Say You Still Love Me(14)

“Gosh, that sounds delicious,” I murmur with a mock-dreamy look. Christa might be the only general manager at a steak house who is genuinely disgusted by steak.

“So . . . how was everyone else’s day? As much fun as mine, I’m guessing?” Christa’s gaze takes in the disarray around the condo.

“Well . . . I for one am exhausted, but I’m happy to be here with you guys.” Ashley collects cutlery and plates from the drawers and begins dishing out.

“That couch is perfect for this place, by the way,” Christa says before another gulp, eyeing the new living room setup. “Where did you get it from again?”

Ashley’s eyes flash to me. “Oh . . . just some local furniture store?” It comes out sounding like a question, but Christa is too distracted by her own frazzled nerves to seem to notice.

“Cool. Piper?”

“I made Tripp look like a fool.” But that’s not what I really want to talk about, what I’ve been dying to talk to somebody about. “You’ll never guess who I saw in the lobby today. At least, I think I saw him.”

They pause, waiting expectantly.

“Kyle Miller.”

Their mouths hang open for a long moment, and then . . .

“Seriously?”

“Why are you just telling me now?”

“What did he say to you?”

“Is he still gorgeous?”

I hold my free hand in the air to stop the onslaught of questions. “I’m not even sure it was him. He was ahead of me and then he went out the doors, and when I tried to catch up, he was just gone.” I couldn’t have been more than ten paces behind him, and yet he all but disappeared when I reached the sidewalk, my adrenaline racing through my veins.

I don’t tell Christa and Ashley that I spent the next hour wandering through the Pier Market, looking not at the tempting menus or the colorful wares, but for those familiar dark golden eyes.

“Wow. Kyle Miller,” Christa begins, exchanging a glance with Ashley.

“I know.”

“And you’ve never talked to him since that summer? Not even once?” Christa already knows the answer to that, but she asks it anyway, as if to confirm the gravity of Kyle’s possible reappearance in my life.

“How could I? He literally dropped off the face of the earth.” His phone number went out of service a few days after he left Wawa. My emails to him went unanswered at first, and then they bounced back. He’s nowhere on social media from what I can see, and I’ve looked more than once over the years.

Even now, thirteen years later, I can hear the twinge of frustration in my voice over how things ended between us.

How confusing.

How unfinished.

“What do you think he was doing there?” Ashley asks.

“No idea. He was in a tie, so maybe he’s working for one of the other companies? Or maybe he was just a visitor.” I don’t know what’s behind that door he exited.

“Do you think he knows it’s your family’s building?” Ashley asks.

“Oh, come on,” Christa, ever the cynic, scoffs. “It says ‘Calloway’ across the front in giant, golden letters.”

“That doesn’t mean he’d make the connection,” Ashley argues. “Did you ever tell him who your father is?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“See? So how would he know?” Ashley’s big green eyes get that dreamy look in them. “Wouldn’t that be something, though, if he does work there?”

My stomach does a nervous flip. It’s been thirteen years. Does Kyle Miller remember me? Does he still think about me as I do him? And if so, are those thoughts laced with fondness?

Indifference?

Or regret?

“Those were the days, huh?” Ashley finally lets out a longing sigh. “Remember Eric? Man, that guy used to drive me nuts.”

Christa snorts. “That’s because he had a huge crush on you.”

“Couldn’t have been that big. He never returned my emails, either.” Ashley waves it off, but her face pinches. “I wonder how he’s doing.”

Silence lingers through the kitchen as we all drift into our own thoughts.

“What will you say to Kyle if you see him again?” Christa finally asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Hi?” I swallow against the sudden swell of nerves.

And Why would you hurt me like that?





Chapter 4



THEN


2006, Camp Wawa, Day One

“. . . they were, like, best friends, but then Marie hooked up with Carlos one night, even though she knew Jenny was, like, in love with him,” Ashley murmurs from the side of her mouth, leaning in so I can catch her muffled words over the buzz of laughter and soft music. “It was a total disaster.”

I covertly study Carlos, a stocky guy in a mustard-yellow T-shirt, standing across from us, laughing with his friends while he stokes the bonfire with a fresh-cut log. The two rivals for his affection sit equidistant to him—Jenny, the tall, lithe blonde on the picnic table to the right, and Marie, the petite girl with a jet-black French braid huddled with a group to the left. He’s cute enough to garner the attention, I guess. He seems to be more interested in the brunette helping him now than either of those two, though.