My throat constricts, and I press a hand to my chest. But it’s like trying to plug up a crack in a dam with only your fingers.
“He left me, but not like your mama. And I left him in a way,” I admit, feeling the truth of the words burn like whiskey in my throat. “People sometimes hurt each other, even when they don’t mean to.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Jojo. We just do.”
As I turn into the driveway, Jo pipes up from the back seat. “Well, he’s not leaving now.”
That’s the moment I see a fancy sports car stuck in a pothole that’s really more of a sinkhole. It’s definitely not coming out without a tow truck. Or a forklift.
And on our front porch: the man I can’t seem to escape today.
Pat should NOT look right at home sitting on the sagging front steps of our little farmhouse. It’s not fair. The traitor dogs should be chasing him off the property. Instead, Amber licks his face with effusive yellow lab love while Beast, the heavily overweight terrier mix, is perched on Pat’s knees, looking ready to make that lap his permanent new home.
I’m so distracted I forget about one of the last potholes and the car bumps over it so hard, my head almost hits the ceiling.
“Whoa!” Jo giggles as I pull the car to a stop. I hear the zip of her seatbelt.
“Jo—hang on a sec!”
But she’s off and running through the yard toward the trespasser. Pat gets to his feet, scooping up Beast under one arm like a furry football.
When Pat beams down at Jo, I want to hate him for the way this starts to defrost my frozen heart. I melt completely into a puddle when he crouches down to her eye level as she starts talking, her mouth moving a mile a minute and her arms waving. She has already stuck herself to him like a postage stamp. Which only makes me angrier.
He can’t just show up here, ingratiating himself with the dogs and winning over Jo. It’ll be worse—for them, not for me, because I’m FINE—when he leaves. And he will leave.
Pat’s eyes flick to me as I slam my door. Beast wiggles out of his arms and bounds my way. He nudges my ankles, looking for scratches, but Pat is sucking up all my focus.
His slightly crooked, aw shucks smile and those warm espresso eyes beg to take away the rest of my resistance. Just forgive me, they seem to say. You know you want to. I know how this works, because he disabled my resistance back in college, when I agreed to date him casually.
How did casual dating turn out? Right—me, here alone, nursing a broken heart for all these years. And, according to the zombie butterflies stirring to life again in my stomach, still harboring feelings that just won’t die.
“Hey, Lindybird.”
The way he uses my nickname, one only he ever used, makes an invisible fist close around my rib cage, tightening until I can hardly breathe.
“Why are you here? How are you here?” I snap.
Pat stands up to his full height, and Jo clears her throat, giving me a look intended to tell me how rude I’m being. There is a time and a place for being rude, and this is one of them. I cannot let Pat awaken old feelings and reopen old wounds.
Though, honestly, it’s too late on both counts.
The feelings: awake. Like, ten espressos on an empty stomach, awake. The wounds: open. As open as a 7-11, which neither opens at seven nor closes at eleven.
Before Pat can answer me, another man comes around the side of the house, a slight limp to his gait. I don’t need to have met Pat’s dad to know him on sight. Not only because he’s famous, but because I can see Pat in the crinkle of his smiling eyes and the upturned tilt of his mouth. It’s a snapshot of Pat years down the road, and I wish I could say it doesn’t work in Pat’s favor.
“Hey, there. I’m Tank.” Smiling, he holds out his hand to shake mine.
Up close, he’s bigger than Pat, which is saying something. Tank is, well—I can see why he earned the nickname. I hesitate, then put my hand in his. It’s warm and firm. “Hello.”
This moment is surreal. Not only because Pat shouldn’t be here—not on my porch, not in my town, not in my life at all—but because it breaks the rules.
When Pat and I met, our paths were already starting to diverge. Pat was a shoo-in for the NFL draft, and I had secured a position as a travel writer thanks to connections from one of my professors. There was no future for us, only a right then. I knew better. You shouldn’t start dating someone your first semester of college, because you’re all still figuring stuff out. You don’t start dating someone your last semester of college because you don’t want to derail your plans.
Pat and I threw that wisdom out the window, convincing ourselves we could just have fun. To keep things casual, we established the rules: no meeting families, no sharing friend groups. We didn’t say I love you. And … we didn’t have sex.
I’m sure most people wouldn’t believe that, especially given the reputation of collegiate athletes, but it’s true. Everyone talks as though women are the only ones who might form an emotional bond getting physical, like men are just dissociated sex robots or something. But Pat wanted—and even suggested—this rule, which honestly made me like him even more. Here was this big, sexy football player, famous on campus and on the cusp of going pro, respecting this unexpected boundary.
And I will say this—if you date a man as passionate and attractive as Pat and aren’t sleeping together, you will get a seminar-level education in the fine art of making out.
Stop thinking about making out with Pat while shaking hands with his dad.
“Sorry,” I say, taking back my hand and smoothing down my dress, suddenly nervous.
“I’m really happy to finally meet you.” Tank’s smile grows.
Finally? I glance at Pat, who is rubbing the back of his neck and scuffing his cowboy boot in the dirt. What did he say about me? And when?
“I’m Lindy. And this is Jo. My niece.”