PROLOGUE
DILLAN
Two years ago
Life’s a funny thing. Not funnyha ha. More likeyou should have been paying more attention to the little things because they’re going to come back and bite you in that unfortunately big ass you’ve been trying to get smaller for so damn longkind of funny.
Newsflash. It’s still big.
Looking back, that afternoon was one of those moments.
The first time I noticed Rome Beneventi as anything more than a family friend who I wasn’t so friendly with, we were barely teenagers, and he was drooling over my sister like every other boy who’d ever seen Lilah. He was cracking jokes and carefree like most teenagers were, but there was something else there.
Something hiding behind those beautiful midnight-blue eyes.
He stood in the backyard, already taller and stronger than everyone else, with my older brother and sister who’d just come home from their very first national tour, surrounded bytheir close-knit group of friends. A group I wasn’t a part of, but because Rome was there with his brother, he was accepted immediately. The group of them were laughing and joking and busting each other’s balls because sarcasm is a way of life to us. But Rome... he looked lost. He stood on the edge of the group, muscles tightened in what I imagine was a fight-or-flight response, and those blue eyes that should have shone as dark and deep as the ocean waves were cold and closed off.
He smiled when he needed to and laughed when he thought he should, but he was faking it. Every motion, every move, every sarcastic joke—they were all for the benefit of the people around him.
I saw it.
I watched it . . .
I recognized it.
The only time I caught what I thought was a genuine smile was when he talked about training at Crucible, his uncle’s gym, and those moments were fleeting.
No one else noticed.
Why would they?
You don’t notice someone who’s faking life unless you know what that looks like.
I knew.
I knew it that night.
I saw it in him.
What I didn’t know was years later, he’d recognize it in me too.
DILLAN
I just heard a girl order a Diet Coke, and when the server told her they were out of diet, she asked for a margarita, hold the ice with extra salt instead. I’m not sure what that says about her life choices. Especially since the girl was me...
—Dillan’s Secret Thoughts
Isearch the deep, dark recesses of my mind, trying desperately to locate what temporary lapse of sanity led me to this moment. The one that told me to give in and let my sister set me up on a date.
I don’t date.
Not like I wouldn’t ever, just... I haven’t found anyone worth the effort lately.
Or more accurately in years.
Most of the men I’ve met have kind of sucked. And that’s putting it mildly. I guess I was hoping Kevin would prove me wrong.
So far, he hasn’t.
