Page 17 of Back in the Bay

"Don't," I warn, but my voice lacks conviction. "Don't make this deeper than it needs to be."

"Too late." Aiden's smile is infuriatingly smug. "You're already there, swimming in the deep end of feelings you've been avoiding for over a decade."

I drain the rest of my coffee, needing something to do with my hands, before I start fidgeting like a nervous teenager. "Even if—and this is a massive if—there's still something between us, what then? I'm not the same girl who used to sneak out to meet him at the pier. I'm not going to throw away everything I've built for some nostalgic fantasy."

"Who says you have to throw anything away?" Aiden challenges. "Maybe the question isn't what you'd have to give up, but what you might gain."

"You're assuming he'd even want—" I stop myself because finishing that sentence means admitting I've been thinking about it. About him. About us.

"Mabel." Aiden's voice is gentle now, the way it gets when he's about to say something I don't want to hear but need to. "I've known you for three years. I've seen you take on impossible cases, work eighteen-hour days, and argue down opposing counsel twice your size. But I've never seen you light up the way you did tonight when you saw him."

My chest tightens. "I didn't light up."

"You did. Before the panic set in, before you remembered all the reasons why it's complicated—for about thirty seconds, you looked like you'd found something you'd been searching for without realizing it."

I stare at him, hating how perceptive he is, hating how right he might be. "What if I talk to him, and it ruins everything? What if we try and it's a disaster? What if?—"

"What if it's not?" he interrupts. "What if it's exactly what you've been missing?"

The coffee shop suddenly feels too small, too warm. I can't breathe properly, and my heart is doing something erratic that makes me want to flee back to Portland, where everything makes sense, and Cole Bennett doesn't exist in three dimensions.

"I should go back to the house," I say, already reaching for my purse. "Tomorrow's going to be long enough without me staying up all night having an emotional breakdown."

"Running again?" Aiden asks, but there's no judgment in his voice, just understanding.

"Strategic retreat," I correct. "There's a difference."

He laughs, standing to follow me out. "Whatever helps you sleep tonight. But Mabel? Tomorrow, you're going to have to face him again. And something tells me he's not going to make it as easy for you to run."

The cool night air hits my face as we step outside, but it doesn't cool the fire that's been burning in my chest since Cole whispered my name like a prayer he'd been saving for thirteen years.

God help me. I want him to chase me.

cole

. . .

My head feelslike someone took a sledgehammer to it and then decided to finish the job with a jackhammer.

I stumble into the wedding venue's back room, squinting against what feels like nuclear-level lighting but is probably just regular fluorescent bulbs. The irony isn't lost on me—I'm about to watch my best friend marry the love of his life while I'm dying from alcohol poisoning, all because I couldn't handle the thought of seeing Mabel Maxwell and being too chicken-shit to keep her from leaving me again.

"Jesus, son, you look like hell warmed over."

I turn toward the gravelly voice and immediately regret the sudden movement. Mr. Malone—Rowan's dad—stands in the doorway holding a steaming mug and shaking his head at me like I'm a lost cause.

"Feel worse than I look," I croak, slumping into a folding chair that creaks ominously under my weight.

"Drink this." He shoves the mug into my hands. The smell hits me first—something that makes my eyes water and my stomach lurch. "Family recipe. Cured many a hangover in the Malone household."

I take a tentative sip and immediately want to die. "What the hell is in this?"

"You don't want to know. Just drink it."

Mr. Malone settles into the chair across from me, his weathered hands clasped together. He's got that look—the same one he used to give us when we were kids, and he was about to drop some life wisdom whether we wanted it or not.

"So," he says, cutting straight to the chase. "You planning to tell her how you feel, or are you gonna spend the rest of your life wondering what if?"

The question hits harder than the hangover. "I don't know what you're talking about."

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