And I was instantly eighteen and heartbroken again.
CHAPTER TWO
“Margot? Are you—”
Before I could think, my hand shot out and covered Georgie’s mouth. Her eyes flew wide as she stared at me.
Why did I have to order a cortado? It was a highly ineffective camouflage. I tried scooting my chair and hiding behind Georgie’s curls instead.
When I retrieved my hand, she leaned in and whispered, “Should I be concerned?”
I had a lousy poker face, and I couldn’t rip my gaze away from the guy in line hunched over his phone. Georgie glanced over her shoulder and turned back to me, with what could only be pure mischief sparkling in her eyes. I shot her my best, “If you say anything right now I’ll break off my heel and stab you” look, but it was already too late.
As if he could sense our presence, suddenly his attention fell on me.
Teddy Bowman’s electric smile hadn’t changed one bit. His hair was longer, his jaw scruffier, but he still wore that same oversized denim jacket from high school. Somehow, the years only made him broader.
Exactly the right look for a heartbreaker.
And he grinned at me, huge and wide and completely oblivious to the sounds of squealing tires and exploding bombs playing in my mind.
Georgie, bless her soul, intervened.
“Teddy!” She hollered, flying from her chair and running to him with open arms.
I watched with open disdain as he laughed and caught her in a hug, not a care in the world for anyone else in the cafe. Growing up, our friends always joked that those two might’ve been fraternal twins separated at birth. They were like two human sunbeams—radiant and warm and, in Teddy’s case, as unreliable as the weather in Bluebell Cove.
My pulse thundered at the base of my throat. No matter which way I sliced it, there was no way out of this.
I wasnotgoing to let him win.
So I slipped from my chair, schooling my features into an indifferent mask as I smoothed the front of my skirt and pulled my shoulders back.
“Teddy,” I murmured once he’d set Georgie down.
He dragged a hand through his hair and approached, eyes threatening to melt me on the spot if I wasn’t older and stronger. Teddy might’ve been well-traveled and quasi-famous, but I spent four years climbing the ladder in a cutthroat industry. I wasn’t the same Margot who thought he hung the stars.
I sucked in a sharp breath when he pulled me into an unexpected embrace, my name on his lips in a voice thathadto be huskier than I remembered it. Somehow, he smelled the exact same—a mellow, earthy scent that instinctively urged my body to coil into his.
Instead, I patted his unfairly large shoulder and pulled away, because I was no longer that version of me. I couldn’t be.
Teddy’s smile faltered a skosh as I stepped back.
“You haven’t changed,” he said, meaning it as a compliment even though it landed as a gibe.
“And you have,” I quipped. The subtext could’ve cut glass.
I slid back in my chair and slung one leg over the other, allowing Georgie to carry the conversation as he pulled a seat to our table. Teddy sent me sidelong glances every now and then, but I continued nursing my cortado as if it wasn’t mostly empty.
“I thought you were coming into town on the first?” Georgie continued, “Fallfest isn’t for another week and a half.”
He shrugged the way he always did and leaned back in his chair. “I was on assignment in New York last month, so I figured I might as well come down here early.”
“New York?” I echoed, forgetting I was on a temporary strike from speaking.
“New York Fashion Week,” Teddy replied, “Not really my thing, but I figured it might be fun to try.”
I swallowed the annoyed lump in my throat and choked down the dregs of my cooled cortado.
