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I found her shortly after in an almost-empty parking lot next to Louise’s Steak House. Pulling up next to her, I caught her attention without really trying. She turned to look at me, and I flashed a quick smile at her. She didn’t return the sentiment. In fact, she looked like she’d rather see the angel of death than me in front of her.

“That meeting fell through. Did you need a ride somewhere? I’ve got nowhere to be, so it’s no problem.”

“No, I’m meeting Sophie and her roommate here for dinner. They should be here soon.”

“Really? Here?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow. The food was decent, but the clientele was anything but.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

“I guess it’s alright, but this is kind of a shitty area.”

“Well, Sophie has eaten here before and liked it, so…” she said. She glanced at a couple walking by us.

“Can we talk for a few minutes?”

She hesitated, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, I guess,” she said as her dark eyes settled on mine.

“Should we get a table or just stay out here?” I asked, dragging my hand through my hair. I wasn’t sure why I was so nervous. She clearly didn’t feel the same about me as she used to. In fact, she acted as if she couldn’t stand the sight of me, and who could blame her? It was probably best to apologize for the way I’d left her and move on.

“We can go in, I guess. Might as well grab a table before it gets too busy.”

A few minutes later, I slid into a corner booth beside her, leaving ample space on the other side for the friends she was supposed to meet up with. The booth was in a semi-circle shape, and I placed myself a little closer to her than I meant to, but I couldn’t help myself. We had a magnetic attraction that hadn’t really dulled at all. I could still feel it, mostly in the form of a burgeoning erection. I just wondered if she felt anything at all being so close to me.

After telling the waitress we were waiting on two more people to show up, she left us alone.

“I’m just going to cut the bullshit, okay? I owe you a huge—”

“Stop right there,” she said, throwing her hand up, palm facing me. “I don’t want to hear it. If you want to have a nice chat, maybe catch up on life, have a quick meal, that’s fine, but I’m not going back to that place.”

“What place?” I asked, confused.

She raised her eyebrow. Dropping her hand to the table, she said, “That place where I was madly in love with you and spent months wondering what I’d done to deserve you dropping me like I meant nothing at all.”

“Evie, I really am sorry,” I said. The pain I caused her was written all over her face, but the thing she didn’t realize is that I felt that same pain right along with her.

“All I ever wanted was an apology and some sort of rational explanation from you, but I can’t stand to hear it now that you’re ready to deliver. Too much time has gone by,” she said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We were kids who were never really meant to be together. We’re adults now. I’ve moved on.”

“I get it. I’ll leave you alone,” I said, sliding around to the edge of the seat. Just as I was about to stand up, she spoke.

“You don’t have to go.” Her face softened from the scowl she’d given me seconds before. “You might as well keep me company while I wait.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah… Stay. I don’t really want to sit here alone until they get here, especially if this is a bad area like you said, and we were friends before everything, right?”

“We were,” I said as I scooted closer to her.

“There’s no reason we can’t at least catch up.”

“True… So what have you been up to besides running your own business? Married? Kids?”

“No and no… How about you? Earlier, you said you weren’t married. I’m sure you can understand my surprise there, but what about kids?”

“Nope.” I let her comment on my lack of marriage go. I couldn’t tell her the truth back then, and I couldn’t do it now either. “I turned out to be a loser, Evie. You should be glad you didn’t end up with me.”

“Oh, don’t say that. I’m sure things aren’t all that bad.”

“I’m pretty much just an errand boy for my father, and I look out for my sister. Nothing glamorous about that.”

“How is Georgia?” she asked with a smile brimming on her face. “She was such a cutie.”

“She’s doing pretty well. Does good in school. She’s a typical almost-teenager, I guess.”

“Wow… It’s hard to think of her being so grown up. Do you still call her ‘chipmunk’?”

“Yes,” I said, chuckling. “She doesn’t like it as much as she used to.”

