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When Julie told Flynn that Nick dumped her for someone else (three days after it happened, but they’d talk about that later), Flynn’s first instinct was violence. Before Julie had even finished crying, she’d already had almost the entire assassination plotted out. The only tricky part was her alibi. Served her right for only hanging out with honest people.
Sigh.
Maybe she should go with something else. Like taking a bat to his car. As long as she kept the damage under five hundred dollars it would only be a misdemeanor. Carrie Underwood would be proud.
Then she got a look at Julie’s face and immediately forgot all about Nick. He and his little side skank could go eat cow pies for all Flynn cared. Julie needed her right now.
Maybe some cheesecake would make her feel better.
Flynn made a wicked Butterfinger cheesecake, and she had all the ingredients she needed...
“Okay, up up, missy,” she said, tugging Julie’s arm until she got up off their couch. “Put on something nice, we’re going out.”
“I don’t wanna put on something nice, Flynn, and I don’t wanna go out,” Julie whined, collapsing back on the couch.
“Then put on something comfy. But you and I are going to Mike’s. I’ll text Kayla and the others, we’ll drink a bit, we’ll dance a lot, and we’ll forget that Nick Simmons is even a person.”
Julie grabbed one of their throw pillows and put it over her face. “I still don’t wanna.”
Man, this girl was stubborn. But so was Flynn. She pulled the pillow out of Julie’s hands and cocked her hip. “Up. Dressed. Now.”
Julie exhaled a sharp breath and threw herself off the couch. “Fine. But you know I don’t like booze, Flynn, so I’m not sure why we’re going to a bar,” she huffed as she walked into her bedroom.
“I’ll find you something you like, never you mind. Just put on actual clothes, and get your butt back out here.”
Flynn went to her room and checked her outfit in the mirror: fitted blue top, loose black skirt, gladiator sandals. Perfectly sufficient for a September evening in Chattanooga (because it was still hot as balls outside).
“All right, let’s get this over with.”
Flynn turned and sighed. “Are those paint splatters on your shorts?”
Julie looked down and shrugged. “I like these shorts.”
“Oh, honey.” Flynn’s automatic reaction was to reach for something trendier in her own closet, but then she turned back around and really got a look at Julie.
The singer chose a relaxed purple tank top with The Eastpointer’s “Yours to Break” album cover screen printed on the front, shorts splattered with an entire palette’s worth of paint, and soft black flip-flops. Normally Flynn would have insisted she wear something less casual for a night at Mike’s, but something about Julie had shifted in the few minutes she was changing. Her shoulders sat much softer, and Flynn couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Julie stand up that straight. She looked like…
Whoa. She looked like Julie. As in actual Julie. College Julie was always done up, never too casual, and calm and demur. Actual Julie was the goofy tomboy who’d claimed Flynn was her best friend on the day they met in second grade.
Flynn hadn’t seen actual Julie in years.
Three years to be exact.
She’d disappeared right around the time Nick showed up.
And right around the time someone else disappeared, too.
A pang of guilt spiked in Flynn’s chest. She hadn’t realized how much Julie had changed since high school. She was just so excited when Julie finally got a boyfriend that she ran with it and never looked back. But now…
She stepped forward and pulled Julie into a hug.
Julie yelped. “Um-”
“You look great, Jules.”
A soft laugh blew against Flynn’s neck and Julie’s arms curled around Flynn’s back. “Thanks, Flynny, but what brought this on? You haven’t called me ‘Jules’ in years!”
Flynn stepped back and held Julie’s shoulders. “I know. I didn’t realize how much Nick had… dulled your spark.”
“Because we broke up?”
Tch. “No, because you dated .” She reached up and ruffled Julie’s hair, which was frizzing just a little in the evening humidity. Perfect. She offered Julie her elbow and, arms linked, they made their way through the busy downtown streets to Mike’s.
As soon as they walked into the bar, however, Julie deflated. Flynn could see why. People were dancing (in pairs), drinking (in pairs), and flirting (in pairs).
