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  Today, I was a lonely musician who missed his best friend. Today, I was a man struggling to tame his desire for his first and only love.

  Gwen

  I couldn’t gather my paltry box fast enough. If I could eject myself from this overheating kitchen, that had shrunk with August in it, I’d strap myself in and brace for impact. One second I was ready to grab his pole and test how high it could make me jump, the next I couldn’t stop remembering the rabbit hole I’d fallen into after my WTF.

  Losing August back then had been a sledgehammer to my heart. For two years I’d wallowed, barely going out. Self-imposed isolation. Until I’d met Rachel and Ainsley. The girls had reminded me there was life after a shattered heart, but the extent to which I’d suffered wasn’t something one forgot.

  I was twenty-seven now, not nineteen, but the San Francisco fault line had nothing on my shoddy foundation.

  One moment on August’s aroused lap, and the cracks under my feet showed.

  I shuffled across the white linoleum floor, glancing at him as he returned my guitar to its case. His strong back stretched his jersey, his shoulder blades shifting with each move. My Badass PI partner.

  Of our investigative duo, he’d been the clever one, quick to decipher leads and solve problems as we’d hunt down clues. I was the sneaky one who’d sweet talked “suspects” and “informants,” donning my meager acting skills.

  Anything to spend more time with August.

  He hadn’t agreed to investigate with me today, only to join my friends for a drink. The possibility of combing the city with him sounded too good to be true, grinding on his pole sounded even better, but we’d spent the last nine years ignoring each other, angry and hurt. Me ashamed and pissed at myself. August furious with me. Not the kind of history suited to unearthing parental information that could trigger my own personal earthquake.

  That didn’t lessen my internal tug-of-war: I wanted him with me for this daunting scavenger hunt. I wanted him playing me songs, flirting with me, possibly thrusting his pole inside me. An electrifying and petrifying prospect.

  Which meant I needed to focus on one sure thing: August and I were friends. We had been, at least. A relationship I wanted back. A fling might calm the fire one look from him stirred, but he could never be a one-night stand, and we’d never be more, certainly not today, with this journal and the challenging hours ahead of me.

  Finding my father was priority one.

  August trailed me from the kitchen. He wasn’t even close, but I could barely breathe through the feverish grip on my lungs.

  “So, we’ll meet in a couple hours?” he asked.

  Hopefully long enough to get these hot flashes under control. “Five thirty. I’ll text you.”

  He opened the front door and reached toward me. “Give that to me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?” My heart? My soul? He owned both already.

  “The box. So you can lock up.”

  Right. The box I was holding. So I could lock up.

  Even his simple gesture had me picking apart his intentions. The action also had me all thumbs.

  What should have been a simple handoff of a small box went haywire when his hand brushed my arm. I squeaked and fell into him. The box tumbled to the ground, his arm came around my waist, and my hand grazed his pole.

  He grunted, short and harsh. I should have moved my hand. A normal person who needed to be only platonic with her ex-best friend while she chased down leads on her ghosted father should have moved her hand. I did move my hand, but it was more of a needy slide.

  Air hissed through his teeth. “Do that again, Gwen, and I’ll toss you over my shoulder, take you up to your childhood bedroom, and live out the dirty fantasies that kept me up for most of high school.”

  Good Lord.

  I jumped back and smacked my shoulder into the doorframe. My lungs had practically incinerated, burned up with my unquenched desire. Still, I managed to say, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He was breathing hard, too, and he smirked.

  He wasn’t a smirker. He was a hate-song writer. I couldn’t get my head around it all. “What are we doing?”

  “Honestly?”

  “No, August. I’d like you to lie to me so I can continue acting like a moron. I don’t even know why you came by or why you’re in town.” Most of his family lived in Chicago now. He didn’t have a house here.

  His lips tipped into a frown. “I’m not really sure anymore.”

  “Why you’re in town, or what we’re doing?”

