Page 15 of If This Was a Movie

I swallow, trying to get words out.

“That’s very romantic, Nate,” I whisper.

“I’ve never been one.”

“Never been what?”

“A romantic. I’ve never believed in any of the grand ideas of soulmates or love or invisible strings. My dad does; he says he saw my mom and knew that day she was meant to be his. They met at some party and talked all night, and then she disappeared.” His lips crack into a smile, and it’s contagious, spilling onto my own face. “A couple of years later, they met again, and he didn’t let her run off the second time. A year later, they were married.”

“A year!” I say with a laugh. “Kind of quick.”

“Yeah, well, as my dad says, when you know, you know.”

“Hmm,” I say, running a hand through his hair.

“I think I understand what he means now.”

SIX

JULES

Every prayer I send up to whoever will listen goes unanswered as the man nears, and it only gets worse when the girl at my side yells, “Daddy!”

I blink a few times, hoping my vision is just inexplicably fucking with me, but each time they open, he just gets closer.

Nate, the man I spent two magical nights with last year. The one I met in a bar and made me believe I’d found that once in a lifetime, love at first sight, what movies are made of kind of story, only to discover he had a wife and kid. His green eyes are locked on the girl now holding my hand as he moves toward us. When the gap between us is barely ten feet and quickly closing, he shouts, “Sophie, what were you thinking!?”

“I found her, Dad! I found her!” she replies, excitement in her voice as her hand squeezes hard on mine, keeping me grounded in reality. Something I greatly need when his eyes finally leave the girl and meet mine.

That’s when his entire body goes still as he breathes out my name. “Jules.” The single word makes me stumble, and I don’t know if I do it physically or just internally when I see his face, the look of panic quickly melting into astonishment.

It’s really him.

No wonder this girl looks familiar: she looks like him. Against my will and better judgment, I stare as he approaches, taking him in fully. Not much had changed since I saw him last: longish dark blond hair messily pushed back, a dark brown work jacket over an olive green sweater and jeans, and a pair of beat-up boots on his feet.

A tall blonde woman walks behind him, and I recognize the build and the hair as the woman I saw in the grocery store. She stops beside him, and my eyes lock on her, unable to look away.

“Daddy, I found Ashlyn!” the little girl shouts, tugging my hand.

“Uh,” he says, looking from the girl to me, a flash of panic filling his face as he puts some kind of pieces together. “She does. What are you doing here?” he asks, his question directed at me.

I continue to glare at him.

“What areyoudoing here?” I ask.

The little girl tugs on my hand again and then shows me the doll in her free hand.

“We were seeing Santa! I made a wish that we would find the real-life Ashlyn, and it came TRUE!”

As if this night couldn’t get any worse, this girl thinks I’m her Christmas wish come to life. I look down at my outfit, realizing with an ounce of horror I do kind of look like her Ashlyn doll dressed up like this.

“Jesus, Sophie, what was that all about?” the girl’s mother asks as she makes it through the crowd, stopping right behind Nate.

“I found Ashlyn!” the girl, I’m assuming is named Sophie, shouts, and the woman gives me a head-to-toe before smiling.

“I guess you did, didn’t you?” Nate sighs, running a hand over his face.

“Sloane, this is Jules. Jules, this is Sloane, my?—”

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