Oo. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“Jules, maybe we should-”
“No.” Julie forced a tired smile to her lips and pushed Flynn through the door. “Come on, we’re here, let’s go dance or something.”
Nope. Not with that look on her face. Flynn took Julie’s hand and parked her at the bar. “Hey, Mike, can I get a Corona and a bowl full of limes here? Oh, and a watermelon cooler?”
The bar’s owner nodded and slid a bottle of golden liquid down the counter. A small bowl of freshly sliced limes followed a minute later.
“Mmkay, here’s what’s going to happen: you are going to sit here until that bottle is totally drained. Then you can come and join the rest of us as we frolic the night away.” Flynn put her cash on the bar, picked up her own drink, and popped the bottle in Julie’s hand. “Do not move until that is empty.”
Julie gave her a half-hearted salute and pushed in a lime wedge.
She hated seeing Julie this sad, but Flynn knew her best friend: if she stood around and tried to have fun for other people’s sake, it would only end in her collapsing in tears when they got home. Better to let her wallow for a minute and then come have fun when she was good and ready.
Flynn, on the other hand, had no problem meeting new people (thank you, natural extroversion) while she waited for Kayla to drag the rest of their friends away from the “World of Dance” marathon they’d been bingeing since nine o’clock that morning. She swirled her straw in her drink and made her way around the room, doing her best to scout out someone to talk to. Preferably a cute someone, around six feet, deep voice, big muscles...
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Wicked Witch of the Southeast.”
Oh. No.
Flynn whipped around and, lo and freaking behold, there, leaning against a wall in a quiet corner, nursing a bottle of Budweiser (ugh, could he be more of a cliche?), and decked in the same stupid red flannel he’d been wearing since they were fourteen, stood Reginald Anthony Peters, the boy Flynn was overwhelmingly, unequivocally, and passionately in loathe with. She rolled her eyes so hard she thought she may have strained them. “What are you doing here? Did Alex not see the ‘No Pets Allowed’ sign outside the door?”
Reggie put a hand over his heart and wiped at an invisible tear. “Oh, Flynnstone, I’ve so missed our little heart-to-hearts.”
The old nickname sparked a wave of fiery anger inside her she was not prepared for. “Do not call me Flynnstone, Reggie.”
He took a swig from his bottle and scoffed. “Come on, Flynn, don’t tell me you’re still upset about that.”
“Still upset? About the fact that you hid my running shoes right before the hundred-meter at my state track meet junior year? And then decided to get the entire school to call me Frieda Flynnstone until we graduated because I had to run barefoot? No, why would I still be upset about that?”
He shrugged. “What? You still ran it. And you still won.”
“Barely! That put me at a huge disadvantage!”
“Oh, whatever. You won by a mile and got a scholarship to run here because of it. You should be thanking me.”
“I wasn’t trained for barefoot running, you idiot! The only person I should be thanking is God for keeping me from breaking my ankle!”
Reggie just shook his head and took another swig. “So what brings you here on this fine evening?”
“I asked you first.” She knew she sounded like a child, but Reggie just brought out the absolute worst in her.
Instead of the snarky remark she expected, sadness softened Reggie’s features. He gestured toward a table to their left. “Luke and Carrie broke up a few days ago, and we were trying to cheer him up.”
Flynn followed where he pointed and saw a truly pitiful Luke Patterson sitting alone at a table, carefully peeling the label off an unopened bottle of Jose Cuervo.
“Yeah, doing a bang-up job, too.”
“It's hard to cheer someone up when they refuse to be cheerful.”
That was…
Okay, that was valid. Hadn't she left Julie alone at the bar for exactly that reason?
Reggie, however, certainly didn't need to know that.
Wait.
Carrie and Luke broke up?
Red flag. Huge red flag.
“Julie and Nick broke up a couple of days ago, too.”
Reggie straightened. “What?"
"Tuesday, right?"
