Page 8 of Captivating Mr. Second Chance

Each of her girls offered their couch, but Laney wouldn’t impose on them. And her parents were completely out of the question. She might have been desperate but notthatdesperate. Dean, though, she didn’t hesitate to call and let him know she needed somewhere to stay.

Reaching for another Cool Ranch Dorito, Laney settled back against the cushions to get more comfortable, but as she opened her mouth to chomp on her snack, the front door flew open. Dean stood in the doorway, juggling a few grocery bags as he tried to close the door behind him.

Laney got up to do it for him. “What’re you doing home?”

Among his many good qualities, Dean had a couple of bad ones, including his anal-retentive cleanliness, and he threw Laney a look when he spotted her drink without a coaster. He huffed and grabbed one, sliding it under her water glass as he said, “Poker night.”

She grimaced. He had mentioned monthly poker nights at his house, but she’d forgotten. When he moved the ottoman to the corner and pushed the coffee table closer to the couch, she realized that she’d have to sulk somewhere else.

“You want to stick around?” Dean asked, grabbing a folding table from the back of the coat closet in the hall. “It’s just Nadir, Seth, Hank, and Ethan.”

Laney went over those names in her head one by one. Nadir, Seth, Hank, and “Ethan?”

He nodded and then moved the black folding chairs.

“Ethan who?” she asked, even though there was only one Ethan she’d ever known in her entire life.

Dean raised an eyebrow as if she’d lost her mind. It was possible she had. “Marrero.”

Her heart sank clear through her body, and she checked the floor to see if it was flopping around by her feet like a fish.

“I didn’t know you guys still talked,” she said, her voice only slightly hysterical. Of course she knew they still talked. They had been best friends since Ethan’s family moved to West Chester right before their senior year of high school and he transferred to Holy Redeemer.

Back then, Ethan was like a big puppy dog, all loose limbs and big ears, with a matching personality. He was the one person who didn’t see Laney as theit girl. Maybe it was because he was the new kid in town that she didn’t feel the need to keep up the perfect veneer. Or that he simply didn’t care about her popularity or reputation. Whatever it was, it led her to fall for him. As much as an eighteen-year-old girl could.

But they were practically babies.

It was puppy love. A few weeks of fumbling around in the dark. Nothing special, really.

At least that was the story she’d kept up after all these years.

Because sometimes when she couldn’t sleep, she’d sink into those memories of Ethan. Of when life wasn’t complicated. Of when she wasn’t pretending. Of when she wanted to remember being excited about life and love.

And now with the lingering memory of her recent dream about the man and her best friends’ reaction to it, she couldn’t help but think that the universe was trying to tell her something.

Or maybe she was overthinking this.

Trojan-gate was messing with her head.

At Dean’s bemused chuckle, Laney refocused her attention to the present and her brother’s narrowed eyes. “What?”

“I said, are you gonna play with us?”

“Oh, uh, no. No, you guys go ahead. I’m, uh…” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and walked to the kitchen, where she grabbed a water bottle and banana, planning on spending her evening at the Y. She could go there, maybe run a few miles and hang out with the old guy at the front desk. Poker night would be over by ten, right?

She could totally avoid her ancient history with Ethan and hopefully try to right her jumbled-up brain.

But then a few male voices floated in from the living room, with one standing out above all the rest. Though Laney and Ethan followed each other on social media, staying vaguely in contact with alikebutton, they hadn’t seen each other in years. Since that one Thanksgiving, when Laney had been home and they’d run into each other outside of the grocery store. He’d been walking in while she’d been walking out from an emergency tampon run and couldn’t spare more than a quick hello. She supposed she was in for a lot more run-ins with Ethan and his smooth yet slightly playful voice, like an Americanized version of Disney’s cartoon fox Robin Hood.

Seeing as how that was Laney’s first crush, she really never stood a chance against the gangly teenager with dark eyes.

Now, though, she was in a different place in her life. There would be no falling for a smooth talker. If only she could get upstairs without going into the living room. Damn turn-of-the-century townhouse architecture. She contemplated the odds of finding an invisibility cloak in the kitchen cupboards when Dean called out, “Hey, Laney, come say hi.”

With a deep breath, I set shoulders, although there was no help for the decades-old Maroon 5 T-shirt and yoga pants that were a tad too tight with a big turquoise paint stain by her knee. Another reminder of Bobby.

When they’d moved in to the condo, they had argued over what color to paint their bedroom. Laney wanted something more neutral, but Bobby was all about color. He had said that since he paid the mortgage, he should be able to choose. She had given in on that one, and while he had been out filming a segment for some morning talk show, she’d been home painting their bedroom Tiffany blue.

Forgetting him and her life in California, she ventured forward, trying on her most confident smile as she entered the living room.

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