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It was the truth. That was exactly what Arden had told Phoebe. It didn’t feel great, having to deliver news like that to her brother, whom she loved with all her heart. But she didn’t want him to get in any deeper and end up completely crushed.

Finally, he texted back.

Sam: OK. Thanks.

Phoebe felt the despair in those two words. Ugh. Poor Sam. She had done the right thing in telling him. Hadn’t she?

That evening, Phoebe wove her way through a crowd inside a bar called the Swamp. She had donned her most flattering jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and her usual red lipstick. One thing she loved about Jonathan was that he was only a few inches taller than she, so she didn’t feel the need to wear heels when she was with him. Tonight, her feet were very happy in comfy white sneakers.

The atmosphere in the bar was joyful. It was as though everyone here had managed to relax over the holidays and was feeling celebratory. The energy made Phoebe smile even before she found Jonathan and his group of friends.

When she finally found him, leaning one hip against a booth near the back, arms crossed, laughing at something his friends were saying, she stopped.

It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop. It was as though her legs had forgotten how to keep going. Her vision swayed with something like vertigo. How was it possible that she found herself here, with this man, nearly a decade after they’d said goodbye forever? She’d never even allowed herself to imagine a reunion with him. Never imagined how the years would have changed him—from barely more than a lanky teenager to a fully grown man. Never imagined how it would feel to hug him again, or how he would look at her, or what she would say. How she would say, I’m sorry.

Phoebe shook herself out of these thoughts. She hadn’t said she was sorry, because they hadn’t discussed the past. Because that wasn’t the point of all this. The point was that they were meant to go into business together.

She was just being weird because he looked—well, he looked damn good. His dark jeans fitted him just right, and his forest-green polo shirt highlighted the ink on his arms. His arms—she blinked and looked back up at his face. He had tied his hair back in a little man bun, and it looked hotter than any man bun had a right to look. It highlighted the sharp lines of his jaw, the little points at the tops of his ears, and Phoebe remembered running her finger over one ear, teasingly telling him he looked like an elf.

She dug her fingernails into her palms. Stop thinking about touching his ears, you freak.

Finally, Jonathan noticed Phoebe staring at him from across the room. His face broke open into a smile, and he waved an arm over his head.

Phoebe strode over to the table, hoping she looked normal as she mentally chastised herself. Do not look at his arms. Do not look at his ears. Do not look at his butt. Do not—

“You made it!” Jonathan enveloped her in a hug that smooshed her face right into his shoulder. On instinct, she took a deep sniff. Damn it, he smelled good.

His hand lingered on her rib cage as he let her go.

“Everyone, this is my good friend Phoebe Keller from college.”

“And business partner.” Phoebe grinned maniacally as she shook several people’s hands. Jonathan pointed at the eight or so friends and rattled off their names. Phoebe didn’t have a hope of remembering them.

“Get you a drink?” one of them called to her from the other side of the table. Tom, that was his name—she liked Tom.

She nodded gratefully and followed him to the bar. She thought she felt Jonathan’s gaze on her back as she walked away, but she was almost certainly imagining it.

She ordered a vodka soda and helped Tom carry a pitcher of beer and a tower of glasses back to the table.

Jonathan caught her arm—rather quickly, she thought, maybe so she wouldn’t follow Tom to the other end of the table—and helped her scoot into the booth next to where he was leaning.

Phoebe tried not to crowd the girl on her left, Becca, and found herself caged in by the edge of the bench and Jonathan’s body looming over her.

“Don’t you want to sit?”

“I’m okay here. There’s not much room. I’d end up sitting on your lap.”

Phoebe immediately pictured offering Jonathan her seat and sitting on his lap instead. It wasn’t like she’d never done that before.

But someone behind him offered him a chair, which he accepted and scooted it closer to Phoebe. There wasn’t really anywhere for his legs to go, so he ended up with one knee touching hers and his other leg stretched out underneath hers. She sat up straighter to avoid having her thighs resting on top of his.

“Cheers,” Jonathan said over the din of his friends’ conversation. He clinked his beer glass against her cocktail glass.

“Cheers.” Phoebe held his gaze and downed half of her glass in one gulp. She should have ordered a double.

“I’m so glad you came.” Jonathan squeezed her hand, his eyes soft.

Oh no. This was happy, tipsy Jonathan. He always had a tendency to get sentimental and lovey-dovey after a couple drinks. Phoebe had never, ever managed to avoid joining him in Happy Tipsy Town. There was no point in trying to avoid it now.