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“Should I tell him you stopped by?”

“Um.” Arden turned back, startled at the thought. “No. No, it’s okay.”

She’d been trying for a grand gesture of sorts, and she doubted it would have the same effect if it was simply Alex passing on a message that Arden had stopped by unexpectedly.

Once again outside in the cold darkness, Arden barely noticed her surroundings as she walked south toward the theater. She felt like she was dragging her feet. Maybe she was in shock. For several glorious moments, she had thought that she was about to change her life—to seize a chance at love. And now she was back where she’d started. Chance gone. Should she try again after the ballet? Or maybe tomorrow, before her flight?

She didn’t know if she had it in her.

As she waited in line to enter the theater, she tried to pep herself up. After all, she hadn’t seen this ballet since she was a kid, and it was always a special treat. She wanted to fully enjoy it.

She was early, so she crossed the lobby, past the Nutcracker-themed photo backdrops with families waiting in line to take pictures, trying to ignore the pang of regret that she was here alone with no one to take pictures with, and entered the gift shop. She browsed the Nutcracker figurines and Christmas ornaments. At one end of the shop, a little girl begged her mother to buy her a Sugar Plum Fairy dress. Arden admired a stack of expensive notebooks with ballerina-patterned covers and decided to buy one. She’d kept up with her list; she deserved a new notebook for the new year.

Clutching the little paper bag, Arden entered the dimly lit theater and found her seat near the center of the back section. Her row filled up, but there was an empty seat on either side of her. She tried not to think about how fitting this was and told herself to just enjoy the extra elbow room.

The orchestra finished tuning, the lights went down, and the voices of the crowd lowered to whispers.

“Sorry. Excuse me.”

There were grumbles around her as people in her row stood up to let a latecomer squeeze past.

“So sorry. Oops. ’Scuse me.”

Arden prepared to stand to let him pass, but then he plopped down in the seat beside her. In the darkness, she could barely make out his profile, but a familiar scent made the hair on her arms prickle. It reminded her of a delicious day spent almost entirely in bed.

She leaned forward in disbelief. “Sam?”

He reached over and squeezed her hand. The curtain rose to reveal a towering Christmas tree. Sam brought Arden’s hand to his mouth and kissed it, then settled back to watch the show.

Chapter 29

Phoebe

After Jonathan left, Phoebe stared at the wall. She went inside and closed the door and stared at it, then sat on the couch and stared at the wall above the TV, then went into the kitchen to find something for dinner and ended up staring at the wall in there.

She didn’t know how much time had passed or what she was supposed to do now. She didn’t know what she wanted to do now. Jonathan was gone. He had taken their friendship, their work, and any possibility of something more with him.

Although, no, he hadn’t exactly taken the business with him. He’d said Phoebe could have that. But what good was that? Without Jonathan, Phoebe didn’t know how to reach out to investors. She didn’t know how to do the data analytics. Technically, she probably could do those things, but she’d felt so much more confident about the idea of doing them with Jonathan.

And now, after the way he’d left, the thought of carrying on with the idea without him made Phoebe feel frozen.

How had it all gone so wrong?

Her thoughts were all muddled. But she knew she had done something cowardly. Jonathan had wanted to have a heart-to-heart, and instead, she had chosen to brush off his attempts and steer the conversation back toward the professional realm.

Phoebe went back to the couch, clutched her head in her hands, and fell sideways against a pillow.

How had Jonathan even liked her eight years ago? She had always been like this. Avoidant when it came to real feelings. Obsessed with getting the highest grade in the class, with being the first to get an internship and then a job lined up for after graduation. She had never prioritized human connection. Even though they’d had fun together, been to parties, confided in each other… she had never truly let him in.

What had he seen in her?

The day their friendship ended was always close to the surface of her memory, but she never let herself think about it directly. Because if she did, it made her stomach squirm with a combination of emotions that she preferred to keep bottled up.

Now, curled on Arden’s couch, certain that she had once again screwed everything up with Jonathan, she replayed that day from start to finish.

It was the day after graduation. They’d stayed out late celebrating the night before. Most of their friends were spending the day with family or packing up their apartments. Phoebe’s two roommates were gone: One was leaving for Europe that day, and the other was playing tourist in Seattle with her family. Phoebe was a little hungover—emotionally and literally—and decided to spend the day packing and bringing some things to her parents’ house. She was really going to miss college.

But she had a new job to look forward to at one of the top digital marketing agencies in Seattle. She got a little thrill when she remembered the mingled looks of admiration and jealousy on her classmates’ faces when she’d told them she had landed the gig. Her future was out there, waiting for her. She pictured herself, in a new professional wardrobe, walking to work from her new grown-up apartment, stopping to buy a coffee and flirting with some older man in the coffee shop.