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“I remember lots of things.”

The words came out too quickly, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Is your sister in Minneapolis now?”

“St. Paul.”

He opened the old fridge and pulled out a strawberry wine cooler. I drank them by the gallon back in the day, all kinds of flavors, but strawberry had always been my favorite. Had Dean kept them for me, or were they for other girls?

I pushed the thought away before I could dwell on it.

The wine coolers were sparkly and refreshing and Kim and I used to pour them into plastic storage bags and stuff them in our bras to sneak into outdoor concerts since neither one of us liked beer.

He put on Bryan Adams and took a drink of his beer while I sipped my cooler, looking around the space. The whole thing felt so familiar that it frightened me a little. Not because I remembered every detail, but because I didn’t.

Some of these things I’d forgotten entirely, like the twin bed, his sister’s photograph, and the cheap curtains moving in the window.

For twenty-seven years, I’d remembered Dean in a grainy, old movie way, without dirty coffee mugs in the sink or socks drying over the back of a chair.

I still liked him. So did that mean I was supposed to choose him? Now that I was actually here, back in my old life, it wasn’t as easy as I’d thought it would be.

We carried our drinks into the living room, and I sat at one end of the sofa while Dean took the chair across from me.

Otis lowered himself beside my feet with a sigh.

For a while we talked about the store, laughing about Brian’s random inventory system, the customer who’d tried to return a cassette because he didn’t like side B, and whether Madonna was going to last.

“She will,” I said.

Dean raised a brow. “You sound sure.”

“I have instincts.”

“About Madonna.”

“Definitely, about her.”

He smiled and took a drink, then his gaze moved toward the coffee table where a folded letter rested beneath two record catalogs.

“Twin/Tone called again.”

I looked up. “What did they say?”

“They want me in Minneapolis next week.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Dean gave me a look. “You sound more excited than I am.”

“You should be excited, it’s a big deal.”

He leaned back in the chair.

“They’re talking about more than distribution now. Regional promotion, bringing Wisconsin bands into Minnesota stores, maybe helping set up a better route between Madison and Minneapolis. Side A could be part of it.”

“That’s exactly what you’ve wanted.”

“I don’t know if it is.”