hang out with, to fend off the boredom and while away the tumultuous years between adolescence and adulthood.
Dead.
I turned again, marveling at how well the rented Jeep handled in the rain while ignoring the growing knot in my stomach. Elizabeth and I had been close. We’d shared secrets. We’d seen and experienced many sacred things together, for the very first time. I loved her as a sister once, spending countless nights sleeping over at each other’s houses when we were younger. Giggling. Laughing. Even crying sometimes.
And then little by little… I’d just lost touch with her.
It’s funny how that happens too. No one ever tells you ‘this is the last time you’ll see this person in your life.’ There’s never a warning, never a clue. You just drift slowly apart, until one day the visits become phone calls and the phone calls become text messages and then texts become so infrequent, you forget about those too.
My tires bumped gently as I passed over the Ram’s Gate bridge, letting the road wind further down through the endless sheets of rain. At least that looked the same. So did the blinking yellow light two miles later, the one that marked the beginning of town.
Here we go…
I turned left, swinging the Jeep wide to avoid a fallen branch. The wind had picked up, and so had the rain. The hotel I’d chosen was near the edge of town, looming tall in the twilight that was quickly morphing into darkness. I’d picked the place because it was new, and it was big enough to have decent amenities. And maybe even also, so when this whole thing was over, I could make a quick and easy escape.
“Miss?”
The valet took my keys the moment I rolled to a stop. Five minutes later I was efficiently checked in and dragging my bag upstairs. Another five after that, I was flopped across the giant king-sized bed I’d reserved to treat myself, in one of the hotel’s upper ‘suites’. Sadly, this trip was to serve as a vacation as well as a homecoming. The first actual vacation I’d taken for myself in years.
And whose fault is that?
I stared up at the ceiling and focused on the sound of the rain, letting myself sink further into the mattress with each heavy droplet. Folding my hands over my belly I sighed mightily, allowing every last ounce of air to hiss its way from my lungs.
North Glade. Again.
Holy shit.
BZZZZZT.
I turned and there it was — my phone’s screen glowing brightly in the dimly-lit room. A text message from a number I barely recognized. A number so new I hadn’t yet added it to my contacts, or associated it with a name.
You know his name.
I got up quickly and found myself preening in front of the mirror, straightening my shirt and smoothing my jeans. At twenty-seven I still looked pretty much the same as I did when I’d left this place at twenty. Maybe there were a few new lines on my face, here and there. A few older lines grown deeper, too. On the inside I’d changed a lot of course, but no one could see that. And that part was fine by me.
The elevator took me straight back downstairs, to the hustle and bustle of the brightly-lit lobby. The place was really nice, I had to admit. Maybe the town had picked up a little. Maybe, despite all my cynicisms, there might’ve been some changes that were actually for the bett—
I saw him standing there and my heart skipped ahead two beats. Just as it had done the first time, in the halls of the junior high. So very, very long—
“Kayla?”
He looked the same, only better. Wider and more filled out. There was a mess of dark stubble around his handsome face that had been peach-fuzz the last time I’d seen him. It suited him nicely.
But there was that same lusciously thick, dark hair. Those same smoldering, whiskey-brown eyes.
“Warren…”
My mouth curled into a smile, but only halfway. And that’s because he rushed straight at me, crushing my body against his hard chest with those big, beautiful arms.
Two
KAYLA
“I can’t believe you still have it!”
The car gleamed like an electric blue jewel, especially in the rain: a 1968 Chevy Chevelle. 396 V-8 engine. 424 horsepower. I knew everything about this car, because Warren had hammered every last detail into my head. As my high school boyfriend, it was all he could talk about. Almost.
He swung open the door for me — something he