“Time.”
“Seven o’clock,” Tick replied.
Seven o’clock. Her eyes fluttered closed, shot open...closed again. Usually she had no trouble jumping out of bed in the morning, especially in the summer when it was so bright out. Lately it had become harder. Maybe she should get her iron checked. Or her vitamin D level. Or work out more.
The chime of an incoming text forced her eyes open again. Pretty early for anyone to be in touch. Mom and Dad were cruising the Mediterranean and her brother, Gabe, was off hiking somewhere in Nepal...
Anxious curiosity got her out of bed; she retrieved her phone from its charger and checked the message.
Oh, my. She was awake now. Wide-awake.
The message, seven words long, was not from her world-traveling family members, but from her childhood best friend Sarah Bosson, twin sister of Paul, next week’s groom.
Kevin Ames will be at the wedding.
Kevin Ames.
Addie gave a short laugh, shaking her head. Look at her, all excited over something so silly. Kevin was two years older than Addie, Paul and Sarah, but he’d been on the cross-country team with Paul since middle school at John Witherspoon in Princeton, New Jersey. Addie and Sarah had seen him constantly at the Bossons’ house. Last she heard, Kevin had some work conflict in Philly, where he lived, and couldn’t make next week’s Maine trip.
Ignoring her responsible side nagging that she should be in the shower by now, Addie texted back.
Since when?
Wow. She headed for the bathroom, still clutching the phone. Kevin Ames was The One That Got Away. Everybody had one. That person you never went out with that you really wanted to, or maybe you almost did, but something went wrong—the timing wasn’t right, or, in Addie’s case, when finally presented with the opportunity to start something with Kevin the summer before her senior year at Princeton High School, she’d totally messed it up.
Another text from Sarah:
He got someone else to go to his conference. Paul just found out.
Addie pressed her lips together to keep from grinning like a fool. She hadn’t seen the guy in eleven years. He was undoubtedly married. In fact, she’d looked him up online several years back and yes, he was.
And guess what...he’s single now!
Addie lost the battle with the smile. Okay, not married anymore. But that didn’t mean anything. He could have put on four-hundred pounds, lost his hair and...
He’s into marathons.
Oh. Four-hundred pounds was unlikely, then.
Well.
Addie shook herself. “Time.”
“Seven-twenty.”
Argh. She was behind on her morning schedule, which she’d developed specifically to avoid having to rush. From an early age her parents had modeled the importance of routines. Addie had scorned them in her rebellious—mildly rebellious—adolescence and her brother had no use for them at all, but she’d come to realize that routines could save you a lot of time and effort and trouble. You knew what to expect. You didn’t have to think or make decisions, everything was already in the works and you simply stepped in and did your part.
Sarah again.
I told you about that jerk playboy Derek Bates being there? I so wish he wasn’t coming.
Addie rolled her eyes. Sarah was pretty judgmental, but her anti-Derek rants were over the top, even for her. There was definitely something she wasn’t telling.
Yes, you told me. But only about a million times. Gotta go to work. TTYL.
In her tiny apartment’s tiny bathroom, Addie turned on the shower spray, counted to seventeen to make sure the water was hot enough and stepped into the iron claw-foot tub where she washed her hair and scrubbed up, thinking about...
Kevin Ames.
Who could help it? Not that he’d been all that remarkable looking. Handsome, sure, but not striking. Bland all-American good looks, brown hair and eyes, straight teeth and an athlete’s lean body. But he was so magnetic that women went nuts over him as if he were a knockout. Both Sarah and Addie had been smitten.
When Kevin Ames smiled at you, it was like no one else in the world existed.
Of course since Kevin was a really fun, friendly and popular guy, he smiled at a lot of people, including a lot of girls who were more beautiful and more stacked and more whatever-else guys found essential at that age. He’d always been big-brother sweet to Sarah and Addie, so they contented themselves with worshiping from afar.