Page 28 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

“Do you think that anything might happen between you two?” Ashley’s tone was hopeful, almost giddy. She rubbed her hands together. “Any rekindling?”

“No.” I turned my attention back to the computer.

“Why not?”

“He’s engaged to Felicity Grant.”

“The influencer?”

“Yep.”

“Wait, is she Matty’s mom?” she correctly surmised.

I nodded.

“She’sgorgeous.”

“I know,” I agreed.

I hadn’t come right out and said I still had feelings for Callum all these years later, but my expression must have given me away because she immediately apologized.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to?—”

I looked up from the screen. “No, she is.”

“Did you see her, too? This morning, did you talk to her?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Callum dropped Matty off and picked him up. I haven’t heard if she’s in town or not, but I think she takes a lot of brand trips.”

I didn’t follow her, but I followed other influencers that she was friends with, and she was tagged in a ton of trips that they went on together. In fact, if I wasn’t mistaken, I thought I’d seen her tagged in Bali just a couple of days ago. I considered myself one of the least judgmental people I knew. As long as you weren’t hurting someone, do whatever you want. But every time I saw her jet-setting for weeks, sometimes months, at a time, I wondered when she was with her son. Of course, I knew you couldn’t believe everything you saw online, but unless she was being photoshopped into those photos, and videos, then she was jet-setting more than she was home.

“Wait, what’s his last name?” she asked.

“Whose?”

“The son’s.”

“Knight,” I told her.

“Is his son named Matthew?”

I nodded.

She grabbed the stack of papers she’d just handed me and pulled one out. “He’s also applying to be in the program. He moved from Arizona, so the school thought it would be good for him to deal with relocating.”

Great, so now I was going to have Callum’s clone in my class at school and after school. Which thankfully, he was a great kid. I couldn’t ask for a better-behaved, kinder, sweeter boy. It was just that he was a walking visual and auditory reminder of the biggest regret of my life.

I would love to think this was some sort of sign, that it was the universe’s wink-wink-nudge-nudge, indicating we were going to be back together, but that would be impossible since Callum was engaged to his baby mama/Instagram model. Andthen there was the fact that he probably still hated me. So yeah, there was that too.

10

CALLUM

The sun shimmeredon the surface of the crystal blue waters like diamonds and the white-capped waves crashed up on the shores as I drove along Seaside Way. Green grass flowed seamlessly into sandy dunes that butted up against the endless beaches. Birds flew in the clear skies dotted with cotton ball clouds. The scene was picture perfect. It could be a postcard.

I forgot how much I missed the peaceful serenity of the island. It had been so long since I’d been back, and when I left, I control-alt-deleted all my memories instead of using the highlight function to only remove the bad. It was the only way I’d been able to go on with my life without Nadia. Losing her devastated me. I had to numb myself to everything. That meant I needed to forget the past and move forward, which is exactly what I did. But it’s not like avoiding my past actually worked. The second I saw Nadia again, it was like no time had passed. My feelings for her were stronger than ever.

I hadn’t seen her since I picked Matty up on his first day of school. The rest of the week, she hadn’t been at the pick-up or drop-off line, which was probably a good thing. I also hadn’t seen her around town. But I’d been spending most of my timeat the farm doing repairs and making up for the decade I’d been gone.

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