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Back then, I hadn’t been able to decide what hurt more.
Now, it didn’t matter. I was older and definitely wiser, even though I was absolutely over it, it didn’t mean I wanted to see him.
I mean, I’d seen him. Just a few days ago I’d seen him in a parking lot, but I’d turned away before I’d really gotten a good look at him.
Not like I didn’t know what he looked like. It was hard to avoid him when he was regarded as the hottest baseball player in the league and plastered all over the tabloids like crazy.
I also knew he’d picked up a devastating shoulder injury at the start of the season and likely wasn’t going to make it back until next year, if at all, and that was why he was back in White Peak.
He hadn’t been home in forever, and if he had, it’d only been fleeting visits for one reason or another.
Now, with his injury and his sister’s wedding next weekend, he was back for a while.
Maybe months.
I put my bowl on the coffee table and lay back on the sofa with a groan. I really hadn’t seen him since prom, and that was the really awkward part of this. At some point, I was going to run into him, and then…
Then what the hell did I do?***“Goddamn it, Saylor!” I muttered, picking up stack of books that had been discarded by the last woman who’d come in. Instead of putting them away, she’d left them next to the register. It was because she just knew I would put them away, and she was right.
How did I know it was Saylor? Kinsley wasn’t working this weekend since she and Josh were having a weekend away in some lodge nearby where he was apparently going to teach her how to snowboard—something I’d believe when I saw it—and she at least put the books away.
Sighing, I carried the books through the store until they were deposited back in the right place. I stopped at least four times to straighten shelves or pick up books that had been dropped in the wrong place, and by the time I got back to the register, I’d been gone for ten minutes and someone was waiting there for me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, slipping behind the register. “Let me take those from you.”
I rang up the sale to the understanding customer who didn’t mind at all and waved her goodbye. Tourist season was well and truly over, I thought, as I watched her zip her coat right up to her chin.
November brought colder weather, and it was now forty-nine degrees outside, but I would swear it felt colder. Maybe it was the wind that had rolled in overnight, the wind that kind of smelled like snow was coming.
The one that meant books in front of fireplaces and hot cocoa and fuzzy slippers.
And I was all about that life.
The bell above the door dinged, and Saylor blew in with a, “Freaking hell, it’s cold!”
I shivered as the cold air reached me. “Shut the door.”
She put her bag of food emblazoned with the local café’s logo and two takeout cups in a holder on the counter and pushed the door shut. “If it snows this weekend, I’m going to scream.”
“Why? It’s just snow. It’s not going to hurt you.”
“Speak for yourself,” she grumbled. “I’m the one who sprained her ankle last winter.”
“Yes, but you weren’t exactly wearing appropriate shoes,” I reminded her, referring to the heeled boots she’d been wearing in three inches of snow when she’d taken her fall.
“I was on a date!” Saylor huffed and pulled our sandwiches from the bag.
Ignoring her argument, I opened the Styrofoam containers that held our grilled cheese sandwiches while she pulled out and opened our soup. The rich scent of hot tomato soup filled the air, and I moaned happily while Saylor flipped the sign on the door to ‘closed’ so we could eat our lunch.
“So,” she said after a moment.
I looked over at her. That didn’t sound like a ‘so’ I wanted her to elaborate on.
“I saw Sebastian in the café.”
Look at that. I was right.
I made a noise that I felt adequately portrayed how I was feeling about the direction this lunch was going, but she didn’t get it.
Not that I was surprised.
Saylor saw your hints, understood your hints, and then ignored the fuck out of your hints.
“We talked for a while. I updated him on everything that’s happened, like Ivy and Kai and the baby, Josh and Kinsley dating, and us owning the store—”
I almost choked on my soup. “Us owning the store? Why would you tell him that?”
“Because I was making conversation. And, unlike you, I’m a nice person.”
Yeah. Okay.
“I don’t care about Sebastian,” I said, dipping the corner of my grilled cheese into my soup. “At all.”
