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CHAPTER ONE
charlee
Kitchi Falls, Finger Lakes, New York
I thought I had everything I wanted, but now he’s back. And all I want is him.
“Charlee, don’t look now.” Natalie grabbed my wrist and pulled it away. Too late. I’d seen him already.
“You nearly spilled my drink,” I said, trying, unsuccessfully, not to breathe as if I were running on a treadmill. “And it’s a fresh Deep Eddy’s.”
“I’m serious,” she said.
The sounds of “Sweet Home Alabama” played as we edged out a space for ourselves in the corner of the new bar in town. About time we got a fresh haunt to frequent.
About time you’ve come home.
“Me too,” I said, lifting my glass. “See? The pours here are legit.”
I wasn’t fooling anyone. I’d known Natalie since freshman year in high school, when she had called me, of all people, with questions about our algebra homework. For the fifteen years since she’d moved to Kitchi Falls that long-ago September, we’d been navigating life together.
Specifically, navigating our lives around boys. Specifically, that boy.
Except, Lucas was clearly no longer a boy. After ten years in the US Army, he was all fucking man.
“Where are you going?”
Easy. To hide. I’d thought about our possible reunion for years, and it definitely didn’t include meeting him after work with barely refreshed makeup and my hair in a ponytail.
“Charlee.” Natalie caught up with me in the exact opposite corner of the crowded bar where Lucas stood talking to the owner. “Are we really going to hide in the corner?”
“Is that a real question?”
Natalie took another peek. “Jesus,” she said. “I thought he was hot then. This Lucas is an absolute beast.”
I didn’t need to look again. I’d seen it all, brief as my previous glance had been.
Same dark hair, if a bit shorter now than in high school.
Same chiseled cheekbones. Same extremely kissable lips.
I should know. I had kissed them.
But everything else was different. He’d always been in good shape, having played baseball in high school. But he was much bigger, muscles everywhere, confirming that he was as disciplined now as he’d been then about his body. In high school, he’d had one tattoo. But now, a sleeve covered one of his arms, giving him a proper, badass, ex-Army-sniper look. He oozed confidence and maleness. He oozed sex.
“Are you okay?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Do you want to leave?”
Natalie and I exchanged a gaze. We looked nothing alike. Her blonde hair to my black. Her petite frame to my more hourglass figure. For years people had commented that, together, the two of us were a force of nature, and usually I agreed. But not tonight. At this moment, I wasn’t sure I could blow a leaf off a tree, never mind pull the thing from its freaking roots. I could barely breathe.
“I appreciate it,” I said, especially knowing how excited Natalie had been to come tonight. “I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe go talk to him?”
I laughed. “Like this? No thanks.”
