Running my tongue over my teeth, I can’t help wondering what she’s like in bed now. Wild? Or tame? As teenagers, Vista was the shy type, letting everyone else call the shots while she followed. The one time I got her underneath me, she was exactly the same—meek, malleable, easy to please, and eager to follow directions. But she seems different now. More confident.

“I already told you,” I begin, addressing her question before I forget that one was asked. “It’s—”

“A surprise. Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time,” she remarks. Straightening, she slams the door shut and rounds on me. “Don’t you have anything other than beer, milk, and condiments in this place? I’m starving.”

“It’s a bachelor pad, princess. Any food that gets eaten here is ordered in.” With a sigh, my eyes travel over her slight frame. She’s slim, but curvy. Healthy. Not like the stick thin chicks I usually find in my bed the morning after a bender. They’re all sharp angles, but it’s not their curves I’m looking for anyway. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we can scrounge up some celery sticks when we get there.”

Her face bunches up at my suggestion and she smacks her lips in distaste. “Do I look like a girl who eats celery for breakfast?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her as I turn and lead the way to the door. “Usually women with flat asses are on a two-hundred-calorie-a-day diet.”

She stops mid step and stares up at me with fire dancing in her eyes. “I don’t have a flat ass, you jackass. You’re confusing me with your bed partners.”

“Have you ever heard of Sir Mix-a-lot, Vista?” I ask as I swing out into the hall and call for the elevator while she locks up behind us. When she steps up next to me, I deliberately lean into her so that the entire right side of my body rubs against the left side of hers. Immediately, she sidesteps, and I nearly burst into laughter. I never expected teasing her could be so much fun.

We pause to wait for the elevator and I use the time to lean down, close enough that my lips skim the shell of her ear. Her lips part, and I hear her sharp intake of breath which only makes this moment even more enjoyable as I whisper, “My anaconda don’t want none….” I trail off, humming the rest of the tune.

It takes her a moment, and then she lowers her chin to her chest and her shoulders begin to shake with silent laughter. When she lifts her head, her face is tinged scarlet and she’s wearing a wide smile that threatens to stop my heart.

I’m shocked. I expected her to freak out and start screaming, or rear back and hit me, because that’s what uptight princesses like her generally do. But this is a pleasant surprise. Maybe Vista isn’t the ice queen she projects. I wonder how much of that rebellious streak that led her into my arms the first time is still left in her.

We step into the elevator together and silently watch as the numbers count down. It’s so quiet in here that every breath she takes registers in my ears. I watch her from the corner of my eye, unable to stop looking at her. I still can’t believe she’s here. I never thought I’d see her again, and I’d always imagined that if I did, it would be under duress. We didn’t end on a good note, which is entirely my fault, and I certainly never expected that I might actually begin to like her. Again.

“What do you want to eat?” I ask her as we grow closer to the ground floor. “I’ll swing by someplace on the way.”

The elevator slows to a crawl, and when the doors slide open, I throw out a crutch and hold them there, waiting for her to pass through first. Then she purses those pale pink lips that I know are going to star in many midnight fantasies as she walks out.

“I want eggs. And bacon,” she adds as I fall into step with her. “Oh, and toast with cinnamon butter. And coffee. The real stuff, not instant.” She makes a face and it’s so adorable on her, I find myself smiling.

A girl who actually eats. I’m impressed. “Are you going to be able to eat all that?”

“Please, that’s a snack compared to what I usually eat.”

I find myself laughing as I lead us past the front desk. It’ll be nice to share a meal with someone who doesn’t complain about carbs and blowing their diet for once.

“You’re paying, right?” Vista’s chocolate brown eyes lift to mine as we push through the turnstiles and cross the sidewalk to my car that’s already waiting for me. I nod my thanks to the valet as I lean down to open the passenger door.

“I thought you were getting this one,” I tease her.

“Excuse me? Who’s the famous soccer player slash trust fund baby here?” A frown crosses her face as she looks down at the car then back up at me. “I hope you don’t think you can drive with that thing on.”

“Hasn’t stopped me yet,” I inform her with a confident lift of my chin.

Her mouth flaps open and she shakes her head in disbelief. “I don’t know why I expected you to be reasonable...” she mutters. Pausing with one foot in the door, she grips the top of the frame and stares up at me with a challenging lift to her brow. “If you get us killed, I’m going to strangle you.”

“Oh, and how do you plan to do that? I’ll be dead.”

I grin down at her and her eyes narrow as if annoyed, but I see the amusement in them. She likes it when I tease her, and I’m shocked to realize that I’m more than willing to keep doing it if it means keeping that smile on her face.

“You’re picking up the tab this time,” she tells me. With a wink, she drops into the seat and I close the door, shaking my head as I round the front of the car and climb into the driver’s seat.

When I rolled out of bed this morning with a mile long headache, cotton mouth, and the prospect of having to deal with an unwanted guest, I didn’t think this day could get much worse. But then I found myself standing in her room and, well...I have to admit, this day is looking pretty damn good from where I’m sitting.

I glance over at Vista who’s riding shotgun in a car that’s normally reserved for myself alone. She has her face turned away from me, staring out the window at the passing scenery and bobbing her head to the music drifting from the speakers. The morning sunlight filtering through the skyscrapers catches in her hair, setting off the strands of gold and red that run throughout and make me want to reach out and touch it to see if it’s real. She’s gorgeous. Perfect in every way.

Yeah, things are definitely looking good from where I’m sitting.

5

It sounds like I’ve stuck my head inside a beehive. The incessant buzzing of the oscillating saw as the ortho doc cuts through Levi’s cast fills the room and vibrates in my skull. To be honest, it’s making me nauseated. I keep my head turned away, focusing on the wall of medical posters depicting the inside of the human body as a distraction.

“How can you be squeamish,” Levi questions over the noise, “when you work with this stuff every day?”

He’s got to be kidding, right? Tossing him a look that I hope conveys the depth of my irritation, I attempt to control my voice. “I don’t work with this stuff, Levi. I handle the after care, when all of this stuff has already been handled.” Hence the reason I wasn’t here twelve weeks ago.

I tell him this with a childlike roll of my eyes and a condescending shake of my head as I turn my attention to my phone buzzing inside my purse. I pounce on it, eager to finally have something interesting to focus on because even though logic tells me the doctor’s done this a hundred times and knows what he’s doing, I’m convinced that saw is going to chop Levi’s leg right off, and I just can’t.

“And FYI,” I snipe at him as I read the incoming text. “Your ‘surprise’ sucks.”

Mom:Hey, sweetie! How’s the view from where you’re standing?

The text I get from my mom is teasing and an incredibly cheesy play on my name, and because this day is already heading south, it makes me long for home. My real home. Not the couch I’ve been crashing on in my friend’s studio apartment back in Cincinnati, or the bed so graciously afforded to me by Levi, but the one from when I was a kid—a saggy twin-size mattress stacked on top of a creaky box spring and set on an old metal hospital style frame. The blankets and sheets were mismatched and covered with tiny nubs. It wasn’t glamorous or even particularly pretty, but it was mine and it smelled of home.