Page 8 of It Should Have Been Me

“How are you?”

I half-smile, still unable to pull out of this nostalgic trance he has me under. “Fine,” I lie. “Perfectly fine. And you?”

“Yeah, not great...uh...” He runs a restless hand over his head and looks away from me. “Seeing you...uh...seeing you is a bit of a mind fuck.”

This douche. That’s what he’s going to say to me right off the bat? I don’t know why he always has to be so honest. Just this once, could he lie and say that he’s doing great so we can both move past this painfully awkward encounter?

“I was not expecting this...at all,” he says.

The absurdity of that statement draws my eyebrows together. “How can you say that? You literally came here for me. I’m the one who had no warning. Dylan was supposed to pick me up, but instead, I getyouand you don’t see me freaking out.”

“Solid point.” He grins and I melt a little. I forgot about that little flutter I get in my chest every time he smiles. He shoves both hands into his back pockets, almost like he’s not sure what to do with them. “You, uh, you look different.”

I run my hand over my hair, guessing that he’s probably referring to the sleek, straight strands subtly highlighted with bursts of bronze and auburn. He always preferred my hair curly, and it’s weird how a simple sentence makes me feel so self-conscious about something as insignificant as my hairstyle. Not in a bad way, just in a way that makes me aware that he always notices every little detail about me.

“Uh, you, um...you look different, too,” I say.

Likewise, no detail about him goes unnoticed. His dark brown hair is much shorter than I remember, slightly longer than an army crew cut, and it makes him look bigger...broader...buffer. Hell, I’m just going to acknowledge it. He’s sexier. He’swaysexier than he used to be. How is that even possible? And then he decided to wear a navy-blue button-down shirt, which only makes those piercing blue eyes of his stand out more.

Scott in a button-down shirt has always been my kryptonite, and now it’s pulled tight over his chest. With his sleeves casually rolled up, I notice the leather bracelets that my mother gave him years ago are still on his left wrist, and they only draw more attention to his thickly muscled forearms. No ring on his left hand. I take in that detail without realizing it, but it’s irrelevant. I’m pretty sure he has a girlfriend. A guy like him wouldn’t stay single for long. He’s gorgeous, absolutely—

Ah, shit!I’m getting carried away, and I quickly reorganize my thoughts, putting them all back in the right places. Those thoughts I just had about Scott? they’re not new thoughts. They’re old thoughts that just hopped to the forefront for a millisecond. Old, moldy, decomposing thoughts that need to be pushed to the back of my mind...where they belong.

With a stiff tug, he unhooks my suitcase, then lifts it like it doesn’t weigh a ton. “C’mon, my car’s this way.”

He leads me through the airport to a black Mercedes SUV in the undercover parking lot. The humid July air seems even thicker between the concrete pillars, and I can already feel my hair starting to frizz. It took me half an hour to straighten it earlier. Seems like a waste now.

“Wow, this is nice,” I comment as he opens the door for me, and I slide onto the leather seat. “When we were in college, you always used to say that you were working so hard for very little financial reward at the end of it. You told me you wouldn’t be able to afford fancy things, but look at you now.”

He loads my bag into the trunk before climbing into the driver’s seat. “Nah, you’re misinterpreting the situation. Teachers don’t get paid much. I didn’t buy this car, I won it. Pete and I had a bet going. He said Dylan would never get back together with Isabella, and I said they’d be married before the end of the year. He lost, so I got this car.”

“Peter must’ve been pissed.”

“He was.”

“How’s he doing otherwise? Has he finally decided to embrace adulthood and...work for a living?”

Scott chuckles. “Nope. You know Pete. He doesn’t want to waste his time working to make someone else rich, so he’s quite happy to just sit at home, watch old movies, and live off his passive income. On the bright side, though, after Dylan divorced Francesca, he moved in with Peter. So, that means Pete’s been living with abona fidechef for over a year and a half. At the very least, he should know how to cook by now.”

“Yeah, Peter still sounds like Peter. And how’s your dad?” For some reason, I can’t stop the questions. I just want to find out everything that I missed out on. “You still meet him for lunch every week?”

“Sure do.” He maneuvers out of the parking lot toward the street. “We have lunch at the country club every Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on when he’s free. I was with him today, actually.”

“And your mom? Did you patch things up with her after we...after we broke up?” That was incredibly hard to say, but I manage to keep my face neutral.

“No.” The afternoon sun beams through the windows as he takes the exit for the highway, heading toward Santa Monica. “But she did send a lovelyI told you socard...with a fruit basket, which I thought was a nice touch.”

“God, she knows nothing about you,” I say with a giggle. “You don’t eat a lot of fruit, but you don’thateit, either. What was she hoping to achieve with that? I would’ve sent it with two pounds of licorice.”

Laughter rolls out of him, and I get another flashback of our past conversations. It reminds me of just how much I miss his laugh. The sound of it makes me feel a little empty inside.

“That’s because you’re fucking savage! Speaking of licorice...I got this for you.” He reaches over me to open the glove box, then tosses a packet of Jelly Bellies to me. “Consider it a coming home gift.”

At that moment, I know with certainty that I’m not going to get through the next two and a half weeks being around him. It’s too much of something I can really do without. After he drops me off at my mother’s house, I’m just going to avoid him as much as I can until I leave again.

“Listen, I’m just going to stop by my place real quick. Dylan had an incident with some ganache, so I wanna grab a clean set of clothes for him, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” I respond hesitantly, tearing open the little packet of candy.

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