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“I think my heart just stopped.” Jordan fanned herself. “Those men are lethal. It’s almost unfair.”

“I agree,” Milo piped up. “But Jason… I mean, I get that everyone was in love with him and Colt in high school, blah, blah, blah, but he looks so much better now, like he finally filled out, became a man. Right, Maddy?”

I choked on my spit, pounded my chest, and finally bit out an airy, “Yeah.”

Milo grinned. “He got addicted to lifting weights the way people get addicted to pie. It’s kind of stupid how much muscle he has.”

“I’m sure he’s lethal,” Becca added, “you know, on the force and other places…”

I felt my cheeks heat as I chugged more wine. Is it unreasonably hot out here?

Milo started fanning my face.

I hung my head. “That obvious?”

“Girl…” Jordan refilled my glass, “…they can see your lust from space.”

We fell into fits of laughter as the guys finished cleaning up.

“Yeah…” I shrugged, “…I can’t help it. Look at him.”

Jason’s skin was bronzed from the sun. There wasn’t one muscle that he hadn’t completely beaten into submission and grown. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could find an inch of fat on that man’s body — but I’d love the opportunity to do a little research.

Visions of his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, assaulted my brain until I was drooling over him like a loser with my mouth open.

His tongue had been hot.

His hands firm as he’d gripped my hips, as if he’d known just how to handle me and had wanted to throw me around a bit.

I sighed.

“Can I ask you something?” Milo said quietly.

“Sure.” I was sure I knew what was coming. I sucked in a breath, braced myself, and waited.

“Why did you run?”

The girls were silent, each of them staring at me, waiting for the whole sordid tale, when there really wasn’t one, just like there wasn’t a great reason other than my own insecurities about our future.

I hated myself more in that moment than I ever had.

Because my future had been in front of me.

My love.

And I’d turned on it and hadn’t allowed myself to look back for ten years.

Jason deserved better than what I had to offer. I’d known it then. I knew it now.

“Sometimes, we do stupid things, make decisions for other people based on what we think will happen. Jason loved me without a plan. I left him because I needed one in order to feel secure, and the last thing I wanted was for us to be eighteen-year-olds without a college education, a home, a future. I didn’t want to end up like my mom.” There, I’d said it. I didn’t tell them about the whispers I’d heard from other students about being a local girl and ending up just like my mom. I was too ashamed.

And I was already feeling like the worst daughter by mentioning my mom.

She’d done everything for me.

Never anything for herself.

Had kids, didn’t go to school, never worked a day in her life outside the home, and my biggest fear had been turning out just like her.