Page 2 of 50 Ways to Win Back Your Lover

Lennon smirks. “Michael Fassbender would play me. He’s not as hot, but he can pull off the beard and reddish-brown hair.”

“You’re delusional,” I say, ducking as Delilah leaves the departure counter. “He’s not hipster enough.”

Lennon scowls. “How many times do I have to tell you: wearing plaid doesn’t make me a hipster. And you’re acting weird. What was the lady saying about a name?”

“Nothing.” I peek at Delilah again. She takes a seat beside some dude wearing orange jeans, thankfully facing away from us.

Even if she saw me, the odds of her recognizing me are slim. I’m twenty-seven, not seventeen. My Justin Bieber haircut is thank-fuck gone, replaced with shorter strands I struggle to tame, but at least I don’t look like someone dropped a limp mop on my head. I’m taller and fuller, not muscled up like our three oldest brothers, but I run like my life depends on it, which it kind of does. The six-pack I didn’t have when Delilah first took off my shirt has emerged. I’m now Brian Baker, not Edgar Bower—E to my friends back then—but I still have a telltale scar through my upper lip. She might notice that defining feature or see our treasure trove of memories swimming through my eyes.

Orange Jeans Guy smiles at her. She smiles back.

I clench my jaw, mentally talking myself down from doing something stupid like telling Orange Jeans Guy to take a hike.

Delilah Moon isn’t mine. She hasn’t been mine for ten long years, and if she knew I was within fifty feet of her, she’d probably use my face for target practice. (Delilah won Windfall’s skeet shooting contest at age fifteen.) Leaving her without a word was bad enough. Ghosting her after we made love for our first and only time?

Forget skeet shooting. She’d probably launch a grenade at my crotch.

“Actually,” I tell Lennon, struggling to inflate my lungs, “I am feeling off.”

An ache has settled in my chest, my dormant love for her scrabbling to the surface. If I tell Lennon I’m stealing glimpses of Delilah’s slightly sloped nose, wishing I could brush my nose against hers as our lips slowly meet, he’ll forcibly drag me away from here. I’m not ready to lose sight of her again. Not yet.

“I’m having a Delilah Day,” I tell him. A partial lie.

“Oh, yeah. Okay.” His sympathetic tone doesn’t ease my churning panic. “It’s been a while since you’ve had one of those.”

Delilah Days were my most morose days during our early years in WITSEC, a.k.a. witness protection and my messed-up life. I’d sit on social media obsessively, too nauseous to eat, my skin that translucent bluish color of an underground dweller who never saw daylight, reading Delilah’s old posts over and over—worried messages that grew increasingly desperate.

If anyone knows where the Bowers are, please contact me.

E, if you see this, call me. I’m freaking out.

E, I don’t understand. Where are you?

How could you leave me like this?

As you can imagine, I didn’t cope well. Kind of like now.

“It has been a while since I’ve felt this intense,” I say.

Lennon adjusts his plastic bag, then crosses his arms. “Something specific bring it on?”

“Nothing major.” Unless you count seeing my former best friend and lover for the first time in ten years. “The departure counter called out the name Eliza Woon, which sounded like Delilah Moon. And this connector going through Charlotte is throwing me off, knowing we’ll be close to Windfall.”

He huffs. “I knew taking this flight was a bad idea.”

We’d normally never have booked a flight going to Charlotte, so close to our former hometown, but my meeting with my agent in New York got pushed back. We had to change our flights home to Houston and wound up heading there of all places.

“Anyway.” Lennon rocks on his heels. “I know this is rough. I totally miss Windfall too. The festivals were a blast, and the hiking and biking trails are killer,” he says wistfully. “But it’s different for you with Delilah. Any specific memories coming back?”

A nervous laugh almost escapes me. “Nope. Nothing specific.”

“Well, I’m here for you. Unless you drink my beer at home again. Then you’re on your own.”

“I don’t like your hipster beers.”

He holds up his middle finger. “I’ll piss in the cans next time and seal them up. Maybe you’ll like that better.”

Living with Lennon and riling him up with hipster jokes is usually entertaining, but I’m a second from a nuclear meltdown.