Page 2 of Like First Love, Again

“You’re going to forget me as soon as you lose your flip-flop tan.” Tori breathed her fear to life. It sounded so much smaller in a whisper than it felt thrashing against her ribs.

“Oh, please.” Mia’s smile was slow and devastating. “Like I could ever live without you.” Her fingertips lingered over Tori’s temple, her touch featherlight.

“Babe!” a guy called from the ground below.

Disoriented, it took Tori several seconds to recognize the voice. To picture Mia’s boyfriend and his dumbass face. Her stomach soured at the sound, her gut recognizing him before her hazy brain did.

Instead of responding to him, Mia dropped onto Tori’s chest and groaned. “I guess we’ve been up here a while,” she said, tone unreadable. “Listen, nothing is going to change, okay?” She hooked her leg around Tori’s thigh and nuzzled into her neck. “We’re going to graduate from college and I’m going to med school wherever the hell I can get in, and you’re going to be the GM of a WNBA team. When I move back, we’ll be millionaires living in connected townhouses by the beach. Together, we’ll have a bunch of babies and live happily ever after.”

Well and truly drunk, Tori’s adrenaline dump felt like falling down a black hole. She laughed to help the overload leave her body. “I don’t know that I want a single baby, let alone a litter.” One of the few things Tori couldn’t tell her best friend was that she wasn’t sure she wanted to marry a dude. That she liked the part of Mia’s fantasy where they spent every day together, but not the part where they married twin brothers so that their kids could be as close as siblings.

“Mia!” he called again. “Are you up there?”

This time, Tori didn’t have the benefit of being lost in thoughts of kissing Mia. The sound of Mia’s boyfriend’s voice made her stiffen. She didn’t want to be jealous, but it was a reflex. A hard-wired chemical reaction she couldn’t stop.

“Don’t be mad,” Mia whispered along the column of her neck before kissing her cheek. “I love you and you’re still sleeping over, right? I just have to spend a little time with him so he doesn’t get all mopey.”

When Mia sat up, Tori resisted the urge to pull her back down. To tell her that she didn’t have to jump when he called like a freaking trained Pomeranian.

Tori didn’t say a word. She never gave Mia any relationship advice, even though she knew Mia could do better than a mouth-breathing water polo douche. She couldn’t know for sure that it wasn’t just her jealousy talking, and she never wanted to lead Mia astray. Never wanted to betray her trust.

“I bet Justin’s here already.” Mia wiggled her brows. “Susie told me he’s definitely going to have the balls to ask you out tonight.”

Tori didn’t move. She was too drunk to climb down from the pool house roof without breaking her neck. “His balls are none of my business,” she joked, deciding to stay on the perch she might not see again.

Mia laughed, the sound like fireworks in Tori’s churning stomach. And then she was gone. Tori was left looking up at the stars—the ones that had just looked so bright—and watched them blur.

One

Tori believed in three truths about Miami: the heat could melt your will to live, the traffic could break your soul, and everything ran more smoothly if you planned for disaster. That’s why she built in an hour buffer wherever she went; no amount of preparation could account for the sheer lawlessness of I-95. And yet, her hope of getting to the office early enough to get actual work done before her nine o’clock interview was dying a slow, agonizing death.

Instead of giving in to her baser instincts and speeding down the highway’s shoulder, Tori looked away from the wall of red brake lights and down at her phone. A dozen new emails had come in since she’d left her Midtown loft and started for her suburban Coral Gables office. When every email was urgent, it was surprisingly easy to check her texts instead.

Larissa:Hope you’ve had your cafecito this morning…

Knowingly taking the vague bait, Tori called her best friend and fellow broker. The moment Larissa’s voice crackled through the speakers of her matte black Jeep, Tori knew there was a fire waiting for her at the office. Probably more than one. She sipped her latte, relaxed into her seat, and listened.

She breezed through the archway of the Mediterranean mid-rise and hit the button for the tenth floor with fifteen minutes to spare. While finishing the dregs of her coffee, she texted her client off a ledge and stopped him from pulling out of his factory’s multi-million-dollar lease over a parking lot dispute with the flooring company next door.

In the elevator’s reflection, Tori fixed her freshly cut choppy bob. A few highlights in her natural dark brown waves brought out the gold in her olive skin. After a lifetime of long hair, she’d rebelled when she turned thirty. Tori was more comfortable in her own skin at thirty-two than ever before. The hard work she’d put into her foundation had paid off and the skyscraper was going up exactly as designed.

Dressed in high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a silky tank that made the July humidity somewhat bearable, she stepped off the elevator and into Diaz and Newport Commercial Realty. The modern office was better suited to downtown or the beach, but the two principal brokers were old-school and liked the prestige of the affluent Gables neighborhood. Tori could make her commute easier and move, but her mixed-use Midtown building had been her first major project. She’d always been a sucker for firsts.

“Your nine A.M. is stuck on the causeway,” the receptionist behind the poured concrete desk said as soon as Tori walked in. “He said an accident has the bridge blocked.”

Few things were as reliable in Miami as unhinged drivers causing accidents. He should have known that.

Tori’s reply was unwavering. “Tell Mr. Aster, as nicely as you can, that if he’s late, he’s out.”

It’s not that she didn’t understand traffic, but errors in judgement were unacceptable. If she couldn’t trust an agent to get to a job interview on time, how could she trust them with any of their clients? People handing over their reputations—andastronomical amounts of money—had to have total confidence in their agents. Mistakes as avoidable as getting in the car on time spoke of incompetence.

Tori had only gotten beyond the first glass-encased conference room when Larissa darted out from the kitchen. In a fitted blue suit and swag for days, Larissa was a striking combination of masc and femme. A Brazilian iteration of Emma D’Arcy, her dark bedroom eyes and slicked-back short hair attracted everyone with a pulse.

Even Tori had been momentarily smitten when they met at a queer professionals group years earlier. Unfortunately, it had been immediately apparent that their connection was purely platonic. Dating her best friend would’ve made Tori’s life infinitely easier.

“The new CRM system didn’t import any clients with last names A through D,” Larissa said by way of greeting and took Tori’s empty coffee to replace it with a shot of Cuban espresso. “We lost hundreds of contacts in the migration and IT can’t find the backups.”

Knocking back jet fuel, Tori tried not to make a face at the acidic, unsweetened punch. “I told you not to let Nilda make thecoladasanymore,” she half-joked and threw the empty plastic cup in the trash.

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