my best friend one drunken night in Vegas. I accidentally cheated on the love of my life after giving her a promise ring.

I took a calming breath. “It’s fine,” I lied, maybe less convincingly than I’d hoped. “I’m more worried about Buddy than anything.”

Donovan nodded. “He’s tough. He’ll pull through.”

That should have been the end of it. But guys like Donovan could sense when a wound was still bleeding, and he didn’t let it drop. “If you need to talk,” he said, softer this time, “I’m around. Or just get drunk and punch the ocean. Whatever works.”

I tried to laugh, but it stuck in my throat.

The next hour blurred by in a carousel of small-town rituals: pool games, darts, a round of shots for old times’ sake. Even when I wasn’t watching them directly, I could feel Sadie and Gio circling just a little too close, like two magnets finally getting their chance. Sadie was different than she’d been in high school—her edges were sharper, her sense of humor dry as a bone—but I saw flashes of old warmth, it just wasn’t directed at me.

Maybe that’s what cut the deepest. I kept waiting for her to catch my eye, to share an old private joke or even just a look that said she remembered what we used to be. It never came.

When the last game wrapped and the Valentine crew and Damon headed to the bar to grab more drinks, Sadie announced she was calling it a night.

I caught Sadie as she reached for her bag. “Hey, you want a ride?” I tried to sound casual, like I offered people rides all the time, like it wasn’t my nerves talking.

She smiled, polite but distracted. “Thanks, I’m actually set. Gio’s going to take me.” She tilted her head, like she hoped it wouldn’t sting.

Gio appeared beside her, keys already in hand, his smile a little too wide to be innocent. “You still need a ride?”

Say no, I thought to myself. She nodded.

“See you guys later.” I lifted my hand in an awkward wave.

I watched them leave together, Gio’s hand at the small of her back like he belonged there. She turned once, catching my eye, and for a second, I thought she might come back, might say something. She didn’t. The moment slammed shut just like the door.

I stood in the hollow that followed, acutely aware of how much I didn’t fit here. My brother and friends were ordering shots, and I had zero desire to be out. The only reason I’d been here was gone. So, after waiting about ten minutes, I left.

The damp air outside hit me like a slap in the face as I walked to my truck in a fog, the weight of everything I hadn’t said pressing down on my chest. When I fired up the engine, I watched the bar’s neon sign flicker in the rearview, the words Cupid’s Arrow blinking out one letter at a time.

I drove home with the taste of jealousy in my mouth, and the image of Sadie and Gio burned behind my eyes.

11

A HUNDRED MILE DATING RADIUS

Sadie

The drive home from Cupid’s Arrow was longer than I remembered. Maybe because Gio seemed in no hurry, he let the car idle at every turn, as if he was determined to wring every minute from the night.

After what felt like an hour, but was only about ten minutes, Gio’s Audi rumbled down the private road to Lockhart Ranch. The radio played something low and bluesy, and every so often Gio would hum along, off-key and unbothered. It was almost midnight, the air still thick with the misty cold that never quite left the Oregon coast. I rolled the window down a few inches, letting the wind whip my hair against my face and sting my eyes, desperate for a little shock to the system.

Gio had kept the conversation light, like he always did. He’d told me a story about a patient who ordered a sex worker to his hospital room, the nurse caught them in the act, and the woman insisted that she get paid despite the interruption. Another patient ordered UberEats to his surgical suite, he was convinced he was going to die under the knife and wanted steak to be his last meal. I laughed at all the right places, Gio had always been entertaining, but my mind was still stuck on Dawson.

My skin prickled with the memory of Dawson’s hand on my wrist, the way his voice had dropped when he said my name and asked if I needed a ride. I told myself that was just the alcohol talking, but the truth was, Dawson Lockhart had a magnetism that bent everything in my life around him, even after all these years.

If I were being honest with myself, I wanted it to be Dawson’s truck I climbed into, wanted to see him gripping the steering wheel like it might snap in half. But I was terrified of what I’d do if that actually happened. It wasn’t just the old ache of wanting him, it was the new, dangerous certainty that I’d say or do something reckless. I watched the way he looked at me all night in the bar, the tension in his jaw, the heat in his eyes. There were things between us that had never been resolved, only buried under long silences and awkward avoidance.

I kept my gaze fixed out the window, watching the fog roll in thick sheets along the pastures. Sometimes I imagined Dawson was the fog, everywhere at once and impossible to escape, even when you tried your hardest.

“Was it nice catching up with everyone tonight?” Gio asked.