Page 26 of Prime Time Romance

“Luce. You nearly gave me a heart attack,” I whisper-yell.

She rolls her eyes. “I think you’ll survive. And it’s nice to see you too. It’s been awhile.”

I stare at her for what is probably a good three seconds past normal, still absorbing this brand-new idea that I am now Sloan Edwards, and so far, none of the characters seem to find that weird at all. Like Pop, Luce doesn’t look fazed to have been plopped back into Carson’s Cove life. If anything, she looks relaxed. Dressed in a pair of cutoff shorts and a simple white T-shirt, she has her black hair pulled back into a long, glossy ponytail, and her skin is a deep golden brown, as if she’s spent some time in the sun recently. She’s aged in the last fifteen years, for sure. Her body is a little curvier. There is a sharper cut to her cheekbones. If anything, she’s even more beautiful than she was at eighteen.

“It’s nice to see you too,” I answer, unsure how to navigate things with Luce. She and Sloan weren’t really friends. Luce was Poppy’s rival at everything from class president to cheer captain, and with Poppy as Sloan’s designated ride-or-die, it made Luce her adversary by default. There was a time during season three when the two characters got along. They both applied for a program director job at the Carson’s Cove Sailing Club, and instead of making them compete for the job, the general manager decided the two should split it. Luce and Sloan bonded over their shared loathing of the rich jerks who treated them like second-rate citizens, but that camaraderie faded early in season four when Spencer formed a crush on Luce.

They only dated for a couple of episodes before they broke up because they had sex. The entire school found out when Spencer told Sloan, and then Sloan in turn wrote this deep, heartfelt poem about the whole ordeal, which Poppy accidentally lost, resulting in it being read by the halftime announcer at the school football game.

Sloan was rightfully devastated by the whole situation but had pretty much moved on with her life by the end of season four, when it was clear that Spencer and Luce were just friends again.

Sloan is sweet and forgiving.

I, however, can hold a grudge.

“I heard you were back in town.” Luce makes a show of giving me a once-over. “Carson’s Cove’s favorite sweetheart has come home. It’s been all anyone can talk about.” She takes a step forward. “So, what’s your plan? Is this a permanent thing or a stop until you move on to bigger and better?”

The tone of her voice is so breezily nonchalant that I can’t tell if she’s genuinely curious or making a backhanded comment. Either way, I don’t know how to answer this question as Sloan. I can’t even really answer it for myself.

“No definitive plans quite yet,” I hedge. “I have some unfinished business I need to figure out. I guess it depends on how long that takes me.”

Luce narrows her eyes, but there’s a smile on her lips as if she’s about to laugh. “Some unfinished business, huh? Well, I guess I better let you take care of it. Hey, Spence—” She nods at someone over my shoulder. “Look who I ran into.”

She shifts her gaze back to me. “I’ve got to take care of some business of my own, so I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

She winks at me before heading out the door.

“Sloan? Sloan Edwards, is that you?”

His voice is so deep that it pierces my chest, sending waves reverberating through my entire body.

Closing my eyes, I turn to face him, not yet mentally prepared for what is about to happen.

When I open my eyes, he’s there: glowing like an apparition. Blue eyes. Blond hair. An NBC demigod, so beautiful that I’m sure I’m imagining him.

“It is you,” he says. “I can’t believe it.”

As I blink, I realize that the ethereal glow is coming from the ice-cream flavor display sign behind him. But the man is real.

He holds out his arms.

I crash into them. Real and solid, he holds me tight to his chest.

He smells of ocean breezes. Of sunshine and hope.

Spencer Woods.

We embrace for what arguably are the best four and a half seconds of my entire life until he pulls away and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“I can’t believe I’m running into you like this,” he says, completely oblivious to the fact that I just drooled on his shirt.

His hair is a little longer than it was on the show, and there are a few fine lines on his forehead, but he is so undeniably Spencer still that I feel like I’m going to cry.

“How are you?” he asks. “What have you been up to? My god, it’s been, what? Fifteen years since we last saw each other?”

I swear to god, his eyes are the same shade as the ocean outside.

“Are you sure?” I play dumb. “It can’t be that long.”