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“Alba? Is that you?”
Two
Dalton
She’s different. Eight years without seeing a person will do that, I guess. My childhood best friend is older, calmer—and curvier too. Hot damn. She stands differently than she used to, with her chin held high and her shoulders back.MyAlba used to inch behind me whenever we met strangers.
This girl is proud, but she has shadows beneath her eyes. Her dark hair seems longer than I remember, thrown up in a messy bun, and her lips part as she stares at me.
Beautiful.
So goddamn beautiful.
Some things never change. The sight of Alba Hernandez always did feel like a punch to the chest.
“Hey,” I say. “You came.” My throat is sandpaper. This doesn’t feel real.
Her eyebrows fly up, and it’s like my words have jolted her back to life, because Alba holds up a crinkled invitation and waves it at me. “Of course I came. What the hell is this, Dalton? Is this some kind of sick joke?”
Not the reaction I hoped for, I’ll admit—but eight years in the spotlight have trained me well. My features don’t flicker at all, and my smile is slow and easy. It’s the signature charm that made my fortune, and I’m banking on it now. “Come on. Would marrying me be so bad, Alba?”
She scoffs, and her scorn is like acid drenching my insides. “I know you don’t need a green card, Dalton. Whatever this is, it’s messed up.”
She thinks it’s a trick? Pain splinters my chest, but I grin wider. Guess I can’t blame her.Imay have kept writing all these years, spilling my innermost secrets and desires onto paper night after night, treasuring the only real connection in my whole empty life—but Alba hasn’t written back in a long time. Years, really.
What happened? Did she get bored? Move on?
Did she meet someone else?
My grinding teeth are audible. I force my jaw to relax. “It’s not messed up at all. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had. Maybe theonlygood idea I’ve ever had.”
“To prank me,” Alba says flatly.
“To marry you,” I correct.
She goes on like I never spoke, hands gesturing wildly like they always do when she gets mad. Alba paints her moods through the air. “To fly me across the country, and take me away from my life and work and friends, all for some sick joke—”
“It’s not a joke.”
“—when we’re nothing to each other anymore!”
My heart stops. I sway on my feet, the room tilting around me.
This is a nice place to have a heart attack, I’ll give it that. The honeymoon suite in the Daybreak Inn has a four poster bed; a seashell lamp; a chaise lounge and coffee table; a balcony with salty sea air. Kitschy but cute, exactly to Alba’s taste. But where to land? Everything near me has hard edges.
“Dalton?” Alba says. Her voice sounds echoey, like she’s calling down a tunnel. “Dalton. Shit. Just… sit down, okay?”
When did she take my shoulders? One minute I’m standing rigid in the center of the oak floorboards, my whole fucking world falling apart, the next I’m perched on the edge of the blue and cream bedspread while Alba kneads my shoulders. She leans over me, her heart-shaped face pinched with concern. At least she doesn’t want to slap me anymore.
Her neck smells like cinnamon. Warm and spicy. Each hit to my lungs is so painfully familiar, because this girl smells like home.
Back when we were teenagers and she hung out in my room after school, I’d go around afterward sniffing my sweatshirt sleeves and pillowcases, hoping she left her scent behind. Needing proof that she really chose me, at least for those hours. Wishing she’d come back.
“Maybe I should call someone,” she says now.
Like who? Alba is my emergency contact. She always has been. Good thing I never had an emergency, I guess, because I clearly misread this connection.
“I’m fine,” I scrape out. When I wave her off, she steps back quickly, arms dropping to her sides. So keen to let me go. My skin burns where she touched me through my t-shirt a moment ago.
