of Jimmy Choo her first birthday after they started dating. She’s been attached to the scent ever since, unable to let it go, like the memory of the way they parted.
Blaze follows her into the hallway toward the front of the house, his step heavy and purposeful behind her. “Shane borrowed my phone last night. How was I supposed to know the asshole would stuff it down his pants?”
Ew. Her face twists. Spare her the visual.
“Not one text mentions they came from Shane. Macey thinks they came from you, that it’s you in the photo. From where I’m standing, you sent Macey a picture of your—”
“It’s. Not. Mine. Shane borrowed my phone to make a call. And text his dick.” He grumbles the last bit.
“Then you should have told Shane to make it clear it wasn’t yours.” And she shouldn’t have thought dating Blaze again would be anything less than complicated, not when they had too much history. What’s the saying, evade the flame else you’ll get singed? She avoids entanglements for a reason. They hurt. No, they burn.
“I didn’t know about it until you called me.”
“Why is Macey even a contact on your phone?”
“It’s from eons ago.”
An object in the front room catches her eye. She veers into the room, her attention on the entertainment system. Blaze dogs her heels.
“She plugged her info in at our ten-year reunion. I never deleted it. I should have. I’m sorry.”
Olivia missed that event. She can blame work or living out of the area. She was in San Francisco at the time. But the truth is, she didn’t want to run into Ethan. To see him and Blaze in the same room? It would be like holding up a mirror to her past mistakes. If she hadn’t allowed Ethan into her life, her little sister would still be in it.
Later she learned that he, too, was a reunion no-show.
“Give me some slack here, Livy. That was years ago. You and I weren’t even dating.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“You’re the one coming up with excuses,” Blaze counters. For the first time since his arrival, he sounds more bitter than confused. “You’re looking for a reason to end us. You’ve been looking since the day we hooked up again.”
“We never should have gotten back together.” But he’d just completed her remodel, and he’d been generous about paying attention to details, making sure there weren’t any mistakes and that she was pleased with his craftsmanship. Then on that last night, when he brought over the job completion order for her to sign, he stood in the middle of her brand-new kitchen and shyly asked her out to dinner. For a guy who wasn’t the least bit timid, she could tell he’d been working up the nerve to ask her, afraid she’d say no. He’d smiled, and Olivia saw the boy she remembered from all those summers ago. She felt safe. Accepting his invitation felt right, because once upon a lifetime ago they’d fit.
“See? That’s your problem,” he argues. “You assume the worst of people. You don’t trust anyone, so everything you touch or do blows up.” He mimes his head exploding.
“Not true,” she bristles. Not everything. She was enormously successful as an illustrator at an upstart high-tech company that went public. Thanks to that venture, she “retired” two years ago at thirty-three and moved to San Luis Obispo and into the house her dad sold to her for one dollar as a college graduation present. Dwight had owned the house for years and used it as a rental until she came of age. The place was a dump from several decades of tenants rotating through. But she has since remodeled the house and pursued her dream project: to write and illustrate her own graphic novel series. She’s proud of her accomplishments.
Relationships, though? Hers never end well, so best to end this one before it dives further south than it already is.
“Everything’s about you,” he accuses. “What about me? You’re kicking me out, for Chrissake. At least hear me out.”
“Too late.”
“Come on, Livy. Just last night you were begging me—”
“Shut up!” He doesn’t need to remind her how wonderful he makes her feel, not when she’s trying to end them, as he so eloquently put it, before he can do any more damage. Her scars already run deeper than the lake they used to swim, holding hands while they floated on their backs, squinting into the sun. She yanks the cord to Blaze’s McIntosh turntable from her receiver.
“No! No, no,