Page 3

Eleven Years Ago, May

I could hear the music a block from the club.

“We can get out here,” I volunteered as my mom slowed for a stop sign.

She pulled her Honda over to the curb, her eyes twinkling beneath the turquoise scarf wrapped around her head. “What, you don’t want people to see your mom dropping you off at the club for your twenty-first birthday?”

I chortled. “Yeah no.”

“Ugh, these stilettos were not made for walking,” Rosa complained as she pushed open the back door.

“Just for dancing?” I teased.

I climbed out of the car into the balmy evening and adjusted my short, sparkly dress, my birthday present from Rosa, who had also done my makeup, and tamed my perpetually tangled long brown hair into glossy curls.

“Wait!” my mom called before I could shut the door. She raised her phone. “Strike a pose.”

I rolled my eyes but Rosa and I did as instructed, posing like Charlie’s Angels on the sidewalk until the driver of a pickup truck rolled down his window to whistle.

“Bye!” I said, slamming the door to my mom’s car and blowing her a kiss.

“Thanks for the ride, Alex,” Rosa called as we started down the street.

I could see my mom laughing as she drove away.

The sidewalk outside Starfish was teeming with people waiting to get in. But the bouncer, who’d been on the football team at our high school back when Rosa was a cheerleader, lifted the velvet rope as we approached. “Birthday girl in the house,” he said into his walkie.

After a moment, the black-suited manager appeared in the doorway and ushered us inside. Dance music pounded through the speakers, flashing blue and silver lights reflecting off the disco balls that hung from the rafters as he led us past the bar and around the dance floor to a booth in the corner.

“Drinks are on the house tonight, ladies,” he said, gesturing to the vodka and juices in the center of the table. “Happy birthday.”

As he disappeared into the crowd, Rosa pulled me toward the booth. “Corner table so you can lurk in the shadows. No balloons, as promised. And I didn’t even invite anyone. Though I may have told a few people we’d be here. But only people you like.”

“Jesus, am I that bad?”

“I’m just messing with you. You know I love you.”

Her eyes narrowed as they caught on someone across the room. “Is that…” She snapped her fingers, searching for a name. “The squirrelly guy that was your lab partner senior year—”

“Ian Kelley?” I looked over to see two guys leaning against the wall near the hallway that led to the bathrooms. It took me a minute to register that one of them was, in fact, Ian.

He was taller than he’d been in school, and even thinner, looking more like a ferret than a squirrel now with his new tattoos and all-black clothes, his dyed black hair shaped into a mullet. “Yeah, that’s him,” I said.

At first it looked like he and the other guy were just talking, until I noticed an exchange pass between their hands.

“Is he dealing?” I asked, thrown.

“Looks like it.”

Ian and I hadn’t exactly been friends in school, but we’d been friendly.

He was smart and we were in a few AP classes together, occasionally paired to work on projects.

Most people thought he was a weirdo—but then so was I, though I kept my weird more on the inside.

I’d never liked to be the center of attention.

“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s sad.”

“Not super off-brand, though,” Rosa said.

It was true he’d been a pothead, and I remembered rumors that his home life wasn’t great. Dad in jail, that kind of thing, though we’d never discussed it.

“But he had a scholarship to…” I racked my brain, but couldn’t remember where.

Rosa shook her head. “I heard he lost it.” She leaned in, cut her eyes toward the bar, and whispered, “Look what the cat dragged in.”

My heart caught in my throat as my gaze landed on Tyson Dale, leaning against the bar. He was wearing a fitted black T-shirt that showed off his toned biceps, his dark hair long enough to tuck behind his ears.

Damn. He looked good.

My face must have given me away because Rosa immediately shook her head. “No, Audrey. Absolutely not. He is bad for you. Look away.”

I obeyed, turning my back on him as I poured myself a vodka cranberry.

I knew Tyson was bad for me, had always known Tyson was bad for me.

But that had never stopped me from going there.

He was my first boyfriend, my first love, the one I’d lost my virginity to, the one who’d broken my heart—more than once.

Our history was long. Too long for a pair of twenty-one-year-olds.

“Ryan’s with him,” she reported. “They must’ve just gotten home for the summer.”

“Yeah, Tyson got in yesterday,” I said before I could stop myself.

“You’ve talked to him?” she asked incredulously.

“He texted me.”

“And you responded.”

I shrugged. “He’s one of my oldest friends.”

“ Friends .” She snorted. “Did you tell him you were going to be here tonight?”

I winced. “Maybe.”

“Audrey!”

“I know, I know—”

“Do I need to remind you he stood you up on prom night?” she demanded.

“That wasn’t his fault. The boat—”

She held up a hand to stop me, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Rosa’s gaze shifted over my shoulder, and I spun to see Tyson and Ryan prowling toward us.

Tyson’s dark eyes were fixed on me, his square jaw flexing as he landed at our table.

