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Sunshine warms my face as I climb down the creaky wheeled staircase, the fresh breeze lifting my hair. I’m too worked up to speak as I wander through the small airport, flashing my passport and fiddling with the invitation in my pocket.
Seriously. What is he thinking? How could he do this to me?
Forty minutes later, my cab swings around a curve on the cliff path and a seaside town comes into view, nestled down by the beach. It’s sprawling but cute, with pastel-painted terraced houses and white boats bobbing in a marina. The ocean is so blue.
“That’s us,” the driver rasps. He’s craggy and dark-haired with feathery eyebrows, and his whole cab smells like cigarette ash. “Sweet Cherry Cove. So. You meeting anyone special?”
* * *
Dalton sent three things alongside the wedding invitation: a first class plane ticket (already ignored), a stack of fifty dollar bills with a note that said ‘For the cab’, and a wooden hotel room key carved with a tiny sunrise.
Well, I may have squeezed myself into economy class on that plane out of my own stubbornness, but I’m not spending any more money on Dalton Meadows. Editorial assistants earn peanuts, even working for a big name like El Dorado Press. I hand over half of Dalton’s bills to the cab driver, even though that means a crazy-big tip, and tuck the rest away for the journey home.
“Woah,” the driver says, stuffing the bills into his shirt pocket like I might change my mind and snatch them back. “Thanks, doll.” The slam of the passenger door echoes across the town square, and heads swivel to look at me as the cab peels away with squealing tires.
A seagull cackles. A little kid licks his mint chip ice cream and stares.
Awesome. If thereisa reality TV crew lying in wait, this is their shot. I’m tired, blushing, my blue t-shirt has pit stains, and I have no freaking idea where to go from here.
Even worse, my chest aches like crazy. It’s like my bodyknowsthat Dalton is near, that we’re in the same town for the first time in years, and it’s pining for him already. There’s a knot lodged under my ribs, right where my heart used to be.
It was always like this. Back in high school, whenever I caught sight of Dalton in the corridors, my heart would thump harder and harder as he got close, and by the time we drew level, my insides were one big bruise.
I felt his presence so keenly. Sometimes, I knew he was nearby even before I laid eyes on him—all because of the way my pulse skittered. Living next door to each other was the sweetest torture.
Back then, he’d smile so wide for me, cheeks dimpling. Sometimes he waved from his bedroom to mine, when night fell and our windows were lit up gold, facing each other across our driveways. Dalton was blond haired and blue eyed—this musical Adonis who chose me as his best friend, even when he could have picked anyone. The football guys, the brainiacs, the student president, you name it. They’d have all been thrilled.
He was smart. Athletic. Creative and funny and kind.
And he picked me. Average Alba.
Everybody loved him, like I said. Butno oneloved Dalton Meadows like I did.
No one else would be dumb enough to go on this wild goose chase either, but hey ho. Shouldering my backpack, I set across the cobblestones to the only hotel in sight:Daybreak Inn.It’s white-washed stone, with net curtains hanging in the windows. The painted wooden sign is carved with a sunrise that matches my wooden key ring.
Inside, the hotel is beach themed, with fishing nets and shells hung on pale blue walls. The receptionist is a red-headed lady in her thirties with laugh lines and a swollen baby bump, and most of her counter is taken up by a half finished ship-in-a-bottle. Tubes of wood glue and tiny brushes lie across her bookings sheet.
She turns my room key over in her hands, smiling a secret smile, then hands it back with a wink. “Room thirteen, hon. Lucky for some.”
“Thanks,” I say. My body turns to leave, but I linger. “Is, um. Did—did my friend leave a note or anything?”
The receptionist shrugs, her fluffy pink cardigan slipping off one shoulder. Her eyes sparkle, and she’s enjoying this way too much. It’s the smug joy of someone who’s in on the joke. “Why don’t you go on up and see?”
I swear to god, if there’s a TV crew in room thirteen and this receptionist is in on it, I will… fine, I won’t yell at a pregnant lady. But I will leave a very harsh review online. Probably.
Okay, I’ve never done that in my life. But I’ve never been ritually humiliated by my ex-crush before either. Who knows what I’m capable of?
There’s no elevator, and the hotel staircase has a dark blue runner and hand-smoothed oak banisters. The stairs shriek with every step. Room thirteen is on the third floor.
It’s like an out of body experience, watching myself climb these stairs past paintings of shipwrecks and krakens and mermaids. I watch from the ceiling as my sweaty, tired body fumbles with the room key, nudges the door open, and freezes in the doorway. Gentle guitar music floats from the balcony, where white drapes flutter in the breeze.
“Dalton?”
That’s what Iwouldsay, if my tongue worked right now. Instead I’m a statue, mute and rigid. The wedding invitation is still gripped in my clammy palm. I’m so dizzy.
It’s him. It’s really him.
After a long minute, the guitar stops. A chair scrapes on the balcony, and a deep voice breaks the silence.
