AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I walked to my closet, rifling through my clothes until I came across the green top she had been talking about. Pairing it with form-fitting dark jeans, I pulled everything on and looked at myself again.
Lex had been right, the green did look great, and the long sleeves helped offset some of the skin that was shown from the plunging neckline. My long, strawberry-blonde hair fell in loose waves around my shoulders. My brown eyes were rimmed with subtle makeup, and my lips were brushed with pale pink lipstick.
“You look gorgeous,” Lex chimed from behind me, and I turned to see her leaning on the back of the sofa, giving me an appraising look.
“Thank you very kindly,” I said in an exaggerated, trans-Atlantic accent before picking up my earrings from the sink in the kitchen and putting them through my ears.
I spotted Lex in the mirror, seeing her turning back toward the stack of papers she had placed on my coffee table that she was slowly working her way through grading.
Lex was a high school English Teacher at a public school here in Queens. Many of our nights hanging out revolved around me watching TV. At the same time, she pretended to watch but was actually going over assignments or typing up feedback emails for parents.
In my twenty-nine years of life, I had never met someone more passionate about shaping the young minds of children. Nor had I met someone more perfectly suited for the job.
It was Lex that had gotten me in contact with the school and helped me through the process of starting a weekly, free art class after school for some of the kids.
“Where are you guys going?” Lex asked as I walked through the apartment, heading to my shoe rack to pick out a pair of nude, heeled booties.
“Barnley’s,” I said, listing off a pub that was a few blocks away.
“Oh, I love that place,” she gushed. “The vibes are fantastic for a first date. Casual, but not like a sports bar level casual, you know?”
“That’s exactly why I picked it, my dear.” With the boots firmly on my feet, I stood up straight. “Alright, final look. Thoughts?”
“Perfection!” Lex yelled as I turned and struck pretend pose after pretend pose. “Art! Impeccable! Innovative! Never Been Done Before!”
I stopped posing, laughing at my best friend before reaching for my long, camel-colored wool coat that hung on a hook beside the door.
“Alright, I’m heading out then. Stay as long as you want. Just lock the door when you leave.”
“Lovely. Sometimes it just helps to not be holed up in my apartment. A little change of scenery, ya know.”
“I know all too well.”
I blew her a kiss before turning and sauntering out the door, leaving Lex on my couch. I pulled out my phone as I took the stairs down toward the first floor of the building, shooting off a text to Rob, the guy I was set to be meeting in forty-five minutes, to let him know I was on my way.
I pushed open the door, my fingers flying over my screen as I let him know my ETA, but that all came to a stop when I collided with something large and solid.
I stumbled from the impact, a muffled “ooff” flying from my lips. Large hands that were so warm I could feel them through the swaths of fabric that adorned my body came to rest on my shoulders, helping me find my footing again.
I blinked rapidly, realizing that I hadn’t been paying a lick of attention as I’d texted Rob and had ended up running face-first into someone’s chest because of it.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammered, blinking rapidly as I turned my face up to glance at the stranger in front of me. “I wasn’t paying attention, I…”
My words died off as my eyes found his face, and my stomach bottomed out.
Some of him looked exactly the same as I had remembered. The jet-black hair, the stormy blue-grey eyes, the proud, straight nose, and his wide-set mouth all seemed like they could have been conjured as perfect images directly from my memory.
But the five o’clock shadow was new, as was the sharpness of his face. Gone was the boyish roundness I had once known, replaced by high cheekbones, and if the way his suit clung to his body was any indicator, so was his now trim and fit physique.
Blake Whitlock, my estranged brother’s best friend, gaped at me.
“Juniper?” He asked, his voice filled with disbelief as I cringed at the use of my first name.
“Don’t call me that,” I hissed, unable to put my hackles down around him, even after all these years. “I haven’t gone by that name in a long time. I go by Nell now, short for my middle name.”
His brow furrowed at that, but he didn’t seem to question it. No, we had other matters to discuss. Matters like….
“What the hell are you doing here?” He echoed my thoughts, glancing from me to the apartment building at my back.
