Chapter One
June
It’s been twelve years since I’ve seen him.
Twelve years since his smug face leaned down to kiss me, stopped just before our mouths met, smirked, and then turned and walked out of my life forever. That day, I stood stunned and awestruck. I wish I had smashed his toes. Instead, I closed my eyes as he went in for the kill. I cringe, remembering how I tilted my chin up, feeling a chill trickle across my spine at the thought of him kissing me after spending our whole high school experience trying to kill each other. I acknowledged defeat the moment my eyes fluttered shut. I hate that he won our war back then.
But tonight…tonight, I resurrect the battle.
And victory will be mine.
No longer am I that naïve little graduate, excited for a kiss from the enemy. I’m now thirty years old and majority owner of Darlin’ Donuts—one of Charleston’s top hotspots. My best friend, Stacy, and I opened the bakery three years ago, and we have been enjoying a nice bit of success ever since.
Not only am I the Southern queen of the gourmet donut tycoon, but I’m turning down men calling me up nightly for a date. Okay…nightly is a stretch. But it’s definitely somewhere around three times a week. Twice a week. Once a week. Above average, okay?
Point is, I’ve got a lot going for me now. Career success. Tons of friends—because family makes the best friends, am I right? And I’m at least four inches taller than I was in high school (read: two inches). Best of all, I’ve perfected a killer winged eyeliner and paired it with a little black dress that has had men eyeballing me from across the bar all night long.
Sorry, boys. You can look, but you can’t touch.
In short, I’ve made sure that tonight—the night I come face to face again with my archnemesis—I look the best I’ve looked in my adult life. Because mark the words coming out of my red lips: Tonight, I will crush Ryan Henderson under my black stilettoed feet.
He will see all that he has missed out on and weep on the floor, clutching my legs, begging me to give him the kiss he left behind all those years ago.
And FINALLY, I hear the door squeak open. I wait, measuring the seconds passing by, the click, click, click of a woman’s high heels drawing nearer.
Just a little closer.
Ugh. She passed me, choosing the far end of the row like a normal person. Why did I have to choose the middle?
“Hey there!” I call out. “Why don’t you take the one beside me?”
Her clicks come to an abrupt halt, and suddenly, I’m aware of how creepy I sounded.
Because…yeah, currently, I’m sitting on a toilet with my fancy little cocktail dress hiked up to my hips and the telltale prickles of a woman who has had no choice but to sit on a toilet seat for far too long shooting down my legs.
“Uh, I think I’m okay with this stall.” The woman is undoubtedly shooting off a frantic text to her date saying if she’s not out of here in five minutes, it was the woman in the middle stall who killed her.
I laugh, trying to sound as little like a serial killer as possible, because any minute now, Ryan Henderson will be arriving at the party, and I need to be out there to see his ugly face first. (I’m assuming he’s ugly because it helps me sleep easier at night.)
“Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out! I’m normal, I swear. Just out of toilet paper over here and was hoping you could slip me a roll.”
“Oh.” Her voice is still far away. She’s not convinced I won’t do something creepy if she comes near my stall.
Meanwhile, I’m sitting over here, air-drying on the porcelain throne, worrying I’ll never feel my feet again, while Miss Barbie Heels makes up her mind.
I sweeten the pot because, apparently, I’m a black-market toilet paper dealer now. “There’s five bucks and a half-used tube of red lipstick in it for you.”
That got her moving. Moving right on out the bathroom door. Apparently, red isn’t Barbie’s lipstick color of choice, and she’s decided she would rather risk a bladder infection than get near me. If I hadn’t left my phone on the table like an idiot, I could have texted Stacy and asked her to come bail me out. But noooo, I had to prove that I’m not obsessed with my phone like the rest of the world and leave it on the table.
Still, Stacy should be receiving my telepathic BFF distress signals. I’ve been in here forever. She should be worried that I’ve either been kidnapped or am suffering from some serious stomach trouble. Both of which would warrant an appearance from someone who claims to love me like a sister.
Stacy is also the reason I am having to be reunited with the man I hate more than menstrual cramps. She and her fiancé, Logan, were high school sweethearts, and after over fifteen years in a relationship (yep, you heard me right) they are finally tying the knot. I would be over-the-moon excited for Stacy if Logan hadn't gone and asked Ryan to be his best man.
Although I think it’s debatable, Stacy says it’s customary for the best man to attend the groom’s bachelor party—which is what is happening tonight. Actually, it’s a joint bachelor and bachelorette party, because Stacy and Logan are one of those annoyingly in love couples that do everything together. They share a Facebook profile, order the dinner portion of every meal so they can split it, and even book overlapping doctors’ appointments. So it was really no surprise when they announced they were joining their parties together. We’re all having one fancy bar crawl, and I can think of at least one hundred things that could go wrong tonight. But all of them happen to Ryan.
1) I slip a laxative into his drink.
2) I squirt super glue onto his seat before he sits down.
3) I set his car on fire. (Don’t worry, I’ll wait until he’s out of it…maybe.)
I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
I can’t, for the life of me, understand why Logan and Ryan have stayed clo
se friends even after graduating and living in different states. Sometimes I wonder what Ryan has been up to this whole time, but I don’t dare ask Stacy because I implemented a strict ‘no mention of the devil’ rule a long time ago, and I refuse to break it. Both Stacy and Logan know that even the slightest slip of Ryan’s name gets them put in the friendship doghouse for an entire week. Am I being petty? Yes. Absolutely. But I’m okay with it.
I’ve had twelve blissful years of Ryan-lessness. Well, almost blissful. That time, five years ago, when my fiancé cheated on me and I had to cancel my wedding sucked. Other than that, though, it’s been twelve years of success without worrying he will somehow swoop in and overshadow me. And if I could ever get off this toilet, I could go rub all my newfound success in Ryan’s face.
Thankfully, I hear the door open again, and I sit up straighter, determined not to mess up my lines this time. Fate is on my side as the woman chooses the stall beside me. Deciding not to risk it with chit-chat, I cut right to the chase. “Umm. Hi. I don’t mean to startle you…but the thing is, I’ve been in here for a while, and I was wondering if—”
I cut myself off when a hand shoots under the stall wall, clutching a bouquet of toilet paper. “Yeah, yeah, here you go.”
Yes! Finally! See, now this is a woman I can appreciate. Soul sisters. Women who understand each other! I briefly consider giving her my tube of red lipstick and asking her to exchange numbers, but I decide against it.
Once all my business is complete, I emerge from the bathroom like a hostage released from captivity. It’s good to be back in the world. Are the Kardashians still famous?
I make my way down the dark, slender hallway toward the bar. The music pulses through my chest, and my heels pound the floor with the confident strides of a six-foot Amazonian on the catwalk rather than the five-foot-two Southern dumplin’ I am.
Right now, I am all confidence—high on my own determination as I step out of the hallway into the trendy sports bar. I have no time to scan the room before I’m grabbed hard by the arm and yanked to the side.
“Ow! What the—”
“He’s here,” Stacy whispers loudly into my face. And WOW has she already had a lot to drink or what? I’m going to need to slip her a Tic-Tac.
“Who’s here?” But I know who she’s talking about. I’m just getting into character with my false disinterest.
“Didn’t you get all my texts?” She sounds frantic. It makes me laugh a little because I know that even though this is our first stop of the night, she’s already a little tipsy. Stacy is a lightweight. And when Stacy gets tipsy, she turns into the star of a reality TV show. Which reality show? It doesn’t really matter. A drunk girl is the driving force in all of them.
“No, I left my phone on the table.”