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Chapter 1
Mikki
WhenIwalkintoMercury Slice, Jared is already scrawling the St. Patrick’s Day pizza specials onto the menu board in big, looping letters.
He tips his green plastic cowboy hat at me before saying, “Afternoon, ma’am,” in his irresistibly charming Southern drawl.
All the men in Mercury Ridge, North Carolina, have delicious accents, but Jared takes it to a whole other level.
Feeling a blush make its way into my cheeks, I avoid meeting his eyes. My gaze drifts to his jawline and his sexy five o’clock shadow.Big mistake.
My blush deepens as my eyes try to find a safe place to focus, finally landing on Jared’s biceps straining against the fabric of his faded green t-shirt.Nope, shouldn’t look there, either.
An avid mountain climber, Jared’s body is sculpted to perfection. I resist the urge to bite my lip, and it takes every ounce of willpower I possess to pull my gaze away from him.
Clearing my throat, I turn to scrutinize the menu board. “You spelled ‘leprechaun’ wrong.Again.”
Served only one day of the year, customers can’t get enough of the Leprechaun Slice. The tasty combination of pesto, spinach, green olives, green peppers, and a three-cheese blend has been a hit since Mercury Slice’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration—over eightyears ago.
And Jaredstillhasn’t mastered the spelling. It’s equal parts amusing and vexing.
He flashes his thousand-watt grin as he offers me the piece of chalk. “The board’s all yours, Spelling Bee Champ.”
I shove my hands into my pockets, refusing to take the chalk, and scowl at him. “Your handwriting is better than mine.”
He laughs, a rich, soulful sound that I feel deep in my bones. “Yep, and it’s been driving you nuts since the fifth grade.”So true…
I really didwin our elementary school’s spelling bee championship, but only Jared remembers that. My victory was buried deep in the archives of the school’s history long ago.
But everyteacher in Mercury Ridge—even thesubstituteteachers—still remembers Jared’s intelligence and wit, gorgeous penmanship, and ridiculously long eyelashes.
A week doesn’t pass without a retired teacher coming into the restaurant to gush about what a remarkable student Jared was.You had so much potential,they say,so why, oh why, are you still in Mercury Ridge, working at Mikki’s pizzeria? You could do so muchmore.
They don’t know the half of it. After all, they didn’t find his acceptance letters to law school.I did.
I wasn’t snooping. Not exactly.
He’d gone on a trip to Red River Gorge with the Jones brothers for a long weekend of hiking and climbing, and he’d asked me to feed his cat, Hulk, while he was out of town.
Long story short: Hulk’s a dick. Whenever I’m at Jared’s apartment, the cat hides from me. Determined to make friends with him, I searched Jared’s kitchen cabinets for cat treats. Instead, I found a stack of acceptance letters.
I only read one of them. The one on top. The one fromHarvard.
And that’s when I realized I was hopelessly, desperately, and madly in love with Jared.
Obviously, I’d been in love with him for years. But I’d denied my feelings for him for so long that I’d convinced myself I wasn’t.
There’s a shift that happens in middle school, when lines are drawn between the popular kids and everyone else. Jared was the coolest boy in school, of course. But me? I had frizzy, red hair, a round belly, thick thighs, and a wicked case of acne.
Enough said.
By the rules of junior high, Jared and I shouldn’t have been friends. He was a lion, and I was an antelope. It wasunnatural.But Jared didn’t care.
We were friends.Bestfriends.
No one else understood our friendship. Not his fellow jocks on the basketball team. Not his hiking and climbing buddies. Definitely not his girlfriends, who each looked like she’d stepped off the cover ofSeventeenmagazine.
But I never doubted the strength of our friendship.
