Sighing, Mac scooted into the seat next to her younger sister, Sierra. Sierra looked at Mac a little cautiously, almost as if she were afraid of her. Mac stared straight ahead, pretending she didn’t notice, but when she heard Nolan’s name on the local news radio, she flinched. The search is still on for the person who poisoned Mr. Hotchkiss on the night of . . .
“Enough of that,” Mrs. Wright said sharply, her hand shooting forward to adjust the dial to the classical station, which was playing Beethoven. Nobody spoke for the short ride home. Mac leaned back and closed her eyes, feeling deeply, painfully tired. The silence was only broken when they pulled into the driveway and Mrs. Wright cleared her throat. “Looks like you have a visitor, Mackenzie.”
Mac’s eyes popped open, and she followed her mother’s gaze. Her first thought was that it must be Claire, her ex–best friend. Dread filled her. After Claire’s attempts to sabotage Mac’s Juilliard audition, Mac never wanted to see her again. The fact that she’d have to spend the next four years with her—at the school they’d both devoted their lives to getting accepted to—felt like some sort of cosmic joke.
But then her vision adjusted. It wasn’t Claire sitting on the family’s front porch, slowly turning the shiny fronds of a pinwheel that was jammed into the flower bed. It was Claire’s boyfriend—and the boy Mac had loved quietly for years. Blake.
Blake’s head shot up as the car pulled to a stop. There was a desperate, searching look in his eyes. His mouth opened, but no words came out, and he snapped it shut again. Mac felt a tug in her heart. His shaggy hair and long-lashed pale blue eyes still knocked the wind out of her. And he looked so . . . sad, like he missed hanging out with her.
Then she noticed something in his lap. It was a confection box from his sister’s bakery in town along with a square white envelope. A memory suddenly struck her: meeting Blake at the bakery last week so they could rehearse songs for his band. It felt like ages ago. Mac had kept her distance from Blake for so long—ever since Claire started dating him even though she clearly knew how Mac felt about him. But that day in the bakery, they’d . . . connected, just like old times.
She closed her eyes, flooded with the memory of how their lips had met. It had felt so wrong and so right, all at once.
But the soft spot inside Mac quickly turned iron-hard. She thought of the next time she’d seen Blake at the bakery: finding him and Claire after the Juilliard audition. They’d stood together, hand-in-hand, a united front. I told Blake to hang out with you, Claire had teased. I knew you’d drop everything, even practicing for your audition. Oh, and all your confessions to Blake? He told me everything. Including that you were playing Tchaikovsky. She’d looked at Mac with so much anger and hate in her eyes. And we aren’t broken up. We’re stronger than ever.
Blake hadn’t been able to look at Mac when she asked him if it was true. But he hadn’t needed to. His downcast eyes and guilty expression had said it all.
Now Mac turned and followed her parents into the house through the garage. “I don’t want to talk to you,” she snapped.
Blake leaped off the porch and ran down the driveway. “I’m sorry, Macks. Seriously. I am so, so sorry.”
Mac stopped short. She might have whimpered. Her mother touched her arm. “Honey? Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Mac said weakly. She hadn’t told her mom about the Blake-Claire drama—they didn’t exactly have that sort of relationship. She gave her mom her bravest smile. “I just need a sec, if that’s okay?”
“A few minutes,” Mrs. Wright said, glancing cautiously in Blake’s direction before stepping inside.
Mac turned and looked at Blake. He reached out a hand toward her arm. She reflexively tried to pull away, but then wilted. The warm smell of cupcake batter and powdered sugar wafted off him.
“I’m sorry,” Blake began.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Mac said, feeling tired, but Blake pressed on.
“Macks. It’s true that Claire did ask me to start hanging out with you.” He winced. “But once I realized how you felt—and I felt—I wanted to put a stop to it. You’re the one that I’ve always wanted. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I felt terrible about it—all of it.”
Mac scoffed. “That didn’t stop you from carrying out your plan.” Telling Claire that she was playing Tchaikovsky, so that Claire could practice the same piece and play it first. Trying to distract her before the most important audition of her life. “You almost ruined everything.”
“I know, and I’m an asshole.” Blake kicked at a pebble on the ground. “Just so you know, I broke up with Claire. For good this time. I want to be with you . . . if you’ll have me.”
In Mac’s darkest moments over the past few days, she’d imagined a scene just like this one, where Blake came crawling on hands and knees to beg her forgiveness. But now that it was actually happening, she didn’t feel nearly as satisfied as she’d thought she would. She stared at him now, somewhat shocked. He screwed her over and then had the nerve to ask her out?