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This isn’t your fault, Dani.

That last one echoes for a heavy minute, pinging around in my head like a stone puttering down a well. I keep waiting for it to inevitably fall to the bottom, tosettle—but it never really does. Maybe it’s because I still don’t believe it.

My mother and father are the classic friends-to-lovers story; they went to middle school, high school, even college together, and what started as a deep friendship blossomed into something more. Until it didn’t. After one night together, they realized they were better as friends.

They didn’t anticipate me.

I’ll never fully understand why they chose to sacrifice seventeen years of their lives in a phony marriage for some convoluted idea about giving me a “normal childhood.” Finding out after so long that the people you thought wrote the book on love have beenlying to you your entire life…well. It shapes your ideas on relationships and love as a whole. It made me stop believing they could even really exist.

Maybe that’s why it hurt so badly when I let someone in. When Grant decided that I wasn’t enough.

I take a deep breath, pushing the thoughts away like I always do. I wish I could stuff them in a trash compactor and get rid of them for good, but I know that if they’ve stuck around this long, there’s most likely nothing that will chase them away. I shuffle out of my clothes, slipping the dress over my head and smoothing it out to inspect it. It really does look good on me, complementing my fair skin and dark hair. Not that there’s anyone to impress, given that most of the people coming to this stupid party will be over fifty.

Not that there’s anyone Iwantto impress, I amend internally.

I have to squash that line of thought before it turns against me. I know where that one leads. It leads to tall, blond, and a handful.

I run my fingers through my hair, sighing again.

Let’s get this over with.

•••

Mom and Dad’sbackyard—or rather,Mom’sbackyard now, I guess—is practically full within the hour. Dad finally got the grill going, which means there is a slight scent of burnt hot dogs in the air, and based on the level of laughter I can hear happening all around me, I have to assume that Patty’s spiked punch is a hit. These things usually end the same way, with my parentsandstepparents passed out in various rooms of my childhood home, as well as a few of their friends, more often than not. They really doact like teenagers sometimes. I guess because they missed out on so much when they were younger, they’re determined to make up for it now.

Dad’s friend Howard, a tax attorney from a smaller firm here in town, currently has me cornered on the porch to regale me with a tale about saving some company from bankruptcy after they got into trouble over back taxes, and let me tell you—there is nothing more boring than tax law. Seriously. I can practically feel my eyes glazing over, but I’m trying my best to nod when it’s appropriate, to smile where it’s warranted, however infrequent that might be.

“—and then after negotiations, they decided that it would be more beneficial for us to move forward, as you can imagine.”

He chuckles as if he’s said something that’s actually funny. I have to force a smile onto my face, but in my head I’m wondering how much longer I have to hang around before I can escape without my parents noticing. Not for the first time, I wonder why I even came. It’s not like there’s anyone here my age. I suspect that after another half hour, my parents will be so blitzed that they’ll be in no condition to argue with me tomorrow when I tell them I was totally here until cleanup.

“Dani!”

I turn my head to see my dad’s hand raised high over a sea of salt-and-pepper heads, trying to flag me down. Thank God.

“Sorry, Howard,” I offer without feeling particularly sorry at all. “Duty calls.”

Howard nods around his punch glass. By the hazy look in his eyes, I suspect he’ll already have another victim for his case recounting shortly after I’m gone. I have to push through a small group of people who have started up their own little dance floor where they are attempting to do the hustle just off the deck,almost getting caught by Mom’s friend Harriet and dragged into the fray before I can untangle myself.

I finally spot my dad over by the tire swing that’s been hanging on the giant oak in the backyard since I was five—my mom, Patty, and Bill all huddled together under the sprawling limbs overhead. They’re laughing at something someone’s just said, and based on the decibel of it, I’m thinking it’s almost time for me to work on my out. And I’m planning to do just that.

Until I see who’s standing there with them.

I pause only a few steps away, my feet seeming to be rooted in the grass as my brain tries to make sense of him being here.Here.At a family party. In the backyard of my childhood home. If the way I can feel my mouth gaping is any indication, I can only surmise that I am nowhere near close to catching up to what’s happening in front of me.

“Dani!” my dad says again, practically shouting even though I’m standing right next to them. “Look who showed up.”

As if I haven’t already noticed. After not seeing him for two weeks, it feels like every nerve ending in my body suddenly perks up, almost as if trying to reach out and touch him. Because there, with my dad’s arm slung around his shoulders as if they’re old friends, is Ezra Hart.

Fucking Ezra Hart.

Ten

Dani

I can feelmyself gaping at him.

Ezra looks entirely unfazed by my obvious shock at him being here, his smile natural and his eyes giving me absolutely nothing. I can’t help but take in his appearance; it’s unfair that he can make faded jeans and a threadbare tee look just as good as a three-piece suit, but of course, this is Ezra Hart we’re talking about.