Page 24 of The Perfect Heart

The server slipped back through the crowd to our table and placed my Manhattan in front of me before leaving as silently as before.

“How do you feel?” Emily asked, and it was clear she wasn’t asking about my health.

I took a sip of my drink to fortify myself before I answered. “My head is so messed up, I’m not even sure. Nash has always been my best friend and nothing more.”

And that was the crux of it. In my head, Nash was still the kid I had grown up with, the person I knew I could rely on more than anyone else in my life. But my body and my heart were starting to feel differently.

After Jack, I was cautious about matters of the heart, especially because I was having difficulty trusting my heart and judgment. I was also afraid he would pop back into my life at any second, which complicated everything. But the new Nash, the adult Nash, was drawing me in like a moth to a flame, and it was as heady as it was disconcerting. Worse, I had no idea if he felt the same. I doubted he did—we were squarely friends, and I imagined it was too complicated to make anything more of it. Complicated wasn’t something Nash had ever wanted to be a part of.

The deeply amber liquid in my glass shimmered in one of the dimmed can lights above the table, and I watched the surface ripple around the dark lump of cherry. “I don’t even know if he felt what I felt. Maybe I was the only one who felt that spark.”

Emily snorted her thoughts on that idea, and I caught the end of an eye roll as I looked at her. “If he was running his hand up and down your thigh, I highly doubt you were the only one who felt it.”

“And what about Nicole?” I asked. “That’s a whole other level of drama.”

“Nicole is drama personified. She always has been,” Emily pointed out. “So forget about her. It’s clear something is going on between you and Nash.”

I flushed at the certainty in her tone, and a small part of me jumped in excitement.

“And if he’s the same guy he always was, he won’t lie to you about Nicole. I say, follow your heart and see where it takes you. See what happens.” Emily picked up her martini again and drank, clearly assured in her advice to me.

My heart? What was my heart telling me?

I took a sip of my Manhattan but barely tasted it. Instead, my mind was going a million miles a minute, my heart racing right along with it.

But the more I thought about it, the more confident I was it was telling me to let Nash—my best friend Nash—in.

Chapter 12

Nash

MY TALK WITH JONAS circled my head all night and into the next morning. Since the night of the movie, Halle had been messaging me to say she was walking to work and would slip out before I could find her to take her home. It was the same as I stuck my wallet into my pocket, grabbing my keys and phone to find the same message I’d received from Halle for days: Walking to work. I’ll be fine. See you there.

I sighed and stuffed my phone in my back pocket before snagging my coat and heading out the door.

When I got to work, nothing had changed. Halle was still avoiding me, even as the staff readied the bar for opening. Half an hour before I would unlock the front door, it was too much for me. I stood in the doorway between the back and front of the house, arms crossed.

“Halle, would you come here for a sec, please?”

The heads of all my employees popped up, then turned slowly to Halle, who didn’t move. But I waved her over and saw her swallow, then nod. Her boots echoed loudly on the hardwood floor in the sudden silence, the only other sound the music playing quietly over the stereo.

Halle leaned the broom against the bar counter and trailed me as I returned to my office. I gestured for her to precede me into the room and shut the door after us.

“Am I in some kind of trouble?” She chuckled, looking over her shoulder at me, but the slightly anxious edge to her words told me she wasn’t entirely joking.

I nodded my chin at the chair across the desk from mine. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

Halle swallowed again, hesitating for a moment before she sat down gingerly on the edge of the chair, hands clasped in her lap. I leaned back against my desk with my arms crossed, my leg almost touching hers, and when she looked up at me, her lips were a thin line of worry.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“What’s going on with what?” Halle’s hand reached up to grasp a long strand of hair, twisting it between two fingers.

“Come on, Halle,” I sighed. “You think I won’t notice that you’ve been avoiding me? Barely talking to me? Walking to work before I can pick you up and leaving before I notice?”

A third swallow, which was joined by a reddening of her cheeks. Her head dipped as she looked at the floor so all I could see was the curtain of her hair and her slim shoulders, her hand returning to her lap so she could twine her fingers together until the skin around her nails was bright red.

Then her shoulders rose and fell in an enormous sigh, and she lifted her face to me again, that beautiful, dark wealth of hair slipping down her back.