Page 25 of Find Me Again

Neil grinned, and for a second it felt like no time had passed and they were back in high school, living in each other's pockets. Then Neil's smile softened, and it tugged at Ryan's traitorous heart enough for him to regret accepting the invitation already.

"Great. I could come back in an hour? Two hours? If I don't come up with a place, I'll at least bring a thermos with me to take up there."

Ryan stared at the shovel.

He could still change his mind. He didn't owe Neil anything. He could refuse and go about the rest of his afternoon.

"Let's say two hours," he heard himself say. "I need to finish this, and then I'm sure they won't let me out of here without having a big lunch, so two hours is the safer bet."

"Okay." Neil took a step back. "See you in two hours, then. And… thank you."

Ryan nodded and turned to his shovel, needing to focus on something other than Neil Hopkins' stupidly handsome face.

Still, he listened to Neil leaving and, a minute later, to a car starting and driving away. When it was safe to look up, he leaned harder on the shovel and quietly swore at the way his stomachwas doing somersaults.

He was officially in trouble now.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

On his way home, Neil barely managed to drive below the speed limit, because the nervous energy was making him want to jump out of his skin.

He'd approached Ryan and asked to have a conversation—something he hadn't managed to do since the day of the break-up. Back then, for the remainder of their senior year, he'd been too afraid of everything Ryan could throw in his face and mean every word of—which would have been everything Neil had deserved. But now…

Now, he'd actually come up to him and asked. And he had less than two hours to figure out a plan for what came next.

After half an hour of going in circles and dangerously spiraling towards calling this whole thing off, he gave up and went to ask his mom for advice.

"You're looking for a place to talk with Ryan Dawson?" she asked, taken aback. "And he agreed?"

"Yes, Mom, he agreed. I wouldn't kidnap him for this." Neil ran a hand through his hair. "So, is there a café, or a restaurant, or whatever that we could go to and not have people coming up to me? Maybe something that's deserted at this hour?"

She shook her head. "The word would spread in a hot minute and you'd be signing autographs instead of talking to Ryan for who knows how long. I have a better idea."

"What is it?"

"Bring him here."

Neil crossed his arms. "No, that's—"

"Listen, I'm leaving in an hour and I'll come back with your father after dinner. You have the place to yourself, which means you'll have all the peace and quiet that you want. Just bring himhere."

He hadn't considered this as an option before. It was a smart one, in theory, but he still wasn't sure, since bringing Ryan here seemed somehow more significant than taking him up to the hill. Maybe because they'd already met there by accident while this would be anything butorbecause Neil was sentencing himself to new memories of Ryan in this space—memories that would stay with him until the day he left, if not longer.

"What are you so afraid of?" his mom asked, and he didn't know what to tell her. She stared at him some more, and then sighed. "Listen, if he said yes to this, he's at least ready to hear you out, right? That's something. It doesn't magically fix everything, but this is your chance to make things better."

"There's no 'making things better' if said things happened twelve years ago."

He'd never actually said he and Ryan had been together back then, but she'd figured it out, so there was no reason to pretend like she hadn't.

"Apologizing can definitely make things better. And so can explaining yourself, if you need to. There's no guarantee, of course, but it's your best bet."

"How do you know I'm trying to apologize?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You'd better. That boy had stood by you for years before the two of you stopped talking right after your first trip to Chicago. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened, so if you haven't apologized yet, you should do it now."

"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered, leaning heavily against the counter. The initial excitement had now dimmed, leaving him tired and afraid again.

If Neil's own mother thought that, Ryan had to feel a hundred times worse.

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