Page 153 of Falling Back to You

My head shot up at the familiar voice—a very unwelcome voice. Ice skittered through my veins, freezing me in place like I was Princess Anna. “Nate?” I croaked.

“Your ex?” Juliet stiffened beside me as the impeccably dressed man strode towards us.

Nate Perkins could have been modeling for a GQ magazine in his loafers and peacoat. Actually, I think he had once.

“Why is he here?” Macy hissed, appearing with a funnel cake in one hand and apple cider in the other. “Doesn’t he have other victims to harass? And I didn’t think you told him about this place?”

“I didn’t,” I whispered, leaning heavily on my cane. For some reason, sharing Serenity Springs with Nate felt like tainting a memory, so I’d kept my hometown close to my chest while we’d dated. So how did he find me?

Macy glared darts at him. “I’m going to find your man,” she hissed. “Please punch Nate for me.” And she vanished.

Nate stopped in front of me, ignoring Juliet at my side. “So this is where you ran away to. Charming.” He said charming with the same condescending tone someone used to describe a child’s scribbled drawing.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

He puffed his chest like a rooster prepared to cock-a-doodle-doo. I’d have taken a screaming banshee over him any day. “I’m here for an exclusive.”

“Excuse me?” Clearly, I was hallucinating, and my ex was not in fact standing in front of me, phone in hand, ready to record our conversation like the reporter he was. We were a bowl of popcorn short of a vaudeville show.

“You and Cal Satterfield. Rather mercenary of you, isn’t it?” Nate shifted the leather satchel slung on his shoulder. “What makes you think he’d want anything to do with someone like you?”

My ears buzzed. “Someone like me?” Call me Polly the Parrot, but I couldn’t stop myself. The brain fog I’d been pushing through all day had turned my faculties into a floppy disk while everyone else was running on high-speed internet.

Nate shot me a patronizing look, eyeing me from curly hair to my comfortable Converse. “You’re wholesome enough, but nothing like the women he’s been connected to in the past. And men always have a type.”

“Who do you think you are?” Juliet demanded, breaking into the conversation.

“Nate Perkins, of the New York Perkins,” he said smoothly. “Reporter with the New York Record.”

“Let me rephrase,” Juliet said with a sharp smile. Even with the pie she was gripping, she was downright terrifying. “What are you doing in this town, harassing this woman?”

“Harassing?” he tutted. “It’s a free world. Freedom of speech.”

“I’ll show you freedom of speech—”

I gripped Juliet’s forearm, silently asking her to let me handle this. She refrained from whatever harangue she was about to launch, but her face did enough talking. She was giving her best Dorothy from The Golden Girls scowl, and it was glorious. If it came to a fight, my money was on her, hands down.

“What made you think I’d talk to you about any of this?” I asked, giving a vague wave. “We broke up.”

Nate shrugged. “I saw your picture in the papers. News of your little . . . conquest traveled fast. And so here I am.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“C’mon, Noelle. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame.” He eyed the cane. “You weren’t using that in the picture. I thought you were better after your . . . episode.”

Those invasive paparazzi photos would be the death of me. I gritted my teeth. “That’s not how chronic illness works. And you would know that if you’d been paying attention to anything beyond your own nose.”

Nate scoffed. “He won’t stick around. Men don’t want”—he pointed to the cane—“that. He’ll move on. Have you seen the women he dated?” He whistled in appreciation. “You don’t come anywhere close. The girl next door is a nice time but not endgame. Take your fifteen minutes and move on with your life.”

The words curled over in my mind, trying to find a crevice to latch onto. It was the same old lie in new packaging. I’d believed the lie at nineteen when my mom told me Cal only valued me for what I did. At thirty-two, I wasn’t the same girl. And I wasn’t swallowing the lie. Not this time.

My watchdog, a.k.a. Juliet, had slipped away at some point. Odd, but I didn’t need backup. I knew exactly what I wanted to say to this man. No more burying feelings or buying into the idea that I needed to manage other people’s perceptions of me. I had value as a person. Not because of what I could or couldn’t do. But because God said I mattered. Cal said he loved me, and I believed him. That was good enough for me.

“No, Nate. I’m exactly where I need to be. And if you want something to write, write this. I love him. Not because of something he did or because he’s famous, but because I fell in love with the boy who could make me laugh until I cried over algebra homework, who remembered I loved butterflies and sunflowers, and kept lotion in his car because he knew I always needed it. He could lose his job tomorrow and that wouldn’t change.”

“Are you confirming or denying the rumours he might be called up to Seattle?”

I swallowed hard. This wasn’t something Cal and I had fully discussed yet, though it had come up in passing. Where we lived didn’t matter to me; I’d happily follow him anywhere. But that was between us. “No comment,” I said sweetly.