Just then, Evie reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. After looking at it for a second, she frowned and tapped at the screen before placing the phone on the table.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sophie. She got caught up with something at work, and she can’t come until later tonight. She wants to go to a club now instead of dinner, which kind of sucks because I was hoping she’d be able to drive me home tonight since I have no car now. I haven’t even had a chance to tell her about all that.”

“How far away do you live?” I held my breath in anticipation. I didn’t know if I wanted her to say she lived close or so far away I couldn’t go searching her out when she left.

“I still live in the same house I did in high school.”

That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I really didn’t need to know exactly where she lived and how to get to her, and now that I did, I didn’t know where that would lead.

“Really? Your parents are there, too?”

“No, they moved to Florida a couple of years ago. I moved in there instead of them selling it… I saw a few different hotels when I was walking here. I’ll just get a room and deal with getting home tomorrow.”

“So… I guess that leaves just the two of us for now.”
Oh, the possibilities.

“Yeah. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want. I figured you were probably gonna leave when she got here anyway.”

“It’s all good. I don’t mind staying.”

An awkward silence settled over us. She alternated tapping her index and middle fingers on the table. A nervous habit of hers that I was happy to see hadn’t changed. It gave me hope that she was still the person I’d fallen in love with, and not the stranger she seemed to be.

“So, Jet… do you drink?” she asked, finally breaking the silence. She grabbed the beverage menu from the table and flipped through the pages.

“Uh, yeah,” I said with a smirk.

My phone rang, interrupting the moment. I could tell by the ringtone that it was Georgia, and I couldn’t ignore it.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” I said as she nodded at me. “Hello?”

“Hey, Bub. I’m going over to Katie’s for the weekend.”

“Does Niall know?”

“Yeah, I told him. Not that he really cares either way,” she said, her voice tapering off. I wanted to tell her he wasn’t worth being upset over, but I knew it wouldn’t help.

He really didn’t care, but I knew it would set him off if she didn’t tell him anyway. He was the only person I knew who actively looked for the smallest reasons to blow up, and since I wasn’t there at the moment, I preferred she play by his rules.

“Okay, Chipmunk, listen up. You can go and have your little boy-talk fest with your friend, but if any little wankers even so much as look at you while you’re over there, I will show up, and I will take care of business.”

“Shut up,” she exclaimed, giggling wildly. “You wouldn’t know if there were boys there anyway.”

“You’d think that, but then you’d be wrong,” I said as I glanced at Evie. She was watching me just like she used to when she thought I didn’t notice her doing it. “I have eyes everywhere, and you better not forget it.”

Georgia was a good kid, but I knew first hand just how skeezy teenaged boys could be. My only hope was to convince her I’d find out if she did anything she shouldn’t be doing.

“Whatever. Bye,” she said and ended the call.

“Sorry about that,” I said, jamming the phone into my pocket.

“No problem,” she said.

“So you were asking me if I drink, yes?”

“Yeah. I think this day calls for an adult beverage or two. Might as well start now since I know Sophie will want to get some cocktails later. Do you want to share a pitcher of blackberry-peach sangria with me?”

“Really?” I asked with a smirk. “You’re gonna pick the girliest drink on the menu?”

“It’s fruity, and I like it,” she said. The smile on her face grew brighter as she giggled. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her laugh until I heard it again all these years later. “It’s a better deal than just ordering a glass or two, but I can’t drink a whole pitcher by myself.”

Alcohol and possibly spending the rest of the evening with her? I liked the thought of that. If she’d asked me to drink with her a minute before, I probably would’ve declined, but one phone call from Georgia changed it all.

CHAPTER 8 – EVIE

“I’ll share with you, but I’m getting a real drink first,” he said. “Go ahead and order if the waitress comes back. I want this,” he said, pointing to a Philly cheesesteak on the menu.

I nodded and watched him walk through the gathering crowd toward the bar. The restaurant had been nearly empty when we entered, but with it being a Friday evening, it quickly began to fill up. I drowned out the chatter going on around me as I sat there thinking about the events of the day, and how they’d led me to Jet Flanagan.

