Page 4 of Always on My Mind

“Christ, I feel sick,” Tessa answered, putting a hand to her racing heart.

“Please mind the carpets if there’s to be any retching.”

“Fuck off, Lila, I’ve just seen three lifetimes.”

“Let me fetch you some water.”

“That’ll be grand.”

Lila departed. Slowly, Tessa forced herself upright. Her shirt clung to her back, damp with sweat, and her hair stuck to her neck. She didn’t know why she was surprised. She had rather expected her results. She just didn’t realize she was the one getting hurt in all of them. That same face, over and over, tearing her heart out each time they found each other.

Lila returned with the water, and Tessa thanked her before allowing it to cool her down. It slid down her throat, and ran through her body, easing the pain of it.

“Better?” Lila asked.

“You don’t have to worry about cleaning up boke.”

“Fantastic.”

She took the glass back to the kitchen, and when she reappeared, she gazed at Tessa with curious eyes. “So. . . did you see anything interesting?”

“Aye, I suppose. . . there were things I expected and things I didn’t.”

“Were there any constants?” she asked. “That is, was there anyone or anything that appeared in all three?”

Tessa nodded slowly. “Aye.”

“Anything you want to share?”

Tessa shook her head. “No, sorry.”

Lila shrugged. “No worries. But now that our session is over, that’ll be seventy pounds.”

“Seventy—” Tessa gasped. “Christ, but the rate for psychics has gone up.”

“Not a psychic,” Lila said, and held out her hand.

Tessa fished into her purse, counted out the bills, and handed them over. As she stepped back out onto the streets, she still had one face in her mind—Jamie.

Chapter 1

Jamie’s stomach dropped, and not because of the rocking of the car as they stopped and started through London traffic. Each time she peered out at the city, she remembered when she left, and the heartbreak that followed her.

It didn’t matter that it had been three years. The memory of Tessa sent a pang right through Jamie’s chest, so sharp and so cold, it took her breath away. It might as well have been a day ago. The hurt was still that fresh. She wondered if Tessa hurt too, or if she had moved on like she said she would. Jamie saw on social media that Tessa’s best friend and flatmate, Billie Axton, had married Chelsea striker Ethan Knight. Had Tessa also found someone to settle down with? Someone who could give her what Jamie never did?

She shook her head. It was too painful to think about.

“We’re here, Miss Hupp.”

Jamie looked up at the sound of her driver’s voice and forced her gaze back out the window. The Hive loomed large over the sidewalk. Home of the Stanmore FC Wasps, and Jamie’s newclub as soon as she signed the papers awaiting her inside. Her ticket away from everything she was running from. And the one thing she was running toward. She climbed out of the car with a sigh.

The signing passed in a blur, and before she knew it, she was in the press room. Camera flashes blinded her. Journalists swarmed in like vultures on fresh roadkill. She could already hear the ringing in her ears that came with facing the press. Especially now, when they were going to ask her all the questions she had been carefully avoiding all summer. She should have prepared; she couldn’t run forever, after all. Even a football pitch ran out of grass, eventually.

The first journalist stood up—a young brunette chap who fiddled with his press pass before meeting Jamie’s eye.

“Ben Feruscho,London Pursuit,” he said.

Jamie’s heart skipped a beat. That was the paper where Tessa worked. She could practically hear Tessa saying it that day they met, when she was briefly filling in for the sports reporter. Her thick Northern Irish accent took Jamie by surprise. Almost as much as her lack of fear behind her sweet brown eyes, despite being in a beat she had never covered before while in a room full of seasoned sports reporters. She was five foot four of pure courage. Nothing seemed to scare Tessa. And though Jamie had three inches on her, that amount of bravery often made Jamie feel small.

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