  He dragged a hand through his dark hair. The strands were shorter than they used to be, but they still had a slight curl, that one lick up top defying gravity. I itched to smooth it down. Touching him wasn’t smart, and I was a smart girl. A together girl. A girl who needed to focus.

  “I came home to take care of some personal business,” he said cryptically. “As for us, I’d like to hang out this afternoon. We’ll take it from there.”

  A loony laugh escaped me. “We’ll take it from there?”

  “Now who’s repeating who?”

  “You do know how weird this is, right? You and me hanging out and…” I glanced at his crotch, the loose fabric tented slightly. For a second, I wondered if that personal business had to do specifically with me, but the possibility was laughable. His brother lived here. He likely had music contacts in the area, too. Still, he’d shown up at my mother’s door, looking for me.

  He shrugged an unaffected shoulder, like our flirting didn’t mock the laws of nature. “I’ve decided to stop analyzing it.”

  He bent to gather the few things that had tumbled from my box, and I froze. It was one thing to give him his Badass PI badge, but each memento littering the walkway—the only keepsakes I’d saved from my childhood—were all linked to the man bent over them. Every last one.

  My first Wonder Woman comic—his gift when I’d won my track meet.

  The Die Hard DVD he’d sent over when I’d been holed up with mono.

  Every homemade birthday card he’d slipped into my locker.

  He righted the box and returned the escaped items, but paused on each one. My throat closed. They were damning, hard proof I’d never gotten over him. The longer he lingered, the hotter my neck burned. Mortification over my obvious obsession with him winded me, along with hope he’d understand how important he’d been in my life.

  Seeing as we’d never unleashed our monolithic sexual tension, his flirting made sense. A quick fuck could offer him closure, even though it would ruin me. This evidence wasn’t simple flirting. This was proof of a deep emotional scar, years of missing him nurtured and splayed on flagstone.

  I expected him to stand, make some excuse about a forgotten appointment or meeting. Flee the scene of the crime. Instead he placed my mother’s journal over our memories and stood, facing me. “I have a picture of you on my laptop, from our trip to the zoo, with you making faces at the chimpanzees. I’ve switched computers over the years, had plenty of opportunity to delete it. I never could.”

  He smiled a sad smile, his gaze traveling over my face and landing on my lips. He licked his, a slow slide of his tongue. Then he turned and jogged to his car.

  My heart jogged in time.

  5 p.m., 31 Hours…

  Gwen

  A frosty shower later, I pulled on dark jeans and a white tank top, ready to meet my friends for a drink. Not continue obsessing over a certain someone who’d be joining me. I would not admit to modeling five different outfits beforehand, when I should have been analyzing my mother’s journal. I had not applied two different shades of lipstick before settling on a rosy gloss. I also hadn’t performed these neurotic acts while listening to August’s latest album.

  Nope. Not me.

  God, I was pathetic.

  Looking in the mirror now, I barely recognized myself. My ruffled bangs swept to the side like usual, my chestnut waves as ordered as I could get them. My cheekbones still stood out, my right eye sligh
tly rounder than the left, and the rock climbing scrape on my forearm still lingered. Put the facts together, and I hadn’t changed one iota. But since adulthood, I’d never lost my mind over a man.

  Here I was, cracked out over August.

  Before this year’s dating hiatus, I’d made an effort when meeting men, trying to look pretty, putting my best foot forward and all that jazz. Never had my efforts involved a frustrating fashion show and clothes-littered floor. It was time to get my act together.

  I used my last half hour to curl on my couch and pore over my mother’s journal, the analytical work more calming than I’d have thought. It was methodical. It gave my mind something to latch onto, other than the fact that August had saved a photo of me. Did he look at it often? Had it haunted him the way my keepsakes of him had haunted me?

  I growled into my empty apartment, annoyed August had thwarted my focus again.

  I focused harder and flipped more journal pages, frustrated when some stuck together, causing me to miss sections. Not that all my mother’s random entries were gems. Her “I hate my mom” rant could have been written by me and most kids during their teen years, but Mary Hamilton’s malice had stemmed from forced church attendance, a strict dress code, curfew, and TV limitations.

