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“Busy as hell.
You?”

“Just primping for my night with DC.”

That’s right, he had his date with Donovan Collins.

“
I’m so jealous of you right now, Jules. What are you guys doing tonight?”

“We’re going to his hotel. There’s a private dining room, so we’ll have dinner, and then maybe do a little kissing. I don’t know, we’ll see.”

“Well, have fun, and don’t stay out too late. We have plans tomorrow.”

“You still good for brunch?
” he clarified.

“Pick me up at eleven?”

“Done. Don’t work too hard, baby girl.”

“Don’t
fall too hard, remember, you just met this guy. Get to know him before you profess your love.”

He just laughed
before hanging up on me. I hoped he wouldn’t say anything that would scare Donovan away during their date.

Brandon set my phone on the counter and raised an eyebrow at me.

“That’s my best friend,” I explained.

“
He seems like a cool guy.”

I nodded. “Yeah,
he’d pretty awesome. I’ve known him for years.”

“
So, why does he call you Cupcake?” he asked me after a few minutes.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You saw my back. Why do you think?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that.”

I sighed.
“Eighteen year-old mistake. It was cute, so I got it. Epic fail, but I keep it to remind me to think things through before I do them.”

Yup, I had a cupcake with silver foil and pink icing on my lower back. A cupcake tramp stamp, if you will. Julian saw it the first day we met when he came in to get change for a tw
enty, and he’s been calling me Cupcake ever since.

“That’s awesome.
Not sure if you saw it, but I’ve got a flaming yin-yang on my shoulder that I just sort of decorated around over the years, but that was my mistake.”

“We all have them,
” I answered compassionately.

After I was done with the outline of the design, even though he probably didn’t need the advice, I went over the care instructions
just in case.

“Alright, so I’ll
call you next week,” Brandon told me before he left the room.

I ran my hand through my long
hair that had fallen over my shoulder. I was hungry, and I needed a break, but his friend was waiting.

“Why?”

He looked at me like I was insane. “So we can talk, obviously.”

“About what?”

He rolled his eyes this time. “I told you. You’re cool as shit, and I want to be friends.”

I laughed, not really believing that he’d actually call me or that we’d actually be friends. “Sounds great, Brandon.”

He laughed out loud. “Um, no, Harper. It sounds
awesome
.” I couldn’t help but grin at that. “And then I’ll see you in back here in a month so you can finish this bad boy.”

He gestured to his freshly inked skin and grinned.
He was a really cheerful guy, and I liked that about him.

“I’ll be here,” I assured him. “
I can do your color, and then we can leave for the rehearsal dinner.”

Why did I agree to go to a wedding with this guy? I barely knew him
. I hoped he wasn’t a murderer. I’d pack my gun just in case.

“Cool, and thanks Harper. I’ll
definitely call you this week if anything funny happens, or if I’m just lonely and need someone sexy to talk me to sleep.”

“You know they have 1-900 numbers for that kind of thing,” I suggested playfully.

He grinned. “Yeah, I know, but you’re so much hotter than any of those girls.”

“Goodbye, Brandon,” I teased, pushing him in the back so he’d take the hint to leave the room. I had
work to do.

“Oh!” he said, turning around to face me, his dark eyes alight with glee. “A
nd I’ll definitely tell you all about how my buddy was cursing his fiancé last night and how he kicked a fifteen thousand dollar table to death. It’s fucking classic!”

“Can’t wait,” I said, reaching forward to hug him. “It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Brandon Cooper. I look forward to many more quality interludes.”

He tipped a fake hat at me when he pulled back and said, “You too, Harper. I’ll talk to you soon, and I’ll send my buddy back.”

I smiled as he left, feeling like I’d honestly connected with someone, and that rarely happened. I didn’t let people in, but I liked Brandon’s straight-forward honesty. He was genuine. He was also probably
screwed up as hell, but weren’t we all?

I turned away from the doorway to start cleaning up when I
felt some standing behind me, and then I heard a sharp intake of breath. When I turned around, I almost fainted. Standing in my doorway was Ryan Carson, the guy who’d broken my heart eleven years earlier. Instead of fainting, I turned and vomited into the trashcan that was thankfully right near my feet.

Chapter
Seven

Ryan

“Harper?”
I asked, not believing what I was seeing.

It had been over a decade
, but she still looked as beautiful as the last time I’d seen her, even as she was puking into a trashcan. Instinctively, I walked over to her, gathered her long, thick, half-pink hair into my hand and held it back as she spit into the trashcan.

“Get off me,” she g
rowled, shaking my hands free from her hair as she stood up and turned away from me, the glare in her eyes murderous.

For the few brief seconds I’
d touched her hair, it was so soft, and I remembered how it used to spill over my arm when I held her after we made love. It had been all one color back then, but it still looked beautiful hanging to the middle of her back.

So many memories were suddenly assaulting me all at once, memories I’d buried and stifled and forced myself to let go
of. Like how she always smelled like strawberries or how her full lips pressed together when she was thinking about something or how her eyes would sparkle when she was happy. And then the thing that had torn us apart, that had changed everything and ripped her away from me.

