Page 3 of A Novel Love Story

Night was coming fast. I tapped my phone one last time to see if I could refresh the map—therehadto be cell service in the town, right?—but I must’ve tapped it too hard, because my phone came dislodged from its magnet holder and fell down onto the floorboards, ripping out the cassette converter with it.

Almost immediately, Junie’s quiet musings about walled gardens and true love turned into a blaring pop song, so loud it startled me straight in my seat.

“Come on, Eileen,” the eighties song sang.

A blur of something caught in the headlights. I saw it out of the corner of my eye a moment before I looked up to the road again—

A man. There was a man standing in the—

“Shit!”I cut the steering wheel to the left. Sweetpea’s tires squealed. My car swerved into a parking spot, tires slamming against the curb. My car gave aclunk(a disastrousclunk, actually), and came to an abrupt and final stop. The pop song died with it.

2

Meet-Cute

MY HEART HAMMERED INmy chest. Oh my god—oh my god, did I hit him? Did I kill him? Oh god, I still had student loans to pay off. I couldn’t go to jailyet.

Clawing my seat belt off, I gulped in a breath and took in my surroundings. There wasn’t blood on the windshield, so I hadn’t hit him, right? Where was he? I’d come to a stop in front of a bar. The red lights on the sign flickered as the rain came down harder.

I shoved open my door and forced myself to my feet. “Hello?” I called, whirling back toward the road, the rain drenching me almost instantly. I pulled my fingers through my matted copper hair.“Hello?”

The man was sitting on the ground, his oval glasses lopsided and foggy. He slowly turned to face me, dazed.

Oh no.

Oh no no no n—

“Oh, sir—sir, are you okay?” I asked, hurrying over to help him to his feet.

He was tall and wiry, soaked to the bone, his white button-down clinging to his muscular torso, looking like the brooding, blond-haired pale ghost of Darcy, his angles all sharp and solid. An electrified zing tingled down my spine. In the pinkish-gray light of evening rain, he was very handsome … and very much glowering at me like I’d just tried to murder him.

Which, to be fair, Ihadn’t. On purpose.

“Are you okay? How many fingers do you see?” I held up four fingers, but really three because I angled down my fourth one—

He grabbed my hand and lowered it. “Three, trick question—you almost ran me over,” he accused, his words clipped. The warm streetlights made his eyes glitter like peridots.

I yanked my hand away. “Well, why were you in the middle of the road?”

His mouth twisted into a scowl. “I was crossing it.”

“No, you were just standing there.”

“You almosthitme.”

“You were standing in the middle of the road!”

He bent down to grab his keys from the asphalt. “Not anymore.” Then he turned and stalked across the street.

I watched him go, dumbfounded. “What the hell?” I muttered, pushing my wet bangs out of my face, and looking around.

NowIwas the one standing in the middle of the road.

At least I’d parked in front of a bar. Most of the neon letters were out, save for two Os in the middle that, every time it thundered, flickered so it looked like they were screamingOOOOOOOOOOOin angry red lights. Not ominous at all. If nothing else, I could get dinner there and directions to the nearest hotel. My heart was hammering too fast to drive, anyway. So I dug my wallet and cell phone out of my car and gave the steering wheel one last loving pat before I left for the bar.

I sent a text to the book club—MADE IT TO A TOWN.

Who knewwhichtown. Then, for good measure, I put a smiley face at the end, which was far more optimistic than I was feeling. A moment later, my phone pinged with a notification—the text had failed to send.

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