“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” he said, pulling me in for a hug.

I caught a whiff of the intoxicating cologne he’d worn since high school, which I knew I was supposed to hate.

But that was not my Pavlovian response. “You look incredible,” he whispered into my hair, his hand lingering on my hip.

“Thanks,” I said. I ripped my eyes from him to give Ryan a hug. “Good to see you guys.”

Tyson slid into our black leather booth, pulling me with him.

“Please, join us,” Rosa said, her tone spiked with sarcasm.

My eyes caught on Tyson’s Coors Light. “I see your taste hasn’t changed.”

He eyed me. “No. It hasn’t.”

“How’s Boston?” I asked, ignoring his innuendo.

He shrugged. “Fine.”

“Fine?” I asked. “That’s all?”

“I just wonder how much you can learn in a school environment, you know?”

“I’m sure your parents would be thrilled to hear that with the amount they’re spending on tuition,” Ryan ribbed.

“Spending the money makes them feel better about how little they’re involved in my life,” Tyson said bitterly.

“How long are you here for?” Rosa asked.

“Two, three months? I’m watching the house for the summer while they do whatever it is they do.”

“That’s very nice of you,” I said. “What’s the real story?”

“I had an internship lined up in New York, but the company went under and it was too late to get anything else,” he admitted. “So here I am. All by myself in that big house.” He focused on me. “I’m gonna get lonely.”

“You could get a job like the rest of us,” Rosa suggested.

“Do you have a job?” Tyson asked, his eyes still on me.

I nodded. Taking care of my mom was really my full-time job, but as her disability insurance paid barely enough for us to scrape by on, I’d had to find some way of making money that would allow me to make my own hours.

Fortunately, my skill set was suited to that kind of arrangement. “I’m working for a DevOps company.”

“What does that mean?” Ryan asked. Tyson laughed and Ryan held up his hands. “Pre-law over here. I have no idea what you smart people do with computers.”

“I analyze systems software and engineer automation maintenance and virtual services,” I explained.

Ryan and Rosa exchanged a glance. “Yeah,” Rosa said. “I don’t get it, either.”

The song changed, and Ryan stood up, offering Rosa his hand. “Wanna dance?”

“But you’re going back to school in the fall,” Tyson said once they’d gone.

I swirled the ice in my drink with my straw. “We’ll see.”

“What do you mean, you’ll see?” Tyson asked. He’d never known when to leave well enough alone. “You need to be registered already if you intend to go back.”

“I can’t go back in the fall, okay?” I snapped. “I have to take care of my mom.”

“Can’t you—” he started, but I cut him off.

“There’s no one else.”

“But you’ll lose your scholarship if you—”

“I already did.” I took a long draw of my drink. “I couldn’t keep my grades up with driving back and forth all the time.”

He stared at me. “But can’t they make some kind of exception for your situation?”

I shook my head. “Believe me, I tried.”

He nodded, and I could see the wheels turning in his brain as his eyes swept the room. He focused on Ian, who was now sitting at the edge of a crowded booth, his head bent in what looked like serious conversation with a guy in his thirties. “Great,” he said dryly.

“What?”

“Just—Ian. He’s renting that trailer on the land behind our house. He came around to see if I wanted to go out tonight, and I said I was too tired.”

“Is he not in school anymore?”

Tyson shook his head. “He’s been renting the trailer since Christmas. I don’t know the full story.”

He angled his face away from Ian, returning his attention to me. “So. What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I’ll figure that out once my mom gets through this. I’m not even totally sure I want to work in the tech sector anymore.”

Even in the semidarkness, I could see the confusion on his face. “Why? You’re so good at it.”

“I like identifying a problem, finding a way in, figuring out a puzzle. But doing it for a company is…I’m bored out of my mind. And as much as I love computers, being in front of one all day is draining.”

“I get that,” he agreed. “I hate school. But it’s just a stepping-stone. Some of the people I’m meeting will be useful, and investors like to see a pedigreed background.”

“Investors in what?”

“Whatever company I start.”

“Are you developing some amazing tech I don’t know about?” I asked.

“I’ll figure that out,” he said.

He sounded so confident, so self-assured. Was that what being raised with a security net gave you? Or was it just his personality? Maybe that was what attracted me to him, I thought as he placed his hand on my leg beneath the table.

My gaze collided with his. “So what’s the goal?” I asked. “World domination?”

A sly smile crept across his face as he leaned in and whispered, “One day they will all bow down to their king.”

I laughed. “Me too?”

“Oh no. You’ll be queen.” He placed his empty beer bottle on the table, his gaze dropping to my mouth.

I could feel the familiar magnetism of him, pulling me closer against my better judgment.

I shouldn’t get involved with Tyson. I knew that.

But I was only twenty-one. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

I went home with him that night, and we didn’t sleep a wink.