Page 62 of Take Me Home

“Well, some things are different than I planned.”

Hazel remembered then—they’d agreed once to be each other’s maids of honor. She swallowed thickly.

“I was supposed to marry Noah Centineo.”

“Oh God. Specifically, Noah Centineo playing Peter Kavinsky inTo All the Boys,” Hazel clarified. She laughed harder than the moment warranted, the last of the tension finally breaking.

It set Franny off, and soon they were clutching each other’sarms, mirthful tears in their eyes. Of all the ways Hazel had imagined such a reunion going, laughing so hard she cried had never been an option.

“So,” Franny said, pitching her voice low, “you and Ash Campbell? What’s going on there?”

Hazel tried to shrug it off, but her usual ability to rein in her feelings had apparently been compromised by the reunion with Franny, or by the alcohol, or by the sudden flash of Ash gently biting her lower lip, his unfiltered low groan as he pulled her closer in the hallway earlier. A wide smile broke free, and she dropped her face into her hands. “I don’t know,” she admitted, the words anguished.

“Holy shit,” Franny said. “You’re really into him.”

Hazel turned, resting her cheek on her arm across the bar. “Am I?”

“You’re bright pink right now.”

“He kissed me right before you came in. Don’t—” She hooked her arm through Franny’s. “Don’t look at him. I don’t know what to do.”

“Was it good? The kiss?”

Hazel had to bite the inside of her cheek to get her smile under control. “Yes. Doesn’t matter. I told him before that nothing could change between us.”

“That’s stupid.”

Hazel snorted. “Okay.”

“He’s a nice guy. You could do worse. Youhavedone worse.” She didn’t say Justin’s name, but her meaning was clear.

Justin, Hazel sensed, was too fraught a topic for them to tackle at this point. She had forgotten that when they’d broken up, all Franny’s true feelings had come out. In retrospect, part of the reason Hazel had pulled away from Franny, ironically, was guilt about neglecting her best friend for a boy.

“I owe you a massive apology,” she said, forcing herself to meet Franny’s eyes. “I’m sorry I disappeared.”

Franny nodded, shrugged, then said, “Thanks.”

They coasted on safer waters until Cedric reminded Franny that they had to meet friends across town. This time, the hug Franny pulled her into was real.

—

Hazel and Ash entered his house to the aroma of baking cookies, the glow of a roaring fire,The Grinchon the TV, and several demands to come sit down for the movie. Ash’s older niece peeked inside the corner of one of Hazel’s bags, and June pulled her, giggling, back onto her lap. Mrs. Campbell rose from the couch to get them cookies.

Ash ruffled his niece’s hair, then June’s, laughing when she slapped his hand away. “We’ve got to wrap these presents because you’re all too nosy.” His smile grew even bigger at June’s melodramatic protest, and Hazel’s insides flipped at the pure sunlight that emanated from him when he was like this.Happy.How had she ever thought him broody and apathetic?

He dropped a loud, smacking kiss on his younger niece’s plump toddler cheek. As they passed through the kitchen, his mother tucked cookies in a paper towel into his jacket pocket.

Right at that moment, here with him, Hazel realized, she was happy, too.

She stopped short when he opened the door to the laundry room, which led to the garage and an upper-level addition. Names and dates were scrawled in pen up one side of the door, Ash’s at the very top. She pressed him back against the door and leveled her hand atop his head, comparing it to the mark there. “Someone fudged his last measurement. Either that or you’ve shrunk half an inch.”

Ash straightened, nudging her hand up.

She made a skeptical sound in her throat. The next thing she knew, he’d spun her around into his place. Her heart leapt at the thought of a replay of their kiss at the bar. But he pulled his pen from his pocket, nudged her heels flush with the door, and scratched a line above her head.

“What are you—”

“There.” He waited for her to move, then added her name and the date.

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