I’d lost everything that day.
Everything. And I realized it way too late.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a clipped, bitter tone,
as she ran her hand under her bottom lip.

I couldn’t figure out why she was mad at me. I hadn’t done anything except let her stomp on my heart
. I should be the one who was pissed, but it had been eleven years. I could move past it just to get the chance to talk to her again, see how she was doing. Over the years I’d emailed her a few times, since I had no idea where she’d gone or what she did after she’d fled Boston, but I never heard back. And I never, ever stopped thinking about her. Now she was standing in front of me, and I couldn’t believe it.

“Uh, I was here to get a tattoo. My friend Brandon recommended you
, but I didn’t know it was
you
.”

She spun around to face me, her hair fanning out behind her and
coming to rest over her left shoulder. “
You’re
Brandon’s friend?” she spat. “The one who’s getting married? Whose wedding I’m going to?”

“Uh, yeah.
Wait, what? You’re coming to my wedding?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes
to glare at me. “Well, I didn’t know it was
your
wedding, but yeah, I’m going with Brandon. He just asked me.”

“Shit,” I cursed. “You’re the hot tattoo girl he was talking about.”

“I suppose.”

“Harper, I didn’t know he was talking about you. I didn’t even know you lived out here. How long have you been in San Francisco?”

My mind was reeling. This was a girl I never thought I’d see again. She’d walked out of my life unexpectedly, leaving me with nothing more than a break-up email. It was shitty, but I could forgive all that as long as she was happy. But she sure didn’t look happy.

“I’ve lived here for e
leven years,” she said in a clipped tone.

“Eleven
years? So you came out here right after . . .” I drifted off, not sure what to say exactly.

“Yeah, after . . . that.”

“It’s good to see you,” I said honestly, because it really was.

“Screw you, Ryan,” she said, turning away from me again.

“But–”

But I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. Why was she angry with
me
? I should be angry with her. She was the one who left, who broke things off, who never contacted me again. Then I realized she was crying, and her shoulders were shaking, so I did what any decent guy would have done, I went to comfort her even though I knew she would push me away.

And sure enough, as soon as my hands close
d around her shoulders, she shrugged me off.

“Leave me alone,
Ryan
,” she seethed, growling my name and sounding much sexier than I should have found her in that moment.

“Okay,” I said, backing up
with my hands in the air, but I wasn’t leaving.

Then she spun around and faced me, her eyes wet and red-rimmed
, and wet streaks on her face where her tears had fallen. “Get out. Get out of my parlor now, and do not come back.”

“Fine,” I said after a few seconds, knowing her well enough to know that she needed space.

I walked back out to the waiting room in a daze, still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. Harper Connelly lived in San Francisco and worked not two miles from my condo and a block from my office. It was insane that we’d never run into each other, but what was even more insane was that I still found her so incredibly attractive after all these years.

Not that she
hadn’t always been beautiful, but I figured after more than a decade, feelings would fade. But it was as if we’d never been apart. She was still the girl I’d fallen in love with when I was sixteen, and she still had an incredible power over my emotions.

I realized my heart was pounding out a staccato rhythm, and my breathing was shallow as I walked away from her, knowi
ng it was the wrong thing to do. Why was I walking away?

I found Brandon flirting with the receptionist with the large fairy on her shoulder and the ring through her lip.

“Hey man, you chicken out?” he asked me.

I nodded, unable to utter any actual words.

“Pussy. Come on, let’s go get drunk.”

I nodded again, thinking that was a great idea.

Chapter Eight

Harper

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

I’d fallen to my knees in the middle of the room as soon as Ryan had left, unable to remain on my feet. The tears were falling silently down my cheeks as I was assaulted with memories of him that I
’d buried deep, and the anger that I thought I’d let go was bubbling at the surface. My hands shook, and the floor below me seemed to be tilting and moving before my eyes.

I never thought I’d see him again,
never.
He was a part of my life that I let go, I left behind, and he had no business being here in the present. He was the past.

But he’d been there, so close. He’d
touched
me, and his scent had assaulted me and thrown me over the edge. It had made him real.

For two years he’d been everything to me. While everyone else treated me like I had the plague, Ryan Carson had held me and defended me an
d loved me. He didn’t care that his family hated me, that my stepfather was in prison for stealing millions of dollars or that my mother was having an affair with a married man. He’d loved me when I felt completely alone in the world, he’d helped me find my father, and he’d made me see how amazing life could be with someone incredibly special.

Memories o
f us riding around in his Corvette with the top down and singing at the top of our lungs and laughing and kissing for hours because all we wanted was to be as close to each other as possible assaulted me. He’d been the first guy I’d slept with, and for a long time, he was the only guy. He’d been my first real boyfriend. He’d been kind and loving and God, that smile of his, it could tear me apart.

But Ryan Carson had also hurt me worse than anyone on the planet. Because when I needed him the most,
he ran the other way, and for that I couldn’t forgive him.

It was
the summer after our senior year. I’d held off as long as I could, but after two weeks, I couldn’t wait any longer. I was late, so I took a test, and it was positive. It was the worst news, and I was delivering it at the worst time since we were both set to leave for Yale in two months.