Page 215 of Broken Brothers

But if either of those things happened, so what? Once I got on the other side of Sunday afternoon, I was going to ask Layla to be my girlfriend. If Sarah showed up, wonderful; I’d get the chance to sooth my younger, needy side with the promise that I could move on and be fine. And if she didn’t show up, or she did show up and she looked nothing like I expected, that was just a process that was that much easier.

Just as I got my drink, though, my phone buzzed. Thinking it was Sarah, I quickly pulled it out and unlocked it.

Instead, I found Layla had messaged me.

“Hey, just wanted to check in. How are you feeling this morning?”

Guilty as hell that I’m seeing someone now?

I didn’t really have a reason per se to feel guilty. I was a single man, Layla was a single woman, and Sarah was just here for the weekend—if she even was here. I just had to do this for myself, for my story, just to make sure I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder all the time.

“I’m fine,” I wrote back. “Morgan’s taking it tough. But we’ll be OK :-)”

I was about to write something else when I looked up and saw her.

Sarah Hill.

She didn’t see me yet, but I saw her, and she looked absolutely, unbelievably stunning. She had long, wavy blonde hair, nice red lipstick, perfectly pale white skin, red slippers, a white top with a light jacket over it, and a blue skirt. She was the picture-perfect model of the All-American girl, and I gulped nervously.

This might, ironically, have been the worst case scenario for me. If she had not shown up at all or had shown up looking unattractive, I could have just dismissed her in my mind and moved forward. But seeing her look like this, every bit the part of the model that she was…

“Chance!”

And the fact that she seems very enthused to see me… this is going to be a problem.

“Hey, Sarah!” I said, rising from my outdoor seat, trying not to make it obvious that I found her incredibly attractive as she walked over to me.

“You look great!” she said as she embraced me in a tight hug that definitely lasted much longer than just a quick second. “How have you been? Wow, you’ve grown!”

“It has been a few years,” I said with a chuckle.

“No, I mean like… you’re a man now.”

Uh oh. And she’s flirting? Oh Lord.

“Well, let’s not go too far, I certainly know how to act like a boy,” I said with a chuckle. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Oh, no, I’ll get it, I’ll be right back outside.”

I smiled as she walked by, my eyes following her. There were cute women, they were attractive women, and then there werethe women that anyone just fell for on the spot. Sarah was one such woman, and given that every other person within viewing distance also had their eyes on her…

My inner 12-year-old was jumping for joy, practically threatening to jump out of my body. Even the present-day Chance was having problems not thinking about what could be.Just keep it light. Remember you’ve got someone that is real and ready to date.

Don’t think what if. It’s only going to lead to more problems.

Not that you haven’t given yourself one already by showing up to this… uhh, meetup. But goddamn is she beautiful.

“So,” she said as she emerged just a couple of minutes later, somehow with an even more radiant and joyful smile than what I had seen on her when she first approached. “Tell me what you’ve been up to! You were at Columbia, right?”

“Yep, graduated from there, obviously,” I said.

I hesitated for just a second on if I would tell her about Edwin’s death before deciding it wasn’t worth it. She had to have known from the news, and even if she did, she knew that I didn’t have the greatest relationship with him. It wasn’t something that impacted my life that much, at least emotionally, and so I had no problems not mentioning it.

“Morgan and I actually started our own investing company, MCH, for Morgan & Chance Holdings.”

“Oh, wow, good for you,” she said. “I already knew that you’d outgrow the Hunt name and do something for yourself.”

Oh, if only you knew. If only you knew the irony of your words.