Someone, please tell me this is a mistake.
Please tell me I’m not living next door to Shane Fucking Beckett.
Three
What is Shane even doing back in Polson Falls?
The last I heard, he was flying high on a full-ride football scholarship, somewhere in California. Mind you, I heard that way back in senior year, when people were strolling through the halls, bragging about the college offers they’d opened after school the day before. Back when all I could think about was getting out of this town and all the assholes in it—him being the king of them.
Shane Beckett cannot be back in Polson Falls and living next to me.
He just can’t.
But, oh my God, he is heading this way, stalking smoothly across his lawn to mine, his long legs easily maneuvering over my picket fence. He strolls along my driveway toward me, eyeing my dented Honda Civic on his way past.
He must not realize who I am. There’s no way he’d be so casual in approaching if he did. I look a lot different from the girl he slummed it with for a summer, back before our senior year. The boring, mousy-brown bob I used to sport in high school is gone, replaced by sleek, tawny hair that stretches halfway down my back. My once-average figure has been honed by years of running and yoga. And while I still sometimes shop at thrift stores for my clothing, I’ve acquired a discernible palate for higher-end consignment purchases. Even now, on “moving day,” my worn Guns N’ Roses T-shirt looks trendy paired with black leggings and jeweled sandals.
Shane has changed too, but not by much. Being the star quarterback, he was always lean, but fit. He’s much bigger now, his neck thicker, his shoulders broader, his top clinging to a solid, curvy chest, his jaw more sculpted and angular. And the hair he always kept cropped is longer, gelled in a tousled, messy style.
He’s still gorgeous. In fact, he’s more gorgeous than he ever was. I’d recognize him from a mile away, even all these years later.
I’d recognize him as the guy with the deceptively sweet dimples who smashed my seventeen-year-old heart into a thousand pieces.
I sit up straighter and pull my shoulders back to meet him head-on, readying myself mentally as my gut churns with nerves and my pulse races. Thank God I slipped on my sunglasses when I sat down. At least I can hide the panic from my eyes as he comes to a stop three feet from me.
Those full, soft lips that I remember kissing for hours—so long that my own were left chapped and sore some nights—stretch with a wide smile. “Scarlet Reed.”
His voice is deeper and sexier than I remember, and my stupid, traitorous heart jumps at the sound of my name on his quicksilver tongue. The first time he said my name, the night he asked me out, it took me forever to pick my jaw up off the drive-in concession counter. I was so shocked he knew who I was.
Obviously, he knows who has moved in here.
I clear my throat, trying to maintain calm. “Shane Beckett.” Shane Fucking Beckett.
Sliding his hands into his pockets, he climbs the first step and leans against the railing. It creaks under his weight. “Your dream came true.” His warm eyes drift over the face of the house. They’re as stunning as I remember them, speckled with gold flakes and rimmed with dark brown. “You bought the old Rutshack house.”
“You … you remembered?” I sputter, unable to mask my surprise. I mentioned my secret wish to own this place on our first official date—a balmy night in early July, the humidity making my hair frizz and my skin slick. I was so nervous, I babbled the entire time. I was sure he regretted asking me out.
Shane’s gaze drops from its inspection of the porch ceiling to settle on me. His eyelashes are still impossibly thick and long, his nose still slender and perfect. “I remember a lot about that summer.”
My chest tightens, and pain I’d long since thought faded flares with renewed vigor. “So do I.” The sweet words, the longing looks, the gentlest touches. He told me I was one of the coolest girls he’d ever met, and it didn’t matter that my few misfit friends would never gel with his many popular friends, or that I wasn’t a cheerleader or an athlete.
He said he didn’t care that my mom and I lived in an apartment on the shady side of town, or that she was caught in a compromising position with our married town mayor the night of our school’s Christmas pageant when I was twelve.
He swore he wasn’t the player everyone said he was, and he was okay with taking things slow, that he wouldn’t push me to give him my virginity.