Page 18 of The One

That day—the last day—was one I’d never forget.

When streams of tears had dampened our cheeks and voices had reached every octave and accusations had flown through the air, like a sky full of jets.

Despite coincidences and fate, I’d never expected this moment to happen. That we’d cross paths again.

That, like sleep, I would get that lucky.

But here we were.

Together in a way I could barely fathom.

And I had so many questions; I didn’t know where to start. I went with the obvious and asked, “Did you ever think you’d see me again?” A trembling was happening inside me with the intensity of a goddamn earthquake. “What it would look like if you did? What it would feel like?”

“Rhett—”

“Because I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it every day, Lainey.”

“No.” She went quiet, her head dropping, a curtain of hair falling toward both sides of her face. “I never thought about it.”

I didn’t believe her.

Not when pasts were as intertwined as ours.

Not when there had been so much love between us.

But, goddamn it, all it had taken was one moment with Penelope to blow that apart.

“Lainey …” I sounded breathless even though I was breathing, my head still wrapping around the fact that she was here, that I was getting to say her name and earn myself a response, like the way she was looking up at me now. “You’ve never once thought about me?”

“No.” Her hands tightened into tiny balls. “I’ve only hoped for one thing for the rest of my life and beyond.”

I drew in as much air as I could hold. “And that is?”

“That I never saw you again.”

SIX

Lainey

Sixteen Years Ago

“It’s always been you. And, Lainey, it will always be you.”

It had only been a few seconds since Rhett had spoken those words to me at the party where we were upstairs in one of the bedrooms, sitting on the bed. And as his stare covered me, his words echoing in my head, I could feel my face turning beet red, my lips pulling into the biggest grin.

I was doing everything to stop myself from melting.

Why was he so achingly sweet?

Why was I wiggling, unable to sit still, no matter how hard I tried?

It was thealwayspart that was tripping me up. It meant so many things.

And it meant, if I was understanding him correctly, that everything I’d feared while I was in New York was just in my mind, scenarios that wouldn’t make it further than myimagination. And if I was reading him right, it didn’t matter that I’d left or how much time had passed; Rhett cared about me.

But I still wanted to confirm, so with his fingers spread across my cheek and his thumb on the side of my mouth, I said, “You never stopped thinking about me, the same way I never stopped thinking about you, huh?”

“I sure as hell didn’t.”