Page 3 of Spring Forward (Sweet Treat Novellas #3)

G rant McGee had done a good job of seeming like a decent guy. Madison, though, wasn’t entirely convinced. All of Mom’s boyfriends had started out okay.

“Wear this blue one.” Mom pulled a top out of Madison’s closet. “You look great in blue.”

“I’m not going, Mom. I came to see you, not my old friends.” She’d also come to ward off a disaster, but that was best left unsaid.

Mom didn’t argue. She simply went on as though Madison hadn’t made any objections. “Definitely the blue one. What jewelry did you bring?”

Madison took the blue top from Mom and hung it up again. “We’re ordering in, remember? I don’t need to accessorize to throw back a carton of General Tso’s from Chang’s.”

“ Grant and I are having Chang’s. You are meeting your friends for dinner.” Mom pulled the blue top out again. “They want to see you. You don’t visit often. Besides, Derek will be there.”

All the more reason not to go. “Derek and I broke up two years ago.”

Mom shrugged. “I didn’t mean it like that.” If her guilty expression was anything to go by, she’d meant it exactly like that. “Only that he’s a friend, like the others who will be there, and they’re all expecting you tonight.”

But how can I spy on you and your new boyfriend if I’m not here?

“They’re counting on you,” Mom said, which slammed the last nail in that coffin.

Madison had known her fair share of people who fell through when people were counting on them. She refused to be one of those people. She managed to keep her sigh of resignation silent. “I brought my big, chunky, yellow necklace.”

Mom grinned, dropping the blue top on the bed. “Perfect! What about shoes?”

Before Madison had a chance to catch her breath, she was dressed for a night out and pulling up to Romanelli’s on Vine.

“I came home to save Mom from herself. How did she manage to distract me?” Madison leaned back against the headrest. “Tonight was the perfect opportunity to keep an eye on things, but here I am.”

And Derek is here too.

She was still wrapping her brain around having seen him the night before after not seeing him in a year.

That year had been good to him. Even though spring had only begun, he was a little tan, with a touch of gold in his hair.

He’d never been a jock, but he was always athletic. That clearly hadn’t changed.

And those eyes. Oh, those eyes.

She hit her palm against the steering wheel. What kind of idiot sat in her car dying over a pair of hazel eyes? Especially when those eyes belonged to someone she broke up with two years ago? At the sound of someone knocking on the driver’s side window, she turned. She could have rolled her eyes.

Derek. Of course.

Madison forced a friendly smile so he’d think she was totally comfortable. She put down the window. “Hey.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Still talking to your steering wheel?”

She’d been doing that for years. “Yeah, well it’s a really good listener.”

He leaned his arm across the top of the car, leaning over to talk through the open window. “Come on inside. Everyone’s here. They’re all excited to see you.”

She could picture them all sitting at the big table, paired up all the way around. That was the worst part of seeing them all again: everyone had someone except for her and Derek. “We aren’t going to be the only single people in the group, are we?”

“You’re assuming I’m single.”

He was, wasn’t he? Madison’s stomach fell all the way to her feet. A sick, almost panicked, feeling welled up inside her. He was single still, wasn’t he? Mom would have texted her a saga detailing the whole thing if Derek had a girlfriend.

Except that Mom’s head was full of Mr. Fabulous. She probably hadn’t even noticed Derek.

“I really should be spending more time with my mom.” She could be home in five minutes—two if she hit all green lights. “That’s why I came home, to visit her.”

“Sure. That’s why.” His smile tipped to the left side, just the way it always had when he teased her. “It didn’t have anything to do with warning off your mom’s new boyfriend?”

“I... That’s not...”

He walked around the front of the car. He opened the passenger door and took a seat.

“What are you doing?”

He pulled the door closed and leaned the seat back.

“Are you settling in?”

“So you didn’t come back to Folsom Lake to decide if my uncle Grant was good enough for your mom?”

She kept her gaze forward. If she had to look at him sitting there so comfortable in her car the way he used to, thinking about him and some phantom girlfriend, she’d start all over again with the what-ifs and if-onlys.

“I only came to visit.” She almost sounded convincing.

“I know you better than that, Maddi.”

She shook her head. “You always thought you did.”

He leaned in, close enough to whisper in her ear. “I know you well enough to know you talk to your steering wheel.”

Derek still wore the same cologne. The two years they’d been apart disappeared at a single whiff of that scent.

The flood of memories brought an unexpected smile to her face. “I know you’re addicted to Chang’s spring rolls,” she said. He probably single-handedly kept Chang’s in business.

“And you can’t live without diet soda.”

She laughed. “And you prefer w—”

She turned as she spoke and his nearness cut the words short. He was so close. They were almost touching. She could see every speck of color in his eyes.

“You prefer water.” She could hardly breathe, let alone come up with a more coherent thing to say.

“Water and spring rolls and—” His next breath sounded strained. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

He touched her face. Her heart jumped from her feet to her throat. Every thought fled.

Derek leaned closer. She could feel his breath on her lips.

She remembered with perfectly clarity how it felt to kiss Derek McGee.

No one kissed like he did. No one. The comparison had ended more than a couple potential relationships.

One kiss, and she would be lost again. She would be under that spell he wove, forgetting as she melted that this wasn’t what she wanted.

I can’t do this again.

She took in a deep breath, finding her center again. “Everyone is waiting inside.” Including maybe his girlfriend.

What is wrong with me?

She grabbed the door handle and scrambled out. Why had she let Mom talk her into wearing these wedges? She could have slipped out with more grace in a pair of flats.

Derek’s longer legs caught up with her before she’d even reached the restaurant door. “Wait, Maddi. Come on. Don’t run off.”

“I’m not running. I’m going in for dinner.”

He stepped in front of her. “Don’t go in mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

That crooked smile came back in a flash. “Neither am I.”

“Why would you be mad? Guilty is what you should be.”

His brows pulled together. “Guilty?”

“I don’t think your girlfriend would appreciate knowing you were a breath away from making out with another woman in a parked car.” It sounded even worse out loud.

“First of all.” Derek stepped right up next to her, even closer than he’d been in the car. “If I’d been ‘a breath away’ from making out with you, we’d still be in the car.”

She refused to look at him. He’d see in her eyes just how much the idea of being kissed by him still appealed to her even after their years apart.

“What’s the second of all?” she muttered.

“Second of all, I don’t have a girlfriend.” With that, he walked into the restaurant, leaving her there to try to find her equilibrium.