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Well, he always had been able to read her.

She gestured around her. “I … you want me to leave work so I can go to a café and yell at you about high school?”

“Yes. And then I have something to discuss with you.”

That piqued her curiosity. She followed after him. When he reached Delancey, he pulled out his wallet and handed some bills to her. “I’m stealing Marlowe. I’ll pay for an hour of her time.”

Delancey took the money with raised eyebrows like Jace had just ordered a take-out call girl. Marlowe dusted bits of hair off her pants. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s all above board. He’s getting two haircuts.”

“Of course,” Delancey said.

Marlowe was so going to hear about this later.

She was probably going to regret leaving with Jace, and yet she followed him out anyway.

CHAPTER 5

On the day that Jace had broken Marlowe’s heart, she got up early on a Saturday to buy his favorite protein bars. She wanted to give them to him in a surprise care package before he took the SAT. It was a cold December morning. Typical for Montana: snow piled everywhere, trees standing bare and shivering, icicles daggering off the edges of buildings. It was also the last day the SAT was offered for students who were going to college in the fall.

Jace had waited until the final test slot because he wanted to study as much as possible in order to have a better chance at a scholarship. Even back then, he planned to be a doctor and knew that without a scholarship, he would end up with mountains of student loan debt.

Marlowe’s life had seemed so perfect on that day. Jace was going to ace the test, fulfill all his dreams, and one day, she would be a doctor’s wife. She had their future planned, complete with children, although she hadn’t mentioned that detail to Jace yet. She’d told him she loved him, though. On her sixteenth birthday, he gave her a foiled hardback copy of Pride and Prejudice because he knew it was one of her favorite books. She’d thrown her arms around him and shrieked, “It’s perfect! I love you!”

“Do you?” he asked.

“As fervently as Elizabeth loves Darcy.”

He probably thought she was joking.

She wasn’t.

So there she was on that cold December morning, venturing into the Safeway—Mr. Copley always sent her the stink eye when she came in—because the night before, Jace had mentioned he was out of protein bars. Safeway was the closest store to the high school. She planned on waiting in the school parking lot with a care package for him.

She’d already written a card, deliberating over each word. It sat on the front seat of her Hyundai, practically bursting with little pieces of her heart. She’d gotten teary as she wrote it, thinking of him going off to college.

Two years. She would have to wait two years until she could join him. She wasn’t even sure what degree she would get, but she was positive she wanted to be with him.

And back then, she was positive he wanted to be with her too.

Not many people had been in the Safeway that early in the morning, mostly a scattering of caffeine-deprived parents and yoga moms.

Marlowe scanned the protein bar aisle for the double peanut crunch kind, humming a love song, and took a box from the shelf.

“Marlowe,” a voice said behind her said, Jace’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

Perhaps she should have expected him to stop by the store on his way to the school for protein bars.

She turned and showed him what she held. “You’re not supposed to catch me buying these. I was going to make a gift bag of your favorite snacks for brain power while you take the test.”

“Oh.” He smiled at her, a crooked one that was doubly endearing. “That’s sweet of you.”

“It’s all part of my plot to convince you that I’m the best girlfriend ever.”

“So far, it’s working.”

“I’ll have to try extra hard after you go to college. I don’t want you to throw me over for some college girl.”

She’d wanted him to assure her that no one would be able to tempt him away from her. Instead, he put his hands in his pockets and glanced down the aisle, his smile gone.