was in town with him. It doesn’t exactly make for prime catch-up time. We’ll get around to it soon.”
“Do you still talk to him often?” I asked, curious about whether they’d really maintained their friendship enough for Rick to be so sure about him. “I know how close you two used to be. The guy practically lived in our house for most of your high school years, but now?”
He shrugged, making a right when the light changed. We were right up the block from his restaurant now. “We talk often enough. It’s not every day, but I still trust him and consider him a good friend. If you need anything when you’re out there, think of him as an extension of me.”
I’d been thinking about a lot of things I needed from Dane over the last few days, but none of them were things I’d consider him as an extension of Rick for. Making a vague noise in the back of my throat, I tried to yank my mind out of the gutter it had gotten so comfortable in when thinking about Dane.
Rick glanced at me in the rearview mirror as he pulled into his spot in front of his restaurant. “Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for lunch?” I asked, then realized my parents’ car was parked a few spaces down. As I looked up and down the street, I recognized quite a few more of the cars outside. My face dropped. “What did you guys do?”
“We’re having a small farewell party,” he said with a sheepish grin. “It was my job to get you here. Act surprised when we get in there, okay?”
“Like this?” I clasped my hands over my mouth and made my eyes huge.
My brother laughed and nodded. “Sure. If you want to look like a bug just flew down your throat, that’s perfect.”
“That’s exactly what I was going for.” I beamed at him, then rolled my eyes and reached for the door handle. “How small is this farewell party?”
“Small enough.” His eyes twinkled as he flicked a hand toward the street packed with cars. “What can I say? As soon as word got out that you’d be leaving and why, we had plenty of people asking if there was going to be a party. Turns out, people around here actually kind of like you.”
I laughed but was seriously surprised to see how many people had gathered in the restaurant. My friends were there, as well as a few guys I dated casually from time to time, but there were also neighbors, acquaintances, and even a couple of the restaurant’s regulars.
The afternoon passed in a blur of well wishes and goodbyes, laughter and promises to keep in touch. When Rick drove me home later, he told me that he’d come by in the morning to move the stuff that was going to my parents’ house.
Just like that, my last day at home had passed. After taking a shower and changing into my pajamas, I did a last pass through the apartment. My suitcases were packed and standing at the door, and my last few things would be going into the carry-on open on my couch before I left in the morning.
Soft music played from the radio in my kitchen, but after all the excitement of the day, it didn’t soothe me much. With nothing really left to do to prepare for my “great adventure,” as Dane had called it, I settled in on my bed with my laptop open on my legs.
Opening a new document, I stared at the empty white page for a while, thinking back at the last week and how crazy it had been. Last Friday morning, I’d woken up without a single clue that less than a week later, I’d be hopping on a plane to New York in order to become the face of a perfume line when I might or might not be allergic to the product I’d be promoting.
That might just be a good premise for a book actually. It could be pretty funny. But as I settled in to write it, the only one of the characters I really found myself interested in was Dane.
Back in that bar, it had taken everything I had not to run my fingers through his dirty blond hair. Not to press my mouth against his full lips. Not to feel his hard body underneath my palms.
Every night since that night, I’d been seeing electric blue eyes in my dreams. Thanks to some of