Gina took my hand tightly. “You just have to follow me.”
“Could you slow down? I’m going to face-plant in your front yard again.”
Gina glanced back at me with that mischievous grin that always meant trouble. “But this time, you’re sober. So, maybe your pretty face will stand a chance.”
I groaned, yanking my coat around my shoulders at the front door along with her before she half dragged me across the porch and down the icy front steps. “That was senior year, Gina. Are you ever going to let the incident go?”
“Not a chance. It’s a classic.”
The cold hit my cheeks in a sharp burst. It was the kind of winter air that turned breath into clouds and made my fingers ache, even through gloves. Gina was practically bouncing beside me, bundled in a puffy coat and a knit scarf that looked like it had been woven by a very enthusiastic grandmother.
“My personal blind date pick is here. At last!” she chirped, like this was the grand finale to a months-long game show.
I arched a brow. “I thought Alex from the gallery was your pick.”
“Nope. He was a convenient wild card. Don’t be mistaken.” She twirled on her booted heels, gesturing out toward the driveway. “This my real pick.”
I chuckled under my breath. “We’re at home. Who could you possibly have?—”
But I stopped.
Because I saw him.
And everything inside me stilled.
He was standing by the mailbox, hands shoved into the pockets of a sleek wool coat, hair styled just like it had always been—neatly tousled, like he never had to try. A familiar smirk twitched at the corners of his mouth the moment our eyes met, like no time had passed at all.
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Gina … is that …”
She grinned. “You’re welcome.”
My ex-boyfriend.
From high school.
twenty-four
Why?
That was the first question that popped into my head and to be honest for a long moment, I couldn’t move beyond that. Just…Why?
The boy I had fallen for when I was seventeen and heartbreak still felt romantic instead of exhausting was standing in front of me. The boy who had written a poem about my laugh in my yearbook and then dumped me two weeks before graduation because he was going off to find himself at college, was standing in front of me with his hands in his coat pockets, boots coated around the toe with a light sheen of slush.
I turned towards Gina who looked as if she might explode with delight.
“Why,” I asked slowly, “would you do this to me?”
“You said you were open to being set up until Christmas, didn’t you? And you need to stop living in your head, Bri. You’ve been moody since we left the city?—”
“I have not been moody.”
“You literally cried into a gingerbread cookie I’d picked up from the bodega yesterday.”
I didn’t have a very good answer to that. “It was a very emotional cookie.”
Gina crossed her arms, unconvinced. “You need closure. Or a rebound. Or both. So, bam! Closure, wrapped in a cute scarf.”
I turned back to look at Brenden. He was waving now.
