Full Package

To say I’d been thinking of her every day for the last eight years would be a lie. To say I’d gone those eight years without ever once thinking of her would be an even bigger lie.

But I sure as hell didn’t expect to run into her one fine Sunday morning in the park. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t ready. And my first thought was to catch up and explain that I hadn’t ditched her to have a kid. Closing the distance would have been easy. I can run like the wind. I can put one foot in front of the other and hoof it. But I had my favorite person with me and no way was I going to drag Carly in a chase after a girl I once loved like the sun.

Still, I tried.

I grabbed her hand and yelled. “Delaney!”

She didn’t even turn around, and soon she was a speck rounding the bend.

I suppose, in retrospect, the last words out of my mouth when I dumped her shouldn’t have been, “It’s too hard to juggle classes and you.”



* * *



Her Prologue



* * *



I’m cursed.

There’s no other explanation for this thing that happens to me every time I get close.

I’m not talking about horseshoes close either.

I mean every single time I take the rabbit out for a ride.

The bunny makes it clear it needs a certain stallion to get over the hump.

Do bunnies even like horses?

I don’t know, but it pisses me off that my traitorous body seems to need one man, and one man only to fly off the cliff.

I don’t ask for this kind of sexual haunting. Hell, I don’t even believe in ghosts. But the ghost of boyfriends past has been inhabiting my fantasies for years. I try like hell to rely on Henry Cavill, Chris Hemsworth, or Michael Fasbender. I mean, really. Michael Fasbender. And we all know what he’s packing.

But nope.

My brain won’t bend to his Fas.

I’ve learned to stop fighting it. I just go with it when my ex pops into my solo flights. I grit my teeth and bear it, and let him join Bunny to take me to the magic land. Then I turn off the pink toy, tuck it into the drawer, and drift asleep, satisfied, but not entirely satisfied either.

That’s how it goes when the biggest and littlest Os come with double-A assistance and have for the last year and a half. I kid you not. Have you seen the men in New York City? They are fine, but most come with some kind of baggage, and I’m no longer interested in carrying theirs, so I’ve been on a nightly love and dating diet. More like a 500-day fast. So Bunny and I have gotten a lot closer. Sometimes, we make it a double.

And in the mornings, I pretend I didn’t get off to Tyler Fucking Nichols.

That man.

That cocky jerk who broke my heart.

But even if he inhabits my naughty imagination, I do take some solace in knowing I’m over Tyler. I’m so over the way he ended things eight years ago. I’ve moved on, thank you very much. This is purely a physical possession, nothing more. Hell, it’s not really a surprise that my mind wanders to his particular talents, given the way he owned my body when we were younger. But, I sure as hell wish I could find the trick to eradicating him from the guest list of the parties I host with my battery-operated nightstand drawer friends.

One Sunday morning, I stumble upon the key to exorcising him.

Here’s how it all went down.

I popped out of bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and tugged on my running shorts.

A little later, I met up with my good friends Penny and Nicole at the entrance to Central Park, and we began our training run for a 10K race we’re doing in a few weeks. I figured it would be just another morning jog, followed by a plate of two eggs, any style with a strong cup of coffee at my favorite sidewalk cafe, The Charming Breakfast Spot.

Instead, I saw him.

Juggling.

Of all things, the man was juggling.

The spitting image of irony.

At the edge of the grass by the running path, he spun five objects in an oblong blur with the most adorable little brown-haired girl by his side. Who looked just like him.

And in the blink of an eye, I seethed.

I ached.

As I ran, I broiled. I went from zero to 60 miles per hour of hurt in mere seconds. All I could think was the bastard had found a way to juggle in the end. I couldn’t believe he’d moved on so easily after me. And he didn’t just rebound to another girlfriend. He leveled all the way up to fatherhood.

The worst part? The absolutely, completely, horrifically unfair part? He was still so goddamn handsome, with that chestnut hair I wanted to run my hands through, that square jawline I could have touched all night, those lips made for kissing me everywhere.

In last night’s unbidden appearance in my mind, he sure as hell had. He’d been my first in that department; he was still the best.

At that and at everything.

Look, any woman who says she doesn’t rate her lovers is a liar. She might not have a whiteboard with a numbered list, or a diary with rankings. But we all know who rocked our world and claimed our bodies.

He was the one for me. Top of the list. End of the line.

But no more.