I wanted to be bitter toward him, wanted to hate him. I wanted to question how I could have ever thought he was so special, so incredibly attractive with a personality to match. But the fact of the matter was, when he was right in front of me, all those things I wanted to do and feel dissipated. It was like no time had passed, and he hadn’t tossed me away for someone else.

After I ordered our food and a pitcher of sangria, he came back with a glass of what appeared to be whiskey. He sat down and brought it to his lips, pulling the amber-colored liquid into his mouth. After swallowing, his tongue graced his lips for a split second before setting the drink down. His eyes focused on me as he leaned forward.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re even more beautiful than you were in high school, darlin’.”

It felt like someone had lit a match under my chin as his words poured over me.

“You’re getting too close to that place I don’t want to go to again,” I said and took a sip of water.

“What am I supposed to say to you, Evie? I don’t know a thing about you anymore, except that you apparently like fruity alcoholic beverages and you drive unreliable cars into bad neighborhoods.”

“I haven’t really changed all that much.”

“Neither have I, unfortunately,” he said, and then finished his drink in one quick swig. “Maybe if I had, we could’ve found ourselves in a whole different situation right now.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if I hadn’t been such an asshat, maybe we’d be here under entirely different circumstances or somewhere else togeth—”

The waitress interrupted our moment with much-needed alcohol. I poured myself a glass and took a quick drink. The fruity concoction washed over my tongue, satiating my growing thirst. We only managed to make small talk while we waited for our food, but it was no time at all before I felt myself begin to loosen up, courtesy of my beverage of choice.

His lips looked warm and soft, just like I remembered them, and though his hair was a little shorter, it looked just as silky as it ever did. My skin flushed as I found myself fantasizing about him like I had all those years ago. I wanted his strong arms holding me close to his body. Needed to wrap my legs around his waist and cling to his shoulders as he kissed my neck. Craved for fiery passion to melt us into a pool of ecstasy.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I nodded. “I’m just a little hot,” I said, fanning myself. “It’s stuffy in here.”

“When is Sophie getting into town?”

“Not for another couple of hours or so, I think.”

“I’ve got some time if you want me to help you find a
decent
hotel instead of one of the shitholes around here.”

The waitress returned with our food, and we ate in near silence. In a desperate attempt to break the awkwardness between us, I decided to ask the first thing that popped into my head after we’d both finished eating.

“What’s so shitty about this area anyway? It didn’t look all that bad.”

“It isn’t if you think drugs, thieves, and prostitutes are cool.”

“Yeah, no, thanks. Not my scene.”

He looked away from me, dragging his hand through his hair. When he looked back at me, there was something different about the way he looked at me. Something settled over his face, almost as if a wall had gone up between us, and it was only visible in his dusky eyes.

“Let’s get you out of here then, shall we?” he asked as he stood and retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. He threw down two fifty-dollar bills on the table.

“How much do I owe?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the least I can do,” he said as the corner of his lip turned up.

“Hm… I’m not sure one dinner makes up for stomping my heart to bits, but, sure, okay.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say it did.”

“No, I guess you didn’t,” I said as he took my hand to help me out of the booth.

The way his skin felt against mine was like a jolt straight to my weary soul, resuscitating the feelings I’d tried so hard to kill over the years. This was the same man who had thrown me away like I meant nothing for another woman he wasn’t even with anymore. At least if they were still together, I could’ve resigned myself to the fact that they were meant to be together and that my one true love was maybe still out there somewhere. How dare he flit into my life again and make me feel like no time had passed at all? Just as quickly as I’d taken his hand, I dropped it.

Once we got outside, I pulled out my phone to look up a taxi service. I was putting an end to this right now.

“You can use my helmet,” he said, turning to speak over his shoulder as he walked in front of me. “I ride without it sometimes anyway.”