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“Isn’t that the point of everything?” I quipped, trying to inject a little amusement into my voice. “Give and take, push and pull?”
“No, some people do things because they want to.” She shrugged. She stopped on the sidewalk, attention pulled away to a group of buskers on the other side of the street.
Her gaze darted up and down the street before she reached back and grabbed my hand. “Come on!” she said and dragged me across the busy street. “Don’t fall behind.”
Before I could catch up with her she’d turned back to look at me, her burnished curls wild in the wind and her face bright with excitement. My stomach clenched tight, my heart thudding, and we reached the other side too fast. She let my hand go but my skin still prickled where she’d touched me.
“I remember them,” she explained, just a little out of breath. She looked at me with a grin. “They used to perform in the subway. I’d listen every day before school.”
She turned her attention back to the group of performing musicians, her joy almost palpable.
Infectious.
I felt my own smile spread, watching her clap along with the artists, any sign of exhaustion or stress melting out of her body. I was grateful that the music was loud enough to drown out my shaky laugh.
I’d have stayed there beside her for hours, soaking up the quiet joy that rolled off her, but the buskers wrapped up their performance and Frankie darted forward, dropping a handful of bills into the open guitar case. She chatted with the musicians, her face animated, her hands waving around like she couldn’t help herself.
“Hayden?”
The warmth that Frankie had left behind drained down to my feet and washed away like water down a creek. I turned, praying that I was hallucinating, or maybe just heard wrong. But I hadn’t.
Natalie stood a few paces away, looking exactly the same as the day she’d broken my heart.
Frankie
My heart beat wildly in my chest, the rush of serotonin riding me hard as I waved the musicians off. I turned around, eager to talk to Hayden about their performance or what we might do next.
But she wasn’t beside me anymore.
I frowned, finding her a good distance away, talking to someone else. I hung back, not wanting to interrupt. But there was something in the stiff edge of her shoulders, the harsh tilt of her chin, that pushed me forward. Slowly, I neared them, noticing that there were two women talking to Hayden, but Hayden said nothing.
My heart lurched and instinct forced my hand out, gently holding her upper arm.
“Hayden?”
She looked at me, her movements jerky and stiff. Her face was a careful mask of stone; cold and impenetrable.
But the agony in her eyes left me speechless for a moment.
“Oh, who’s this?” one of the women asked, her smile dripping honey. I glanced away from Hayden, taking in the tall, beautiful woman in front of us.
“Frankie,” I said coolly. “And you are?”
“Natalie,” she said, flipping her long auburn hair over her shoulder. Her chestnut brown eyes roved over me from head to toe and back up, her lip curling in distaste. “But most people call me Nat.”
I would do no such thing, but I nodded anyway, my grasp on Hayden’s arm sliding lower.
“How do you know each other?”
Natalie’s dark eyes darted over to Hayden, her smirk growing when Hayden said nothing.
“I’m Hayden’s ex. And this is my wife, Selene.”
The revelation hit me like a bus, but I fought the urge to look at Hayden, to see what those words did to her.
“Nice to meet you,” I lied, sensing the hostility boiling over beside me. Hayden’s displeasure was a living thing, twining with a pain I could never truly comprehend.
“Likewise,” Natalie drawled. “I never imagined I’d run into you on the street. Let alone see you with a new girlfriend.”