Reggie nodded, his jaw hanging slack. "You don’t think-”
Before he could finish, a loud group of somebodies burst through the door, laughing and talking at a volume that made it quite clear they wanted everyone at Mike’s to hear them.
Flynn’s chest tightened so much that she forgot how to breathe.
Oh, crap.
She’d been fine the last few weeks. She’d almost even managed to forget about him and what he did.
And really, it wasn’t something that bothered her anymore.
At least it shouldn’t be something that bothered her anymore.
Yet here she was. Bothered. Very bothered.
Especially when she saw him in all his six-foot, blond-haired, green-eyed glory and completely forgot why she was over him.
Because she was over him.
Completely over him.
Totally, one hundred percent, completely over him.
“Flynn?”
She jumped and whirled on Reggie. “Don’t scare me like that!”
He held up his hands (without putting down his beer) and stepped away. “Sorry. You just went all zombie-like on me and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I’m not even going to pretend I believe you.” Reggie looked over at the group of people and tilted his head. “Who has you so squirmy? Oo, is it Mason?”
"Mason Porter? Ate-his-own-boogers-until-we-were-twelve Mason Porter? Really?" She wrinkled her nose.
“Landon?”
“Landon Cross has the mental capacity of a small bag of aquarium pebbles. Leave it alone, I’m fine.” Hadn't she already said that?
“Not a chance. I like this game.” Reggie zeroed in on the crowd again. “Oh. I see.” He poked her arm and grinned. “You’re stuck on Drew MacKenzie, aren’t you?”
Try as she might, Flynn just couldn’t come up with a good comeback. And her silence was as good as an answer.
“Seriously? Drew?”
His incredulous tone gave her pause. When she looked back up at him, she saw him glaring daggers at Drew, the rage in his eyes completely foreign to her. “What’s your problem?”
“Nothing. Just never would have pegged you for the ‘obvious douche nugget’ type.” Reggie shrugged. “But then again, I guess we haven’t really known much about each other since…” He paused. “Well, ever, I guess.”
Flynn turned back to him. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”
“Flynn? Is that you?”
Flynn stiffened. No. No, he could not come over there.
Reggie ducked to meet her eyes. “Flynn, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t talk to him.” Why she was telling Reggie of all people she didn’t know, but she couldn’t seem to stop once she started.
Reggie glanced in Drew’s direction again. “What did he do to you?” he asked, his voice barely above a growl.
“He asked me out sophomore year, and I didn’t know what kind of guy he was at the time, so I went.” She swallowed. “He made a pretty serious pass at me, I told him to back off, and other people heard him. He apparently didn’t like that, called me a bitch, and that was that.”
She couldn’t look Reggie in the eye as she said the next part. “He apparently doesn’t handle rejection well because the next thing I know one of my old professors is telling me I’ve been accused of selling his tests to freshmen.” She shuddered. “And then another rumor started going around that I slept with the TA when he caught me so he wouldn’t turn me in.” She sighed. “Let’s just say life for me and that poor TA was hard for a while. I almost got kicked out, he almost lost his job and got kicked out, and it took us weeks to finally stop all the rumors.” She glared at the ground. “I could never prove it, but I know it was Drew.”
“What? That’s disgusting!”
“I know. I-” Flynn glanced up and couldn’t believe the look on Reggie’s face as he squeezed his Budweiser bottle until his knuckles turned white.
What was the matter with him?
“Wait, why do you care?” she asked. “I figured you’d think that was a real scream.”
For the first time in their entire history, Reggie looked genuinely offended by the words that had come out of her mouth. “Flynn, I’m not a monster. Yeah, I pulled some pranks on you back in the day, and I have no problem with our verbal sparring matches, but what Drew did to you was just cruel.”
“Flynn!”
No, please…
She curled toward Reggie even more. “Reggie, please help me.”
Suddenly her drink left her hand, and Reggie guided her around until her back was to the wall.
