and breath in the scent of the pages as I flip through them. Call me sentimental but I just can’t bring myself to toss out this worn copy of a book all about a man pining for a stubborn woman he can’t have. I smile thinking back on reading this book for the very first time in tenth grade for a class I only took because Rae was taking it too and it becomes clear to me.
Whether Rae wants me or not, I want her. I never gave a shit about her shooting me down back then and I still don’t care. I have nothing to lose. Can’t lose something you don’t have in the first place. I’ll confront her, demand answers once and for all. I’ll remind her of the pact she made that I already know she won’t honor. That would be too easy and easy isn’t in Rae’s vocabulary. I’ll do what I have always done best. I’ll bug her to death and burrow beneath her skin because I can and she allows it—or she did back then. I can’t be sure about the woman she is today but I damn sure plan to find out. Maybe I’ll get her exactly where I want her then I’ll ghost on her just like she ghosted on me a decade ago. Let her see how that feels, wondering what the hell went wrong.
I open the browser on my phone and Google her name and click on the first image of her I see. The ink black hair I used to run my fingers through is glossy and done up like a movie star. Her familiar locks are styled in loose waves that hang just beyond her shoulders. She’s at some event of some sort and she’s dressed like a celebrity, every delicious looking curve molding the sapphire blue velvet dress to her body. Her lips are rose red and her eyes are the same vivid blue I’ve seen in my dreams countless times.
“Fuck me,” I groan, pressing my palm to my chest hating that she’s so damn gorgeous, hating that she has such an effect on me. Even after everything. Even after a decade.
And she’s supposed to be mine, but she isn’t.
It makes the ache from her absence that much more acute. Unfortunately her rumored shitty personality does little to turn me off. Rae has always readily bared her teeth with me. If there is anyone on the planet immune to her sass and vacant threats, it’s me.
She’s back.
The breathtaking woman I swore I would marry one day is back in town, and I am itching to be the first person she sees bright and early in the morning. She ripped my fucking heart out and I’ve been hung up on her for the last decade. She’s going to hate life in the morning if I have any say about it. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer person,” I deadpan, talking to myself as stare at the picture of her on the screen of my cell phone.
Chapter 5
Raegan
There are a few certainties about hanging out with Chick that I had totally forgotten. One, he’s a lady’s man. Two, he loves beer. Three, he also loves tequila. Four, he’s great at pressuring his peers into doing dumb things they really should refrain from. Five, he’s a lot of fun to spend time with.
But lying here now in a T-shirt belonging to Chick that I vaguely recall tugging on after texting my mom to tell her I was too inebriated to drive home and would be staying at Chick’s house, none of the fun from last night matters. This brand of hangover is never worth the fun that precipitated it. As the blackness of sleep slips away, the headache and nausea edge in. Somehow, the scent of coffee snakes through the tequila vapors and coils around my sloshed brain. I moan, squeezing my eyes tighter shut while pressing my fingers to my temple. Chick’s couch is comfy enough but no amount of anything good could have prevented the raging hangover I earned with every shot we consumed at the bowling alley bar last night.
Was it four shots or five?
The eerie sensation of eyes on me has me forgetting all about my throbbing head and roiling gut. My pulse quickens and I do a mental inventory of my body. I’m still in the tee shirt Chick tossed at me last night as I stumbled to his bathroom cellphone in hand. The fleece blanket