Page 10 of Like First Love, Again

Tori didn’t know how long Mia had been in town, though Grisel’s obituary said she’d passed three months earlier. However long Mia had been there, it was obvious she’d made no progress with packing. A massive stack of boxes was still bound with plastic bands and untouched. From where Tori stood, she could see that the boxes in the kitchen were the same.

The place was a time capsule. A vivid dream. Tori could almost smell the popcorn jumping to life in the microwave. Feel the softness of blankets fresh out of the dryer piled on top of them while they watchedMean Girlsfor the hundredth time.

Snapping herself out of it, Tori cleared her throat. She wasn’t there to take a sojourn through time. She was there to do a job.

Folder tucked under her arm, Tori crossed the living room and opened the French doors leading to the backyard. The space was only big enough for a glorified lap pool, a hundred square foot pool house, and a strip of grass. Tori forced herself to forget how many times the pool had served as the backdrop to her fantasies and stepped outside.

Outside, Tori’s surroundings faded. The sight of Mia relaxing in the floating lounger was a jolt straight to her unprepared heart. Water beading on her gorgeously thick thighs and sweat glistening over her full cleavage, Mia was unfairly stunning. Tori worked hard to be a good person. She gave generously to charity, volunteered her time to at-risk youth, fed stray cats. And yet, the universe had deemed it fit to punish her like this.

As soon as she approached the pool, Mia pulled off her sunglasses and greeted her with a beaming smile. “Okay, but how impressed were you with my folding skills?”

Tori smirked. “Meh,” she teased.

“Oh, please.” Mia laughed. “I bet you were overcome with delight.” A smile etched itself into her cheeks. “Admit it.”

It had only been two days, and already Tori was tired of swimming against the current. Mia was only going to be back in her life for a few weeks at most. Was it so bad to go with the flow? To indulge just a little in something that felt so good? Tori always made the reasonable choice, but with the sun on her skin and her judgment sinking somewhere in Mia’s crystal blue pool, she went for reckless.

“I thought you were in need of a real estate agent, not a fan club.”

Mia’s smile brightened—gaze scorching where it landed on Tori. On her eyes. Her mouth. Her eyes again. “What’s so bad about wanting both?”

“Still so greedy after all these years?” Tori dropped the papers on a folding chair and slipped her hands into her pockets.

Mia cocked her head slowly to the side. There was a challenge in her glinting hazel eyes. A dare in the curve of her lips. “You used to love when I was greedy.”

The words, unmistakably flirty, were the heat coursing through Tori’s body. The jump in her pulse. The weightlessness in her belly.

Shit.

Six

“It’s a good thing I’m all grown up now,” Tori replied.

Something about the tone in Tori’s voice made a thin sheen of sweat gather at the small of Mia’s back. Or maybe it was something about the way Tori was holding herself. Something about the dare lurking in her deep brown eyes. It was making Mia eager to get off the float. To douse herself with cold water.

“And who exactly is thisgrown upversion of Tori?” Mia couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting down Tori’s body again. Couldn’t help but envy the definition in her biceps and the gentle curve of her slim waist.

Tori made a show of glancing at her smartwatch. She still wore her hair wavy, and even though Mia had always liked it long, she had to admit the choppy bob suited her. It made her look so sophisticated.

“Grown Up Tori has to get back to the office,” she replied with no sense of urgency.

“Bullshit,” Mia declared with complete confidence.

Back together in this space, the Tori she knew was brightening to life. Like throwing turpentine over an oldpainting to reveal the true masterpiece hiding underneath, the Tori she recognized shimmered through the facade.

Mia slid into the pool with miraculous grace, delighted at the refreshing cold. “You don’t have to go.”

“Did you break into my planner?”

The amused rumble in Tori’s throat offered the briefest glimpse of her dimples. The sound was a rush of delight. A time machine transporting Mia back to endless, carefree days. It pulled her toward where Tori stood near the shallow end.

“Nope.” Mia raised a single brow. “But maybe you haven’t changed all that much.” Upper body out of the pool, she rested her palms on the rough, stone ledge. “It’s so hot. Why don’t you get in?”

“Suede isn’t exactly optimal swimwear,” Tori shot back, but her bravado wavered.

Her change in demeanor drew Mia in like the dumbest fish on a lure. There was an energy between them—new but entirely familiar—and Mia couldn’t stop herself from chasing it. She didn’t dare pause to dissect it. For the first time in nearly a year, she felt something other than dread and grief and disappointment. She had an almost animalistic instinct to hold it in her clenched jaws and keep it from getting away.

“There are a bunch of extra bathing suits in my room,” she offered, letting a little smirk bloom on her lips.

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