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“My senior year, I didn’t have a date for prom. I wasn’t exactly popular with the boys, but I really wanted to go. And then, out of nowhere, when I was at their house with Annika, Zachary casually asked if I needed a date. I said yes and he said he’d take me. He was older, not even in high school anymore. It was like all my dreams had come true. He was the quintessential best friend’s older brother. Confident, good-looking, a little bit dangerous. I don’t even blame teenage me for crushing on him like I did.”
“What happened?”
“It was a joke. He didn’t want to take me to prom. Someone had paid him to do it.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Garrett found out a few days before the dance and told Annika, who told me. I was absolutely crushed.”
“Who paid him to take you to prom?”
“I don’t know. I figure it was one of his friends or something. From then on, he treated me like I had a communicable disease.”
“Maybe he felt like a huge jerk for what he did and avoided you because he didn’t know what to do with his guilt.”
“Ever since high school?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t say it made sense according to logical human behavior. But men don’t always make sense.”
“That’s true.”
“I don’t know why he would have done that, or why he avoided you the way he did afterwards, but I do think he cares about you now.”
“It feels like I’m the butt of another joke.”
“I don’t think it’s a joke to him. I don’t know him like you do—I didn’t grow up with the family—but I think he really means it when he says he’s in love with you. Or he thinks he is, at least. I can’t vouch for how real his love is, but I don’t think this is the same as your high school prom. No one else is behind this. It’s just him.”
“But even if it is, what am I supposed to do with that? I start dating someone else and then he decides to change his mind? Why now? It’s all so confusing.”
“Did you ask him why now?”
“He said when he got shocked in my salon he thought he was going to die, and I was the first person he thought about.”
Audrey started to sigh, like that was so romantic. And maybe it was—or should have been—but it was Zachary. He was not a romantic.
“Before you tell me how sweet and romantic that is—”
“It’s extremely romantic.”
“It would be if it were true.”
“You think he made it up?”
“No. I don’t think he lied. But I do think he was mistaken. It wasn’t some mystical near-death experience that showed him his true feelings. He thought of me because I was the one who was there. I was in the room.”
“You’re awfully sure about that.”
“Because it’s Zachary. He’s not serious about anything. That’s why I can’t understand why he affects me the way he does. He’s the complete opposite of my type.”
“I’m no help there. I didn’t think big, surly lumberjack was my type, but apparently I had my type all wrong.”
I stared at Audrey for a second. She had her type all wrong. Was I doing that? Had I been dreaming of a Mr. Darcy when he wasn’t the right type of man for me at all?
Even if that were true, that wasn’t the problem. “Regardless, I don’t know if I can take Zachary seriously.”
“Maybe it would help to think of Zachary as a secondary problem. Whether or not you keep dating Preston doesn’t have to hinge on Zachary. And the way you talk about Preston, it seems like you’re unsure.”
“That’s a very good point.”
