Page 43 of If You Say So

Riel winced.

“Sorry, I meant to do that.” He paused. “But, saying that, I didn’t remember Katy’s or Oakley’s

name.”

Katy smiled and waved from her end. “My dad’s the police chief. His name is Luke Roberts.”

My eyes widened. “I think he gave me a ticket when I first moved here.”

Katy’s lips twitched. “That sounds like him. He’s a butthead sometimes.”

“How do you know Mala… Riel?” Logan asked, speaking up a little louder due to his distance

away from us.

I looked at Riel, then back at Logan.

Feeling my heart lodge in my throat.

“Riel and Luca were best friends,” I said softly. “They met in bootcamp. Luca is my missing

fiancé.”

Logan’s face filled with pity.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.” He paused. “At least, I didn’t know that you were her.”

I shrugged. “It’s okay.”

It wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, either.

It was what it was, and that was the way it was going to be until the end of time.

I just needed to learn to live with it.

“You’ve heard about the poor girl whose fiancé went off to war and never came home?” I asked.

“I didn’t realize that people knew that much about it.”

That was a lie.

Kilgore was a small town.

Luca was also a big hero. He was an all-star football player. The star quarterback that went to

war instead of taking his full scholarship to Texas A&M where he could’ve gone all the way.

Everybody who was anybody knew who Luca Maldonado was.

Which, by association, meant they knew whoIwas, too.

“Uhhh,” Logan said. “Yeah.”

I snickered. “I know. It’s not the best kept secret in the world. I swear when I go to the grocery

store, I can feel everybody’s eyes on me. I’m fairly sure the paper did an article on this one last week, too.”

Riel blinked. “They did?”

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