Page 7 of My Hotshot

I squeezed my eyes shut. A long breath in. Out.

She had believed in me. When no one else did. When I didn’t even believe in myself.

I needed to make this new life count.

For her.

For Lottie.

For me.

I picked the noodles back up, straightened my spine, and set them in the cabinet next to the sauce.

Thinking about Maggie hurt.

A slow, dull kind of ache that settled right behind my ribs and pressed in when I least expected it. Like when I passed by the coffee aisle and saw the brand she always bought, or when I opened a cupboard and instinctively reached for the mug she gave me last Christmas.

But thinking about Duane?

That hurt in a whole different way. Sharper. Quicker. It flared up in my chest and spread like heat under my skin. Sixteen years ago, I lost him. Sixteen years of pretending I didn’t wonder where he was, what he was doing, and who he had become. Sixteen years of swallowing that ache and moving on with Lee.

And now?

Now he had just waltzed right back into my life like a punch to the gut.

Sexier than the eighteen-year-old I had in my head. Tattooed.

My god, was he tattooed.

His arms had been covered, and he had wings wrapped around his neck.

His eyes had been the same, though. Knowing and piercing.

Mr. Tattooed Motorcycle Badass had replaced the gangly eighteen-year-old.

What was I supposed to do about that?

Talk to someone? Maggie would’ve been the one I immediately went to. She would’ve sat me down with a cup of coffee and stared at me until I spilled everything. Then she’d nod, give me her honest opinion, and probably follow it up with something completely unexpected.

But I didn’t have her anymore.

Hell, I didn’t have anyone. Not here.

Just Lottie.

And as much as I adored my daughter, some things weren’t meant to be shared with a fifteen-year-old trying to survive her first two weeks in a new school.

We’d been in Mt. Pleasant for two weeks, and I had zero friends on the horizon. I’d been more focused on making sure Lottie fit in and that she was adjusting okay. The mom stuff. I hadn’t thought once about trying to find a tribe for myself.

“Fresh start,” I sighed out loud as I tucked a box of granola bars into the pantry. “That’s what this was supposed to be.”

I didn’t know that start was going to include Duane.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and chewed on my bottom lip as I stared down at the screen. I hadn’t even saved his name—just the number he had typed in when he’d handed my phone back to me.

He hadn’t asked for mine.

Hadn’t called or texted himself to get the contact.

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