Serenity? My heart skipped a beat, but there was no doubt about it. The woman he was speaking to was his sister, my ex and the woman I’d spent a decent chunk of my life thinking I was going to marry someday.
I hadn’t seen her for a long time, and since I hadn’t been expecting her to be here tonight, I hung back for a minute before I went to greet them.
Jeremiah had joined Tanner behind the bar and the two of them were mixing up some brightly colored cocktails that would undoubtedly pack quite a punch, but thankfully, that meant their attention was on the liquor and not on me.
Which was great because I really did need a minute. Serenity looked great, her long red hair loose and falling to the tops of her hips. With her pale skin, freckles, and cornflower blue eyes, she couldn’t have looked more different from Shawn. He had naturally tan skin, dark eyes, and almost black hair, but those two were as close as siblings could be.
Shawn’s parents had adopted her as a baby and they’d never kept it a secret, but they’d also never treated her any differently. Only a few months younger than Shawn, they’d been raised almost as twins. What was good for one was good for the other.
We’d all been in the same year at school, and he’d pulled her into our group pretty damn quickly after we’d met. One thing had led to another between the two of us, and before I knew it, I’d been dating Shawn’s sister.
Things had been pretty serious between us for a while there, but they’d fizzled out naturally when we hit college. We’d grown apart, and as our schoolwork had grown more intense, we made less and less time for each other until eventually, we’d been like ships passing in the night.
Serenity had spent all her spare time writing songs and music and I’d spent mine gaming. Our days were taken up by her studies in marketing and mine in software development. Then opportunity had come knocking for both of us and the rest was history.
There had been a time when I’d known her almost better than I knew myself, but even though we’d parted on good terms, I didn’t have a clue what to say to her now.
Shawn told her something before he walked away from her. My heart skipped again as she stood in the middle of the room by herself, swaying to the beat of the music with this soft, serene smile on her face.
“How’s she doing?” I asked Shawn when he came to sit next to me at the bar.
He shrugged, eyeing the drinks Tanner and Jeremiah were mixing up suspiciously. “She’s good.”
Finally pulling his gaze away from the drinks, he glanced at me and shook his head. “Actually, that’s not completely true. She’s still chasing her dreams, but she’s struggling.”
“How so?” I cocked my head, still looking at her across the room.
Serenity had that special something that not many people did. It was almost like there was a light somewhere deep down inside her and it made her glow from the inside out. She was also one of the few people with dreams of making it big that actually had the talent to back it up.
She had a voice like an angel and could churn out songs like it was nobody’s business. Those skills, combined with her background in marketing, should’ve positioned her uniquely to get the break she was apparently still waiting for.
While I’d known I hadn’t heard a song of hers on the radio or anything like that, I’d just assumed she had either taken the underground world by storm or had gone back to her job at the agency.
Shawn let out a deep sigh. “She’s been doing some work for other people, and she can’t afford to stop for long enough to get her own ducks in a row. Plus, she has to use all the money she makes to survive, which means she hasn’t been able to save the cash she needs to record and release her first few songs. It’s a catch-22 situation. The harder she works for other people to make the money she needs, the less time she has for her own music, but if she doesn’t take every job she can get, she’ll never have the money to do it.”
“I’m assuming you’ve offered to help her out?”
He nodded. “I can’t afford to give her all the money she needs, but I’ve offered to loan her what I can. I’ve also told her to move in with me so she can save on rent and groceries and stuff, but she insists that we both need our own space and that she couldn’t possibly expect me to support her financially.”
I turned the information over in my head, not quite sure yet what to do about it or if I could even do anything. Serenity was nothing if not proud. She’d never just take money from me, regardless of how I framed it as either a donation or a loan, and she’d never ask me for it even if she knew I had plenty to give.
Shawn turned back to the others, diving into questions about what they’d put in the cocktails before he picked one up and offered to be their guinea pig. While he sputtered and laughed, I glanced back at his sister.
In a way, she was the one who got away. Back then, we’d both agreed that breaking up was the right thing to do, and it wasn’t like I’d been pining for her all these years, but she was mywhat-ifgirl.
A part of my heart would always belong to her.Maybe my work here isn’t quite as done as I thought it was after I sent out those emails from the car.
Maybe there was something I could do for her before I left. But not tonight. Just as I made the decision to mull it over a little more tomorrow, one of my old college buddies came up to me and I put Serenity out of my head.
I would catch up with her later, but for now, I was going to stop trying to solve the world’s problems and suck down a potent cocktail with my friends instead.
CHAPTER4
SERENITY
The guys had invited a few of our old friends from high school and from college, and it was fun catching up with everyone, but I hadn’t had a chance to say hi to Bart yet. He was the man of the hour, and every time I spotted him, someone else would grab his attention and begin talking to him.
He looked great, though. Bart had always been hot in that nerdy-chic way, and he’d really grown into it. His rich brown hair was slightly long, curling near the tops of his ears and in the nape of his neck. Those gorgeous, intelligent, forest green eyes were framed by long, pitch-black lashes and a pair of black, rectangular glasses.