Reggie gazed down at her, his eyes soft, so much softer than she ever remembered them being. “I think I know how to get rid of him, but you’re going to have to trust me. Think you can do that for five minutes?”
Flynn narrowed an eye. “What did you have in mind?”
Reggie held up his hands. “I promise, we can go back to hating each other as soon as he leaves.”
He reached up and touched her cheek in a long, slow stroke that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine.
“What are you-”
He looped an arm around her waist, pulled her closer, and leaned forward, his lips touching her ear. “Play along, and he'll go away.” He drew back just a fraction and traced his thumb across her bottom lip. “I'm going to kiss you, okay?”
He was going to what now?
"Flynn?"
Drew's voice sent a flash of panic through her brain, and she suddenly couldn't think of a single thing to do to get herself out of this mess.
Reggie raised his eyebrows. "Okay?"
She nodded. "Okay."
He shot her a tiny smile, then closed his eyes and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.
Flynn stiffened, unable to form a single thought except that she was kissing Reggie.
As in Reggie , the boy she was quite certain woke up every morning and asked himself, "How can I make Flynn homicidal just by existing today?"
Drew's footsteps kept pounding toward them.
Reggie pulled away and moved his attention to the spot just below her ear. "You're gonna have to do better than that if you want him to go away, Flynny." She could practically hear the smirk in his voice as he grazed his lips across her skin. "Or should I add 'better kisser' to my 'Ways Reggie is Infinitely Superior to Flynn' list?"
Flynn knew he was trying to get under her skin. She knew that she knew it.
It worked anyway.
She grabbed two fistfuls of his shirt, bumped her cheek against his nose (probably harder than she needed to), and pulled him into a blazing kiss.
A surprised noise escaped Reggie's throat, but his shock didn't last long. His lips followed her lead, and Flynn’s head spun.
She’d imagined kissing Reggie before. Her daydreams were filled to bursting with this moment when she was fourteen. And she would never admit this to anyone (especially not Julie), but those fantasies hadn’t ended after their one disastrous date sophomore year. She’d said she hated him for so long, and she almost believed it. But that was a little hard to claim when she was doing…
Well…
This.
For all his bravado, Reggie was hesitant at first. But only for a moment. He quickly pulled her even closer and slid his hand through her braids, winding them around his fingers before he let his hand trail down her bare arm.
She shuddered and broke away from his lips, a gasp escaping her throat. How in the world did Reggie know she liked to be touched like that?
Reggie followed her, catching her lips again, kissing her harder, deeper, longer.
It was way too much.
But Flynn couldn’t stop.
“Um…”
Reggie twisted away from her and aimed an exasperated look at Drew. “D’you mind? We’re a little busy here.”
Something in Reggie’s voice said he wasn’t acting.
To his credit, Drew held up his hands and backed away.
Not that Flynn had time to pay too much attention to where Drew was going before Reggie turned his full focus back to her mouth.
She never imagined he’d kiss quite like this. Reggie had always been shy around girls. Even on the Disaster Date That Shall Never Be Spoken of Again, when he liked her and she liked him back, he was a nervous wreck. Granted, he was also slightly high on cold preventatives, so that may have made his first date jitters worse. Still. Knowing he could kiss like this , with a gentle confidence that said he respected her as much as he wanted her?
She may have spent a little less time fighting with him if she’d known…
Reggie pulled away again and glanced behind them. “Looks like Drew’s gone.” His hold on her waist loosened. "Nice work."
Oh, he thought . She slipped her hand to the back of his neck. "I don't care," she whispered, pressing one gentle peck to his cheek.
His wide, confused eyes searched hers, looking for some kind of answer. “What?” he breathed.
Flynn stood on her toes and brushed her lips across his, eager to taste them again. “I. Don’t. Care.” She slid her nose against his and smiled. “Like you said. Too busy.”
She saw the moment he finally understood what she meant. “You… You mean you want to keep…” He wiggled his finger between the two of them.
She shrugged. “Only if you want to.”
