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If she’d known how things would end between them, would she have given him a different answer?

Hard to know. Tennyson, in his famous poem, said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, but Tennyson had never dated Jace Clark.

Jace had a way of ruining other men by comparison.

And now he was walking up to the appointment desk. It was the middle of the day. Didn’t the guy have lives to save or fires to put out or … judging by his physique, abs to crunch?

Delancey, the other stylist at the salon this shift, left her station to greet him. She’d finished up with a root touch-up ten minutes ago, so the next walk-in ought to have been hers. “Hello, Mr. Clark. How can I help you?”

Jace paused. “You’re either wildly good with names or you know Lucas.”

“He’s dating my roommate.”

“Ah, you’re one of Riley’s roommates.” A pause. “Good to meet you…”

“Delancey,” she supplied, and in what was clearly a moment of flirting, she tucked one of her brown curls behind her ear. Delancey was the sort who loved vintage clothing, and today, her fifties pedal pushers and ribbed sweater were doing a good job of showing off her curves. “I feel like we’ve already been introduced because the first time I met Lucas, he was pretending to be you.”

Jace nodded. “It seems like that should count. Also, I hope he wasn’t a jerk while he was hijacking my identity.”

“Not in the least.” Delancey was all encouraging grins.

First off, Delancey was Marlowe’s friend. Should she really have stood there flirting with a guy who’d broken Marlowe’s heart? And okay, maybe Marlowe never told Delancey that she had some unresolved feelings about Jace. Marlowe hadn’t even realized it herself until he showed up at her house yesterday. But still. The friend code prohibited anything except for accusatory glares toward exes.

Delancey surveyed Jace’s hair, probably noting that it was already an ideal length. “What can I help you with?”

He gestured in Marlowe’s direction and caught her eyeing him. She looked away and dumped the hair into the garbage can.

“Haircut,” he said. “But I want Marlowe to do it.”

“Oh,” Delancey said with understanding. “She’ll be with you in a minute.” To Marlowe, she called, “You’ve got a client.”

Marlowe fixed on a smile. “Hi Jace, come on back.”

He strode across the room, his long legs eating up the distance. “How are you today?”

Marlowe’s smile didn’t leave her lips. “Awake enough that I probably won’t nick off part of your ear.”

Jace looked at Marlowe’s chair as though not sure he wanted to sit in it, and his eyes flicked back to the door.

“You’re having second thoughts about a trim,” she said. “Can’t say I blame you. You never know what a bitter ex-girlfriend will do to your hair.”

“Good thing you’re not the bitter type then.”

“We’ll be the judge of that after we see how your haircut turns out.” She took a clean hair shield from the shelf and shook it open like a bullfighter. “You want a crewcut, right—at least, that’s what I’ll tell my manager I heard you say after you complain to her later.” Marlowe motioned to the chair. “Ready?”

Jace folded his arms and didn’t sit down. He glanced at Delancey, who was now straightening the front desk in an attempt to appear like she wasn’t eavesdropping. He lowered his voice. “I can’t believe you’re still holding a grudge. You were sixteen, and I was leaving for college in a few months. Do you really think I should have strung you along? Did you want a long-distance relationship through years of college instead of dating the dozens of guys you’ve gone out with since I left?”

She didn’t want to admit he had a point. Sixteen-year-old her would have been more than willing to follow him to his college after she graduated. “I wouldn’t say there’ve been dozens of guys.”

“Your Instagram states otherwise.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know how many of those pictures are deepfakes.”

Jace sighed and cast another glance at Delancey. “Look, I don’t really want a haircut. I just came in to talk to you. Haircuts take what, half an hour? Why don’t I pay your fee for that, and let’s go next door to the café for something to eat.”

The last thing Marlowe wanted was to be trapped in a restaurant with Jace. “Do you think we have half an hour’s worth of things to say to each other?”

“You’re right. I’ll get two haircuts.” He took a step toward the door. “Come on. You know you want to yell at me and get it out of your system.”