  Partway through, a cutout of a ballerina stopped my flipping. A quick browse showed more dance pictures and corresponding entries, my mother writing things like:

  Dancing is everything.

  The music makes me feel alive.

  I would rather die than not dance.

  Those jazz shoes must have been her prized possession. I suddenly wished I hadn’t left the suitcase at her house. I wanted to wear her shoes, experience that passion. The possibility puckered my mouth. There was no point searching for something that had died long ago. There was only the here and now. This reality.

  Journal in my lap, I glanced around my small apartment. It was generally neat, the open kitchen and living area decorated in shades of blue and gray. My leather couch was comfy, the closets big enough to store my rock climbing equipment and diving gear. The slate walls were bare except for the surfboard and mountain bike taking up real estate. There were no family photos. No snapshots of birthdays or weddings or celebrations. My mother had only ever visited my place once, because I’d asked her over. That painful hour had involved both of us checking the time repeatedly.

  Mary Hamilton may have had interests and passions as a teen, but that wasn’t the woman she’d become. The only thing I wanted to find in these pages were clues to the man she’d slept with, a visual that turned my insides to ick.

  Eye on the time, I studied the dance pages for a hint. A partner she’d waltzed with? A boy who’d picked her up from class? Assuming she’d taken classes. That part wasn’t clear. What did repeat was the acronym TASC.

  Tucking my legs under me on the couch, I searched my phone for the term and gawked at the landing page.

  Tenderloin Arts and Spiritual Center: a community space in the Tenderloin district where art and culture and spirituality come together.

  Spirituality? If I’d sipped the water on my coffee table before reading that, I’d have done a spit take. It was easier picturing my mother as a tattooed biker than getting spiritual in the Tenderloin—San Francisco’s seedy epicenter. Granted the area was changing, theaters and music venues drawing different crowds, but those streets had crawled with drug dealers and prostitutes back then.

  Oh, crap…prostitutes.

  Visions of spitting water vanished as my mouth dried.

  What if young Mary Hamilton had worked the street? What if she’d run away from her controlling parents, only to wind up knocked up and devastated?

  Be careful what you wish for.

  I toyed with the journal’s edges, debated closing it, choosing ignorance over truths better left unknown. It would mean giving up, and I didn’t give up. I worked harder, did more reps, lifted heavier weights. All to reach my potential.

  I’d set a goal for myself last year, and this journal was my chance to reach that target. Giving up was losing. Giving up meant failure. Giving up meant I’d have nothing to focus on besides August Cruz.

  Nose back in the book, I scanned a few more pages and noticed a “him.” No names or specific descriptions, just:

  He watched me dance today.

  I saw him at TASC.

  When I spotted the intimate tidbit: I’m dying to kiss him, my hands shook. This was my first clue. A real lead, not the stupid window washer business cards I’d stolen from my mother’s purse. There had been a boy at this TASC place.

  Possibly my father.

  Part of me wanted to keep reading, but the reality of August and these clues tumbling into my life so suddenly had my head ready to pop. What would I say if I met my father tonight? How was I supposed to act around August later?

  Thank God I’d made plans to meet the girls, a reprieve I desperately needed. A chance to find my equilibrium and unload this drama before it intensified, even though August would be there, too.

  Soon, he’d be sitting with us, possibly flirting with me and going on about his saved photo and pole like the two of us could forget our past. Even worse was the possibility of him not flirting with me and going on about his saved photo and pole like the two of us could forget our past.

  I wasn’t sure which option stressed me more.

  Journal left in my car, I crossed the street to Sweet Pea, a cute bistro/bar we frequented. The barn-board walls and cramped wooden tables created a casual-chic vibe. I normally found the place relaxing, the country tunes not too loud. This afternoon I scanned the room as though a jack-in-the-box might spring from the floor.

