Page 127 of The Americana Playbook

I’m so focused on drinking her in that it takes me a second to realize it’s not just her voice that isn’t the same. Her hug, her touch, is all off.

Slowly, I lower Parker. She rests her hands against my chest for a moment before tapping them and stepping back. “We need to hurry. There probably will be traffic.”

“You sure we haven’t been married longer than we really are?”

Parker raises an eyebrow in question.

I sigh. “I haven’t seen you intwo weeks, and that’s what I get? Traffic?”

Parker smiles, but I can tell it’s forced. “I’m sorry.”

I point to my lips. “You can kiss me and make it better.”

She also points to her mouth. “Lipstick.”

I wait because that must be a joke. Thatshouldbe a joke and the only punchline? A kiss.

But nothing.

Parker eyes the dry cleaning bag before heading into the kitchen. “I would’ve picked that up for you like a good wife.”

It takes everything I have in me not to snap back and suggest that good wives kiss their husbands after they’ve been away. But I proceed carefully.

“What’s wrong?”

At the fridge, Parker shakes her head, pulling out the bottle of lemonade. “Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing. I haven’t been home?—”

“Fitz,” Parker interrupts me. “I’m about to go to an alumni event at a school that basically kicked me out. Give me a little break. I’m allowed to be a little uncomfortable tonight.”

Immediately I soften because I feel like an asshole. She’s right. “We don’t have to go, you know. We could just hang out here.”

I offer her an out even though I’m all in when it comes to tonight. Because tonight, I get the do-over that’s been more than a decade in the making. It’s what I’ve been dreaming about for years.

“We RSVP’d.” Parker takes a long sip of her drink. “We have to go.”

I tongue my cheek in thought. “Maybe this will make you more comfortable.”

I leave Parker in the kitchen and return to the entry, picking up the dry cleaning bag and discarding it along with the hanger.

“You’re with me,” I tell Parker as I return to the kitchen. “No one will mess with you.”

“Is that your old letterman jacket?”

“It is,” I tell her, confirming that yes, the navy felt-like jacket with the white leather sleeves and the number 5 on the front is, in fact, the same thing I used to wear while swooning after her in the halls of where we’re about to go. I turn it so she can see the embroidery I had the tailor add to the back—Rhodesin a light pink cursive stitching aboveThacher Football. “But with an upgrade.”

Once again, it’s a forced smile that doesn’t rise to Parker’s eyes. “That’s cute.”

God, I imagined this going in a totally different direction.

I lower the jacket. “Cute is for guys you kiss on the cheek.” My tone is harsh, even if the words are playful.

But Parker doesn’t seem bothered by it. She steps forward, taking the jacket from me.

“It’s a little warm,” she says. “But I’ll bring it. Why don’t you go get ready?”

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