“—but the details are sketchy to me. So here’s a wild theory. Have we already seen each other naked? Is that the problem?”
My gasp escapes before I can help it. “No! No way.” Not unless we’re counting that morning last week when I glimpsed him stepping into the shower. The ass on this man is a work of art…
“Well, thank goodness.” He chuckles. “Be a shame if I’d forgotten that.”
I make a small sound of outrage. “Seriously?” I squeak. “It must have been a hell of a sleazy phase if you think you could forget something like that.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what a guy can forget.” The truck’s engine rumbles as he accelerates past a log truck. “Look, I’m well aware that I sound like an asshole right now. But can you just tell me how we met before? Give me a refresher.”
My head turns unbidden, and I just stare at him for a long moment. Is he even for real? I’d been assuming that he knew perfectly well how we met, but just didn’t want to talk about it. But now he wants a reminder?
“Yeah, I’m serious,” he says, as if listening to my thoughts. “My memory is shit.”
“Lord, I’ll say. Maybe you should lay off the bong.”
“I get that a lot.”
This is the strangest conversation I’ve ever had. And I still don’t trust that he isn’t just screwing with me. He and I spent six hours together. With our clothes on. But still. “My freshman year we did a weekend ride share once, from Connecticut to Vermont and then back again. You drove. I paid for gas money.”
“Oh,” he says, giving me a quick glance. “From Harkness.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Right,” he says, his eyes on the road. “Makes sense.”
I brace myself for follow-up questions. He’s probably putting it all together now. Our strangely intimate conversation. The odd way it ended.
But the questions don’t come. He turns up the radio instead.
Three
Almost Three Years Ago
It's a drizzly autumn day in Harkness, Connecticut. It rains a lot in this oceanside town.
Daphne, a freshman, waits beneath a beautiful archway on the edge of campus. She's been dreaming of attending this school for years—since her ambitious little heart first found Harkness College in a guidebook she’d checked out from the Tuxbury town library.
And now here she is, six weeks into her first semester. Her awe hasn't worn off, even if she's not quite comfortable here. It isn't home yet.
This is deeply irritating to her. Truth be told, she thought that rolling into Harkness and moving into her dorm room would be the moment her real life finally began. The way it was meant to be.
Instead, she has a stuck-up roommate who actually brought a fur coat to college with her. Who does that?
Daphne checks the time on her phone. She’s so eager to go home for the weekend that she’s arrived early. She's homesick. That's just a little embarrassing. So she tells herself that the promptness is just a courtesy. She’s never met the friend-of-a-friend who’s agreed to drive her up to Vermont this morning.
At least he's on time. At exactly eight a.m., a boxy old Volvo slides up to the curb. With only a cursory glance at the man behind the steering wheel, Daphne darts out through the cold rain and opens the passenger door. In one hurried motion, she slides into the seat and tucks her weekend bag between her feet.
Then she turns to get a better look at her companion. And—holy smokes—he’s dreamy. His hair is buzzed very close to his skull. Not everyone could pull off a flattop like that, but this guy can. The lack of hair makes his model-handsome bone structure stand out.
And—wow—a pair of startled gray eyes gives her the once-over. “Hi there. I sure hope you're Daphne Shipley, and not a carjacker.”
“I am,” she says a little breathlessly. Handsome men have always made her a little nervous. “And you’re Richard Ralls?”
“That’s my dad. I’m Rickie.”
“Do grown-ups call themselves Rickie?” She meant it to sound flirty, but it comes out sounding a little bitchy. Story of her life. Daphne has never been able to figure out how flirting works.
“Who says I’m a grown-up?” Then he smiles, which only makes him more dazzling, and her stomach does a strange swooping thing.
“I can tell you’re eager to get to Vermont,” he says. “But maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to just hop into a car with a stranger? You didn’t even check