He bowed his head and pressed it to her shoulder. “Oh, Flynny,” he chuckled, “you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to.”
Hold up, what?
But before she could ask, he surged forward, crashing into her and sending a delicious heat racing through every vein in her body.
Flynn lost track of how long they were there, lost in each other with no plans of trying to find their way out. Reggie's hands slid from her back to her shoulders to her hair and back down, taking every opportunity to trail down her arms again and drive her wild.
Flynn had never felt anything like this before. Sure, she'd had a couple of boyfriends in the past, but they never made it past the "kissing in the car" phase before someone lost interest.
This wasn’t kissing in the car. This wasn’t just kissing in a bar.
This was kissing someone who knew her, knew who she was and what she was capable of and how smart she was and how-
“You’re so beautiful,” Reggie mumbled, pressing his forehead to hers as he pulled away slightly to breathe.
No. No, this wasn’t real. This couldn’t be real. “You’re just saying that because I’m probably the first girl who’s kissed you since the tenth grade.”
He laughed and touched a short, chaste kiss to her lips. “As much as I’d like to say that’s true, I can’t.” He leaned back and looked her in the eye. “I’ve always thought you were beautiful, Flynn. Even when we hated each other.” He chuckled. “Well, even when you hated me, anyway.”
Pardon?
Flynn leaned back and narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you talking about? You hated me just as much as I hated you.”
He shook his head. “Nah.” He shrugged and traced his finger down her cheek. “I always wanted to try again. You just wouldn't forgive me."
Flynn's entire world screeched to a stop. "What?"
Reggie nodded and shot her a shy smile. "Yeah. I've never hated you."
No.
No, he had to be lying.
This was just another one of his pranks.
Right?
Because if he'd never hated her, then that meant…
"But… But the pranks? The jokes at my expense? The one-upping every time you got better grades than me? The all-around assholery?"
"It was literally the only way I could get you to talk to me after our date."
She held up her hand. "We do not speak of that night. Ever."
Reggie rolled his eyes. "Fine. Regardless, you refused to acknowledge my existence after that. And that hurt.” He shrugged. “When I finally got tired of it at Luke’s birthday party that spring and snapped at you, it was the first time you’d reacted to me in weeks. After that it just… Became how we communicated. I figured it was better than nothing, so I just ran with it.”
Flynn thought about that for a long time. As much as it turned her insides to admit it, he was right. She’d refused to even look at Reggie after their disaster date, mostly because she was so embarrassed. How so many people found out about it by the time school started that next Monday, she still didn’t know. And she’d blamed Reggie, even though it wasn’t totally his fault. He was under the influence of cold meds he didn’t know he was allergic to.
But she couldn’t handle the teasing at school, and it was easier to blame him for her embarrassment than her own insecurities.
It wasn’t until Luke’s sixteenth birthday party (when she was forced to interact with him because they ran with the same friends) that things finally shifted between them for good.
Luke’s parents had gotten him an air hockey table, and at one point he and Reggie hit the puck so hard they lost it.
Without thinking, Flynn snorted. “So I’m guessing those promising careers with the Preds aren’t in your futures, then.” She shrugged. “Too bad. I was really hoping to see Reggie get a few teeth knocked out. It might make him prettier.”
“Aw, Flynny, don’t give up on us just yet,” Reggie had snapped back. “Besides, you know you’re joining us! What else are you going to do with that hockey stick you have stuck up your butt?”
She deserved that. She’d always been of the mindset that if she could dish it she could take it. And had it been Alex or Luke who said it, she would have been fine.
But it wasn’t Alex or Luke.
It was Reggie.
She didn’t remember what she said, or what Reggie said back, but she knew that whatever it was ruined things between them, probably forever.
That was almost six years ago. And she’d held onto that grudge for so long she didn’t know who she was without it anymore...
Reggie rubbed a thumb along the curve of her waist, gently asking for her attention. “Flynn? You okay?”
She blinked and shook her head, clearing the old memories from her mind. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
That wasn’t entirely true.
