Page 10 of Timid (Lark Cove 2)

Jackson shook his head. “I haven’t had a bitch of a hangover like this in years. The damn thing has lasted all day. Remind me never to do tequila shots, then smoke a joint with the tourists again. I’m a fucking dumbass.”

Ronny and Wayne both laughed.

I did not.

Tequila and weed. That was the taste I couldn’t pinpoint last night. That was the reason for the haze in his eyes. He’d been drunk and high during my first kiss.

“Did you stay out late?” Ronny asked Jackson.

He shrugged. “Not really. I closed up around midnight after the tourists left the bar. Walked home and passed out.”

I stared at his profile, waiting for his eyes to at least flicker my way. He was forgetting a stop on his stroll home. Was that intentional? Did he not want Wayne and Ronny to know he’d even talked to me? Or had he forgotten me completely in his inebriated state?

“You just went home and fell asleep?” I asked.

He glanced over. “Pretty much. Had some crazy dreams though.”

I narrowed my gaze, assessing his expression. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t pretending. He wasn’t omitting pieces of his story.

He really had forgotten.

He’d forgotten the best night of my life. The best first kiss in the history of first kisses.

He’d forgotten me.

The pain nearly knocked me off my stool. Jackson continued to chat with Wayne and Ronny while I stared unblinking at my beer glass. The bubbles collected on the rim, then burst.

Like my heart.

Enough, Willa. Enough.

My friends had told me for years to move on, to forget my schoolgirl crush on Jackson and go after a man who actually knew I existed.

But I’d nurtured and coddled the fantasy for nine years.

I’d finally had enough. This was the kick in the rear I’d needed to let him go. In a way, I was glad this had all happened.

Yep, glad. Super glad.

G-L-A-D, glad.

He was just a silly dream.

And it was time to chase a new one.

As I walked past the school, I glanced across the playground to the dark row of houses on the opposite side. My eyes immediately landed on the staircase behind one of the garages, and a wave of déjà vu hit hard.

Why were those stairs so familiar? I’d never been to that house before.

I shrugged the feeling away. They were probably familiar just because I’d walked down this street three hundred times on my way to work at the bar. I lived two blocks up in the same neighborhood—though my place wasn’t nearly as nice as the homes on this road.

I kept walking but couldn’t help a second glance at the staircase.

It had been over two weeks since the night I’d had five too many tequila shots and smoked a joint with a couple of tourists who’d stopped at the bar. And in those two weeks, I couldn’t get this dream out of my head.

There was a girl. A beautiful girl.

And that staircase.