Page 34 of Caught Up In You

There are still plenty of calls, though. And tonight I was really counting on attempting to unwind.

“You okay, Owen?” Fatima asks, cocking her head and studying me.

I give my shoulders a quick, painful roll and smile. It’s not her job to tend to me.

“I’m good. Just one of those days,” I reply.

“Lord, that was a wild one. I pulledfourbeans out of a kid’s nose this afternoon, andthenhe tested positive for strep.” She sighs. “I know your day sucked too, but I’m so glad to hand off that phone. I need a margarita the size of my head tonight.”

“No worries, I’ve got it,” I say. I stand and wince at the cracking sound my right knee makes.

“You sure?” Fatima asks.

I wave her off. “I’m good. Go enjoy your tequila.”

She grins. “See you tomorrow.”

On the way home, I remember that there’s no food in my house other than mustard and beer, so I swing my truck around and stop at the grocery store. The bright fluorescent lights set my teeth on edge, and the jangly nineties alternative rock on the store stereo has my shoulders creeping toward my ears.

“In and out,” I mutter to myself as I grab a basket, working to breathe slowly, and head for the produce section.

CHAPTER 13

WYATT

It took two weeks for my past to fully muscle its way into my present. The irony that it arrived on April Fool’s Day was not lost on me. No one has ever made me feel more foolish than Romy Maxwell and Griffin Stone.

It’s been a week since the text from Romy arrived—the first since I left Nashville, when she sent me a string of apologies and explanations and desperate pleas.

I told her never to speak to me again, and at least she gave me that.

Until now.

Romy

Hey Wy. I’m going to be in Indianapolis in June, and I’d love to get together. I’m happy to come to you. Let me know what you think.

I miss you

The text is heavy with all the things she left unsaid. That she’ll be in Indianapolis for a show. Her first big tour. Openingfor my ex-boyfriend. The one who wrote a hit single about me breakinghisheart. The one she kissed on the couch that she and I had carried two and a half miles home from Goodwill because the battery on my truck had died and they wouldn’t hold it for us.

In another life, the three of us would be thick as thieves, celebrating their success. In a life where they didn’t cheat, where my mom didn’t go to prison. Where I didn’t leave Nashville behind, the city full of every broken, battered hope and happy memory.

Nashville was my first and last chance to live my own life the way I wanted, without the bad influence of my mother and all her mistakes.

Turns out I didn’t learn shit from her mistakes.

And yet every time I pick up my phone to tell Romy no, that I don’t want to see her, not now and maybe not ever, something stops me. But I need to solve it soon, because that text is like an open wound that’s starting to fester.

Until then, I’m treating it with a smorgasbord of my favorite snacks.

I’m just leaving the candy aisle, my basket half full of high-fructose corn syrup and good old-fashioned sugar, my internal compass pointing toward the chip aisle, when I see him.

He must have come straight from the office, because he’s in those khaki pants that are sexier than khaki has a right to be, fitted around his ass and his muscular thighs. He’s wearing a blue button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled to show off his corded forearms.

But I don’t ogle his forearms for long, because right away I can see that something is off with him. He’s facing a cooler, glaring at rows of packaged chicken breasts. His shoulders are pulled in and up, one fist clenched at his side. He’s got his feet planted on the scuffed white linoleum like he’s prepared to take a tackle from an NFL linebacker.

But it’s the expression on his face that stops me in my tracks beside an endcap of Capri Suns.

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