Reggie nodded and licked his lips, clearly unsure what to say. He cleared his throat once, then moved to step away.
Flynn’s arms curled around his neck, holding him in place. She had no idea what she was doing; all she knew was that she didn’t want him to leave. “I’m sorry.”
Reggie’s eyebrows shot up. “For...”
“For the last six years. For never forgiving you. For being so shallow and so worried about what everyone thought that I took it out on you and never gave us the chance to be friends.” She pursed her lips and looked away, shame welling up inside her like a flood. “You never deserved any of that. I’m so sorry, Reggie.”
“Hey.” A gentle finger hooked under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Do you still hate me?”
Honestly? “No. No, I don’t think I do.”
Reggie grinned. “Then all-” he whispered with a soft kiss to her lips “-is forgiven.”
And with those words, a dam she didn’t know she’d built around her heart shattered to dust.
She may not know who she was without that grudge, but she realized that she didn’t like that Flynn anymore anyway. That Flynn hadn’t realized Julie was disappearing before her eyes over the last three years, and that Flynn didn’t see what a kind, wonderful man Reggie Peters was.
She was done with that person.
She pushed herself forward and swung him around, locking him against the wall before finding his lips again. Reggie, for his part, curled an arm around her waist and held her to him, giving zero hints that he was planning on going anywhere for the rest of the night.
Good.
As the fingers of one hand stroked up and down her spine, and the other tangled itself in her long braids, Flynn wondered how had she denied herself this for so very long? Ugh, pride was the worst thing ever.
A minute later (or an hour, who the hell cared?) Reggie pulled away with a gentle laugh. “Looks like you and I aren’t the only ones who figured things out tonight,” he chuckled, nodding at something behind Flynn’s head.
She turned and laughed as she watched Julie snatch Luke’s hand and follow him out of the bar. “Huh,” she hummed, leaning her cheek against Reggie’s chest. “Well, how about that?”
Reggie nuzzled his nose against her cheek and followed it with a kiss. “Be my date to the wedding?” he whispered in her ear.
Flynn sputtered another giggle. “Wedding?”
“Come on, Flynn. Those two have been engaged since we were six. Even when they weren’t together, they were together. I give ‘em until graduation before Luke’s on his knee with a ring.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
“Say,” Reggie whispered again, sending a tremor across her skin. “What do you say we take a page from their book and get out of here? I’m craving cheesecake something fierce. Butterfinger specifically.”
Flynn bit her lip and grinned. So, he remembered.
“Sounds good,” she answered, spinning around and popping one last kiss onto his lips. “Let’s take this back to my place. I have a feeling we’ll have it to ourselves for the night.”
Reggie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, well I don’t normally do that on the first date, but I suppose for you…”
Flynn smacked his arm and rolled her eyes. She knew for a fact that Reggie hadn’t been on a date in years. According to Luke and Alex, he was just as shy when it came to women as he always was. Well, women who weren’t her or Julie. Mostly women who weren’t her, she thought with a small spike of triumph.
“I need the oven at my place, dork. And besides…” She laced her fingers through his. “This is technically our second date.”
Reggie grinned and Flynn practically melted right there on the floor. “Well, in that case, Miss Taylor,” he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket, “lead the way.”
Flynn tugged him toward the door, her heart fluttering in her chest like a million butterflies. Things had most definitely taken a turn she hadn’t expected, but Flynn had to admit, she was couldn’t wait to see where the night took them. She’d carried that anger with her for so long, but somehow, thanks to that disarming magic that only Reggie Peters could possess, she’d managed to lay it all down and unpack all that baggage that kept her from truly seeing him.
She had no idea where it would go, but she had to admit, the adventure sent a buzz through her blood that couldn’t be stopped.
Hm… Maybe Julie and Luke weren’t the only ones who’d been destined since they were kids.
But that was a worry for another day.
Tonight, cheesecake.
And Reggie.
And whatever else came along after that.