Page 1

Chapter one

Nate

“Little Fields?”

The words slip out before I can stop them.

She turns, slow and sharp, one eyebrow already cocked. Her arms are full of a cardboard box and a canvas bag that’s halfway sliding off her shoulder, but she still manages to give me a look like I’ve just committed a felony.

“Don’t call me that.”

I lean against my apartment doorframe, take a sip from the coffee mug in my hand, and grin. “What? It’s a classic.”

“It’s outdated,” she says. “It’s Mandy.”

I hum, pretending to think. “Mandy Fields. Doesn’t have quite the same ring.”

“Yeah, well, neither does ‘Nate Jones: Professional Menace,’ but here we are.”

Okay. She's still got it.

Mandy Fields. Last time I saw her, she was sixteen, wearing a hoodie two sizes too big and muttering sarcastic commentary from the backseat of her sister’s car. Now she’s standing ten feet from my front door in leggings and a University of Michigan Law sweatshirt that’s falling off one shoulder like it was designed to drive men insane.

She’s not a kid anymore.

Definitely not.

Her hair’s longer. Her stare’s bolder. She looks like she walked straight out of a dream I didn’t know I’d had, and moved in next door.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, because apparently my brain still hasn’t caught up to the part where she’s real and standing in my hallway.

“I live here,” she says, like I’m the slow one. “Just moving in this morning.”

Next door.

Mandy Fields…Allison’s little sister. My ex’s little shadow.

Now a full-grown problem in black leggings and chapstick.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” She shifts the box on her hip. “Apartment 1606. And you must be…”

“1604,” I say, still stuck on the visual of her in my hallway. “So… you’re seriously my new neighbor.”

She gives me a look. “Guess I seriously am.”

A second woman comes out of the apartment, shorter, brunette, balancing what looks like two giant coffee cups and a bag of cleaning supplies. She glances between us, then smirks.

“Kira,” Mandy says, tilting her head toward her. “My roommate. Kira, this is Nate. He dated my sister, Allison, back in high school."

Kira eyes me. “Wait a second… are you Nate Jones? Defenseman for the Acers?”

I blink. “The one and only.”

Kira's eyes light up. "My family is obsessed with the Acers," she says. "My dad still talks about the trade that brought you over. Said you were a steal."

"Sounds like my kind of fan."