Prologue
“I can’t stay here, Kar.”
I stared across the table at Kacey, my girlfriend of three years, trying to decipher what those words meant. She had a knack for cryptic one-liners. Her mysteriousness could be frustrating, but it was also part of what made her so damn sexy. It was what first attracted me to her and what led me to kiss her for the first time two months later — an anniversary we were currently celebrating since we considered that kiss to be the beginning of our fairytale romance. And it was a fairytale. I felt like there was still a lot I didn’t know about Kacey, but from that very first kiss, I knew she was the person I would spend the rest of my life with.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t absolutely infuriating sometimes, now being one of them. “Are you sick?” I asked, reaching out to take her hand. “I can have them pack our food up and we’ll go back to the apartment.”
Kacey shook her head. “I’m not sick. I didn’t mean here, as in the restaurant. I meant here as in Bellman. I can’t stay in Bellman anymore. I have to go back home.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “You mean once we graduate?”
I wasn’t sure why she was being so weird about it. Sure, we had discussed where we would live after graduation and agreed that staying in Bellman was what we both preferred, but if she had a reason to go back home, I wouldn’t be opposed to that. It would put us a little farther from my family than I’d like, but I was willing to go anywhere with Kacey.
“No. I mean right now. I’m not finishing out this semester.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “What are you talking about? You’re a semester-and-a-half away from graduating. You can’t just drop out now.”
Kacey shrugged, picking up a salt shaker and staring at it, rather than looking at me. “I don’t really have a choice. I have to get home.”
I shook my head in frustration. “What does that even mean, Kacey? Why do you have to go home?”
“It’s complicated.”
I stared across the table at her, dumbfounded, not even sure what to say, and praying this was some sick joke.
After a minute of complete silence, Kacey brought her cool, dark eyes to mine. “Don’t worry. I’ll still pay my half of the bills.”
I threw my hands up. “I don’t care about the freaking bills, Kacey. I care about you. I care about us. What does this mean for our future?”
“I still want a future with you.”
I waited for her to say more, but quickly realized that wasn’t happening. I closed my eyes and ran a hand over my temple. “When do you leave?”
Kacey put the salt shaker down and reached across the table to take my hand. “I leave tonight.”
A mixture of anger and sadness built up inside of me. “Tonight? What the hell, Kacey? Why are you just telling me this now? Why wouldn’t you talk about this with me?”
Kacey shrugged again. “I didn’t want to ruin our anniversary. Plus, it was sudden. Kind of a family emergency.”
A family emergency? In the three years we’d been dating, Kacey had told me almost nothing about her family. All I knew was that she lived with her little sister and grandma growing up. While she spoke to her grandma on the phone every once in a while, she didn’t seem to have much of a relationship with either of them. Now, she was dropping out of school for them?
“Can we just enjoy our dinner?” Kacey asked, interrupting my thoughts. “I love you, Kari Adelberg. Nothing will ever change that. Believe me.”
I did believe her. In our whole relationship, Kacey had never done anything to betray my trust. Enjoying dinner would be the hard part.
It would have been even harder if I had realized that night would be the last time I saw Kacey Caldwell.
Chapter 1
“Pst. Pst. Wake up.” A finger tapped on my shoulder at a rapid pace. “Kari, get up.”
I opened one eye and looked at the clock on my nightstand, groaning when I realized it was only 8 a.m. I rubbed my eyes and looked toward the person who dared to wake me up so early on my day off. I groaned again when my best friend’s shaggy brown hair and boyish grin came into focus. “Bo, what the hell are you doing in my house?”
“Your new next-door neighbor is moving in and she is smoking hot.”
I rolled my eyes and turned away from him. “Cool. Go bug her.”
Instead of leaving, Bo pulled my comforter off of me. “Dude, I’m trying to bro out with you right now. Don’t leave me hanging.”
I sat up, realizing sleep wasn’t happening anymore. I raised one eyebrow at Bo. “How did you even get into my house?”
“You gave me a key when I watched this little guy,” he said, patting my fifteen-pound white mutt, Duke, on the head.
Duke lazily licked his hand, and I rolled my eyes at my “attack dog.” I shook my head when Bo’s words registered. “I took that key back from you.”
Bo lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “I made myself a copy. You know. For emergencies.”
“And this is an emergency?”
“Um yeah. We’re over thirty and both still single.”
I picked up a pillow and tossed it at him. “You can have her, man. The chances of her being gay are slim to none.”
“Hey, now. You never know. Plus, she would just be a dine and dash for me, anyway. She’s a single mom. I can’t be going down that road. Kids aren’t my thing.”
That comment earned him a punch to his shoulder. “First of all, she’s a human being, so you can stop talking about her like she’s a meal at a diner. Second, how do you know all of this?”
“You know my buddy, Derek?”
“Douchey Derek?”
Bo’s face lit up as if he was proud of his friend’s nickname. “You know it! He was her realtor, so he learned all this shit about her. I thought he was exaggerating, but nah. I caught a glimpse of her when I was coming in here. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Derek says she really has the whole dark and mysterious thing going on. You’re into that right?”
I groaned at his description. “Ugh. Not since college.”
This time, Bo rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Your college girlfriend broke your heart. Come on, Kari. I didn’t even meet you until like five years after things ended between you two, and I’ve still heard about her multiple times.”
“She was the one,” I breathed out.
“If she was the one, she would still be here.” Bo raised both eyebrows as if he were a father lecturing his teenage daughter.
I glared at him, and he patted me on the head the same way he’d done to the dog. “Who knows? Maybe the hottie next door is actually the one.”
No. Of course she isn’t the one. The point of the one is that they are the one and only. Kacey Caldwell was my soul mate, and even if the only feelings I harbored toward her at this point were anger and hatred, it still didn’t change that. “Doubtful. Plus, I don’t really think it’s the best idea to start a relationship that is destined to fail with the person who literally shares a driveway with me.”