  My friends were at a table, drinks in hand, no August in sight. I breathed easier. It was also nice having space from the journal and the possibilities it might hold. “I hope this is for me.” I nodded to the white wine near one of two empty chairs.

  Rachel squinted at me. “Should I have ordered you a bottle?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “You don’t look like you.”

  Even my best friend sensed I was an imposter. “Things have happened.”

  My mother things. Finding my father things. August things. Unsure where to begin, I sat in the seat beside Rachel. Ainsley was on her right, their boyfriends across from them. They all watched me, waiting. I sipped my wine, stalling. I tried to remember that I wasn’t alone in the complicated-relationship department.

  Owen was the strong silent type, the tiniest twang to his baritone, a rugged man who’d look at home corralling sheep and saying ma’am. Here he was, smitten with Ainsley, a blond bombshell whose closet rivaled a Bloomingdale’s display. Rachel’s freckled innocence was a sharp contrast to Jimmy’s inked skin and biker style, but they’d fallen cupid stupid in love with each other.

  I’d watched both girls the past year, falling in love, then not falling, then falling harder, then hurting before eventually zooming to cloud nine. I was thrilled for them. They deserved the world. Watching them find their other had also torn at me, on a fundamental level.

  My dating hiatus the past year had been necessary. The only way to break a habit was by going cold turkey, and my asshole dependency had become a problem. Part of me had believed I didn’t deserve more; a girl who slept with her first love’s brother wasn’t high on Santa’s Nice List. Part of me was just plain tired of no man ever measuring up to the one who owned my heart.

  I did want my other, though. I dreamed of it. Yearned for that and more.

  A family of my own.

  If it didn’t happen one day, I’d toss my name in the adoption pool, find a baby who needed a loving mother, someone who would support her, rub her back when sick, celebrate the highs and commiserate for the lows. I would do it, on my own if need be. It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted the whole package, but there was only one man I’d ever imagined in that role. A virtual impossibility, no matter our earlier flirtations.

  I sighed into my wine.
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  Ainsley nudged Rachel, the two of them striking up conversation as though I wasn’t there. “Is this because of the soccer guy? Her old crush?”

  “Considering he showed up at her mother’s house unannounced, I’d go with yes.”

  “I need details.”

  “Do you ever.” Rachel looked as bewildered as when I’d confessed my WTF. “But it’s not my bedtime story to tell.”

  I glared at the girls, who chose an inopportune time to play our Make Her Squeal game. If two of us ignored the third while hanging out, and talked about her in front of her face, the ignored friend eventually caved and spilled her stockpiled gossip. Which was what I wanted to do, break this dam holding my August and lost-luggage drama hostage.

  Unfortunately, explaining it was easier in my head.

  “Is he as hot up close?” Ainsley went on.

  Rachel fanned her face. “Hotter.”

  “Damn.”

  “Exactly.”

  Jimmy lifted his wineglass, studying its garnet color through the light. A sophisticated move for such a rough guy. “If this is how you guys talk while we’re at the table, what do you say when you’re alone?”

  “Nothing,” Rachel blurted.

  Ainsley tipped up her chin. “We’ll never tell.”

  I snickered. I doubted he’d want to hear how we’d discussed his cock in detail, a fun topic we brought up with Rachel as often as possible. Anything to make our friend blush.

  “Anyhoo.” Ainsley was on a roll, intent on making me crack. “What’s soccer man’s name again?”

  “August.” Owen took a healthy pull on his beer. “We played with him, weekends and evenings in the California Regional League. Went to different schools, but we hung out plenty.”

  The soccer guys. The coincidence still astounded me.

  Jealousy would sting me every time August would go out and have fun with his friends, while I’d break my brain over calculus and science. My mother’s strict rules had also included a curfew. Another barrier to tagging along with August. I’d never ask for details about his nights, hadn’t wanted to know who he’d seen, what he’d done. Hearing about his fun would only have enflamed my envy.