“Holy crap. It’s been too long,” I say, putting my arm around Liam and bringing him in for a hug.
“Hazel. You look great.”
His girlfriend clearly doesn’t know what to think. Some random woman she has never seen is hugging her boyfriend.
“I’m Hazel. Grew up with the three of them.”
She extends her hand out to me. “Harper. His girlfriend. Nice to meet you.”
It’s hard to know if she is being genuine, or if she secretly wants to claw my eyes out for hugging her man.
At that moment, Aiden walks in, and his eyes fixate on me. Fuck. I’m not ready to talk to him yet. My hands start shaking, and I try to carry on a conversation, so he doesn’t approach.
“So, how’ve you been?”
He runs his fingers through his hair. “Oh, you know. Firefighter. Fell in love. Getting old.”
I laugh. “When are you guys getting married?”
“We aren’t engaged,” Harper replies.
Aiden starts heading my way.
“I’ll talk to you guys later.”
Before I can get away, Aiden’s voice calls my name. My body freezes wondering if I should pretend like I didn’t hear him over the music, but instead I spin around. “Hey, stranger.”
It comes out more awkward than I intend, but what about this isn’t making me nervous.
“I didn’t know you were coming.” His eyes take in my body, and it fuels me.
“Yeah, wanted to visit Dad and Jeremy while I was down. Seemed like a good opportunity to catch up with them, too.” I stand there, smile on my face, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s been a long time. We should catch up later. You look beautiful. Red has always been your color.”
“Thanks,” I reply, shyly looking down at the floor. Girl, bring that head up. “You free later?”
He scratches his chin. “No plans. Nine at Dixie’s for drinks?”
“Sounds good.”
I walk away, butterflies in my stomach like he asked me out on our first date, or the first time he kissed me, or when we made love in my long, red prom dress. The crazy thing is that I’m already debating on what to wear.
I have no idea what tonight is going to entail, could be fighting or two old friends catching up after almost a decade. Either way, it’s time for us to talk about Jake. That’s my mission.