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chapter seven

“When faced with the Ghost of Christmas Past, your best bet is to just nod your head, smile, and apologize. Always apologize, because everyone has a past, and about 99% of us, upon reflection, should realize we’re in a shitty position because of the shitty choices we made back then. So yeah, you apologize, and then you look toward your future. And if that doesn’t work, you day drink.”

~From Max Emory’s Guide to Dating and Other Important Life Lessons

Maddy

“Well, that was painful,” I grumbled over the phone to Liza.

“Don’t be dramatic. I’m sure it was fine. Looks good, doesn’t he? I’d lick his biceps if he’d let me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Apparently, he only dates the elderly now.” I thought back to last night and the woman who looked like she couldn’t wait to get him home for dessert. Not only had he grown into his good looks in a way that gave normal women heart palpitations — but his intense gaze was still the same, always the same, as if he could see the depths of your soul.

The only thing missing had been a smile.

I swallowed the knot in my throat when I realized he hadn’t even really made eye contact; I may as well have been invisible.

And the crappy part was, I deserved it — and more.

She choked out a laugh. “The rumors aren’t true. He’s just a do-gooder. He’s not really prostituting himself out to Blanche, or any other old woman for that matter.”

I wasn’t so sure.

His stone-cold expression hadn’t cracked once.

No regret had filled his eyes.

All business.

I bit down on my lip and jerked open the door to my Ford Focus, a gift once I’d graduated college. I sighed. Four years and a hundred grand later, and what did I have to show for it?

A waitressing job.

And a degree I no longer wanted to use.

I’d hated it.

Hated living in the city.

Hated the noise.

And the fact that it was nearly impossible to make it work on such a low starting salary as an editor.

I’d shared a small apartment, rented out what looked like a closet, paid out over two grand a month for the stupid space, and barely had any money left over to do anything else by the time I paid for surviving. So, when the publisher I worked for went under…

I had no savings.

Nothing.

Nothing to help those I loved most. My chest squeezed.

I was forced to move into my old bedroom, the same bedroom that had band posters and old pictures of Jason and me.

It was like living in an actual Hell of all the reminders of why I’d left in the first place — and whom I’d left behind.

“You still there?” Liza whispered. “Either you blacked out, or I was talking to myself for a solid four minutes while you stared at the police station. Oh no, tell me you aren’t standing outside his work and stalking him.”

I started my car. “I’m not outside staring at the police station, just… thinking.”