Chapter 2

Mattie pulled the elastic scrunchie out of her hair, then scraped her fingernails over her scalp.

"Brad means nothing to you now." Hours later, and she was still trying to convince herself.

She pulled her clothes off, wadding them into a ball and shooting them across her bedroom into the laundry basket. She crossed the hall to the bathroom, continuing her monologue while she waited for the water to run hot. "I mean it, too. You're not fifteen anymore. You're past that." She braced one hand on the tile wall and thrust the other under the stream of steamy water. Perfect.

"He'll visit. You'll be sympathetic. That's it." As she stepped into the shower, she noticed the bottle of Fresh Freesia shower gel. Jess was always leaving fancy gels and shampoos in here for her.

Mattie started to reach for her own bar of Ivory like she always did but paused. What would it hurt? Surely one fresh freesia shower wouldn't spoil her forever. As she flipped open the cap and inhaled the light floral scent, she found herself humming "Love is a Battlefield."

By the time she stepped out of the shower a few minutes later, she'd graduated from humming to belting it out at the top of her lungs. She paused only long enough to wrap her hair in a towel. Grabbing another towel off the rack, she headed for her bedroom. It wasn't until she opened the bathroom door that she heard the phone ringing. For a brief second, she contemplated letting the machine get it, but Jessica might have forgotten something.

After trotting down the hallway to the kitchen, she snatched up the phone and was about to punch the talk button when she noticed the dog prints. A trail of large, muddy paw prints led across Jessica's plush cream carpet, over the snowy tile floor, and toward the sliding glass door to the backyard. Which was odd, considering she didn't have a dog.

Still holding the phone, she followed the trail to the back door and looked out. Sure enough, there sat a large, honey-colored Lab, and...a man, crouching just in front of the dog, wrestling for control of a paw.

Her heart leaped. Brad.

There. In her backyard—well, Jessica's backyard. With a dog.

The phone in her hand gave one last shrill ring before being cut off. She blinked at the handset for a second, then realized the machine had picked up the call. Quickly, she punched the talk button. "Hello?"

"Oh...hi." It was Jessica. "I was about to leave a message. I thought I'd miss you." Mattie didn't talk her eyes off Brad as she answered. "I was just getting out of the shower." She couldn't help noticing a thousand little details about him: the way his blond hair---now darker than it had been the last time she'd seen him in person—still gleamed in the sun. The way the cotton of his oxford shirt stretched taut across his unbelievably wide shoulders. The way his crisp khakis molded his lean hips and firm buttocks.

"I'm glad I caught you. I forgot to tell you Brad has a key."

"Oh. Yeah." Just then, the dog looked up and noticed her. The glass door separating them barely muffled the noise as the dog barked at her. "That makes sense."

Brad stiffened, then glanced over his shoulder. A second passed. Then he stood and turned to face her. The instant his eyes met hers, every cell in her body seemed to shake itself awake. In the years since she'd last seen him, she'd convinced herself his eyes weren't as spectacularly blue as she remembered. She'd convinced herself no one had eyes the color of the ocean's depths. She'd been wrong.

Mattie felt a familiar jolt of adrenaline. Entranced by his gaze, a second passed before Jessica's voice intruded over her own thundering heartbeat. "...you okay? You sound really strange."

"Sorry," she mumbled. Try as she might, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off Brad. "I'm just...um..." Finally, she tore her eyes away from him and shook her head to clear it. "It's just that I'm dripping on the floor."

And that's when she remembered she was wearing only a towel.