Page 39 of The Risks of Reuniting (Love Connections #1)

It's Allie. Her naturally brown hair has purple streaks added, and she's dressed in exercise clothes, but her hazel eyes are the same as I remember them being and they're slitted in my direction.

I sit up, working hard to calm my heart, and spin to put my feet on the floor. It feels like I'm crawling up from being buried alive. I was in deep, and wonder how long she's been watching me sleep.

"Hey, Al," I say as I blink a few more times to bring myself to coherence.

She points at me and I see that she's holding a butter knife in her hand. "That's Allison to you."

I frown. "Your name is Allison?"

She rolls her eyes. "No, but to you, yes."

I have to fight off a laugh. She's really not going to let me off easily, and I'm grateful for it. Chloe deserves a friend who won't allow her to be misused and hurt. So, I settle back into the couch cushions, prepared to take my beating .

"How many nights do you think she cried after you left?" she asks, getting straight to it.

I hate thinking about that, and don't really want to know the answer. "If she was anything like me, all of them," I say regretfully.

"More than that."

"More than all of them?"

"Yes."

Alright. I nod. She can definitely win this round.

"How many dates has she gone on since you left?" she asks, pointing her other hand at me.

She has a whisk in that hand, and I'm dying trying to take her seriously. I've never thought of a whisk as a utensil used to make a point.

"At least a dozen," I toss out a guess. "She's a catch."

She waves the whisk at me. "She is a catch, and everyone knows it."

"I agree."

"Yeah, well, joke's on you because she refused to date anyone. Zero dates."

I mean, I don't hate that answer because it was also zero dates for me, but I'm not sure how Allie is hoping I'll react to this. "Uh, zero for me too."

She scoffs and taps her butterknife against her knee. "Right. We're going to pretend that's true."

I frown. "It is true. I haven't dated anyone."

"Uh-huh. Guy like you. Friendly, going places, acceptable looking."

"You find me acceptable? That's so nice." I razz her a little.

The butter knife is pointing at me again.

"Barely. Chloe is way too good for you and she wasted too much time grieving.

" I open my mouth to agree, but she presses on.

"And do you know why it was truly wasted time?

Huh, Holt, huh?" I bite my lips closed, pretty sure this is one of those times an answer is not appreciated.

"It's because it didn't need to happen. Needless grief might be the worst kind. "

Well, that stings. I rub a spot on my chest that aches at the truth. "We tried . . ."

"You did not," she interrupts, and she's back to whacking the whisk on the ground. "There were a million solutions to your imagined issue."

I fold my arms. "Now this is what I'd like to hear. Because we're going to need solutions if we hope to move forward."

She flattens her lips. " If is the word that you need to focus on. If she forgives you. If she trusts you again. If she's willing."

"If you don't maim me."

" If ."

I suddenly hate that word. My whole world hangs on that word. "What would you suggest, Al…lison?"

"I don't know, buddy. But breaking her heart a second time is not an option. So unless you're prepared to crawl back from North Carolina with apologies on your dehydrated lips, then you have no business even being here."

"Why are my lips dehydrated?"

"From crawling . . . across . . .the country.

" She stabs me with her eyes and I nod. "Let me say it once more for the four-year-olds in the room.

" She leans forward, pointing both kitchen utensils at me.

"Unless you understand that to have her you might have to give up Chapel Hill, you're living in a pretend life and the same issues will creep up again when your summer internship is over. "

"You don't think she'd be willing to come with me?

" I ask. I gesture to the ceiling where she's sleeping above us.

"She also said she'd never leave the States, and look where I found her again.

In Peru." I pause. "And she told her roommate at the humanitarian center that maybe she'd held on too tight to Salt Lake and could have been more flexible. "

Her lips purse and then she bites them before scowling. "She said that?"

"That's what Rachelle told me."

"I have no idea if Rachelle tells the truth, but I'll admit that I can't pretend to know for sure what Chlo will do.

The breakup changed her. What I am saying is that you have to be triple serious about making this work, because if there's any doubt that you're willing to choose her over North Carolina, then walk away now.

She'll wake up and I'll tell her you're still a no-good pansy with an addiction to hair products, and the beginnings of a neck beard, and she'll cry a little but she'll be fine.

" She slaps her kitchen tools on her lap.

"I got her through once before. I can do it again. "

Neck beard? Yeah, definitely forgot to shave that. Now I know I have to.

"Will you be giving her this same speech?" I ask.

She tilts her head. "What do you mean?"

"The whole, unless you're willing to give up Salt Lake and follow him to North Carolina, this thing is doomed speech?"

She gasps and then laughs. "No. Absolutely not. This is a one-way street. You broke it, you fix it."

"That doesn't seem fair. We both broke it."

She stands and puts her hands on her hips. "Look, Holt, I love you two together. You're, like, cheese and bananas. White American cheese, to be specific, wrapped around a fresh Cavendish banana."

I huff out a laugh. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I saw it last night on America's Test Kitchen . Looked amazing and I'm going to try it. "

"So . . . you like us together?"

"Yes, I do. You fit. But what makes you think you fit more now than you did last year? What changed?"

I unfold my arms and put my hands through my hair. "What changed is that now I know how much it sucks to be apart. I don't want to keep going that way."

"Good," she smiles, waving her knife and whisk in the air. "Feel that emotion, tuck into that understanding. And when you two have your big talks, remember what this last year was like and what you'd sacrifice to have her back."

I nod and lean my head back against the couch. "Okay, Allison, I hear you."

"It's Allie. You really are tired. Get some rest."

She marches out of the room and I fall onto my side, not bothering with the blanket, and lie there until my alarm goes off an hour later, having caught zero winks. Allie is right. I've got some decisions to make, and I don't have time to waste in making them.