Filling out my dating bio was excruciating—Paige Monroe, brown hair, brown eyes, average everything. God, twenty-six years old, and I’m already boring.
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll stay, but keep your phone on you in case I need an emergency getaway.”
“You’re literally the most important thing happening for me tonight, babe, but you’d better actually give yourself a chance to meet someone.”
If I’m ever going to get over Benji, I need to.
“Deal.”
“Someone who isn’t a certain woodworking asshole who left you.”
My heart clenches. “I promise.”
Benji and I have had our chance. There will not be another.
“Perk up,” Skye says. “It’ll be fun.”
“I thought that about the last one.”
“Last time won’t happen again. Do you know why? Because you won’t let it. Tell me why.”
The sound of a bell rings through the room, and I spot Sheree—one of tonight’s hosts—waving at the crowd.
I duck my head down to whisper into my phone, “It’s starting. I need to?—”
“Say it,” she presses.
Skye’s right; I need the reminder. Somewhere in thisroom is the man who sets tremors through me, and I’m already distracted. Tonight wasn’t meant to be about him. It was meant to be about new chances. A fresh start.
Getting over him once and for all.
I recite my mantra. “He’s a bastard and a loser, and he has terrible taste in music.”
“Anyone I know?”
Oh, I’ve missed that voice.
I turn to Benji, and it’s like stepping into a memory. The ocean air clings to his clothes, but it can’t cover up the rich, earthy smell of him that I’ve never been able to replicate, no matter how many times I’ve tried.
He shaved his hair. It used to fall behind his ears in a rugged tumble that made my fingers itch to run themselves through it. Now it’s shorn close, turning his frown and green eyes into something broodingly handsome.
TheI forgot to shave and woke up this effortlessly hotscruff he’s sporting isn’t helping either. My mouth is actually watering.
Shit.
I can’t do this again. I can’t.
“Gotta go,” I tell Skye, but I’m not quick enough to cut off her shout of, “Lo-fi isn’t real music, asshole!” through the phone.
“Agree to disagree,” he says.
This is ridiculous. My heart shouldn’t be fluttering like this. I remember how he left it. How easily he walked away from the spark we had. If he’d even felt it in thefirst place.
“Hey,” he says.
Hey? That’s all he has to say to me?
Sheree’s bangles jingle as she rings the bell once more, and the room falls silent at last. Good. The sooner this starts, the sooner it ends, and I can fold myself into the corner of my sofa and pretend it’s hugging me.
