Chapter 1

You know the worst thing about relationships? Especially once they’ve reached the meet-the-parents stage. Seeing your boyfriend’s bare ass in the back seat of his car while you’re standing outside, realizing the girl underneath him isn’t you.

Ugh. It was gross. Revolting.

For a second I thought I was going to throw up right there—straight onto the hood of his brand-new fucking pickup. And if I’d had a bat in my hand instead of a rolling suitcase, I swear this world would have had one less traitorous ass in it. As it was, all I did was kick the door, yell at my ex that we were done, and run off, losing my suitcase somewhere along the way. I bolted down the campus streets at night, smearing tears and mascara across my cheeks, leaving the parking lot, his stupid promises, and eight months of my life behind me, all of it turning to dust.

Congratulations, Bri Adams, what a brilliant end to a long weekend! You’re single again, all your personal summer plans have gone straight to hell, and the first rule in the honor-roll-girl handbook—“Never invest your feelings in high-risk assets, meaning boys”—is more relevant than ever. A round of applause for the mega-loser!

Grandma had been right when I first showed her Travis’s picture. “Briar, sweetheart, he’s not right for you. That boy’s eyes are too sly. Eyes like that don’t love. They look for someone to prey on. He’s too small-time for you.” Bravo, Grandma. As usual, you were a prophet. Traitor!

The thing is, I’d known from the start that Travis and I weren’t going to work. When he kissed me for the first time, my heart didn’t skip a beat the way it does in romance novels. It just kept lazily pumping blood. Same as with Chad Dwayne at prom, when he got his hand under my skirt and literally drooled all over my chest. Back then my elbow “accidentally” met his nose, blood sprayed, and the excessive salivation stopped at once. But this time I’d told myself, Fine, Bri, you’re no worse than anyone else. It’s time you had a relationship. Besides, Travis is cute. And here we are.

Idiot!

By the age of twenty, I had built myself an impressive list of life achievements:

I’d almost finished advanced calculus with an A.

I could make perfect coffee without a Turkish coffee pot.

I had officially become the heroine of a trashy paperback romance bought at a gas station for a dollar fifty.

Lucky me. Really hit the jackpot.

Thirteen minutes into my tear-soaked marathon, my lungs finally gave out and pleaded, Bri, honey, sure, you run fast, but we are math and finance, not track and field. Slow down, sweetheart. Time to pump the brakes.

My legs suddenly tangled, my determination deflated, and I found myself in front of the only light on that dark street just beyond the edge of campus: Louie’s diner.

The place looked like it had witnessed every stage of student sin since the Vietnam War. But the lights were on, it smelled like coffee, and the bell over the door jingled cheerfully. The mirror on the left showed me, without mercy, what a pitiful sight I was: messy chestnut curls, a red tear-streaked face, and mascara sliding down my cheeks in funeral ribbons. Add the lost suitcase and the feeling that I was the biggest loser in the world, and the picture was complete.

“Oh, here comes another Sunday-night casualty. Come on in, sweetheart!”

An older waitress in a red apron was wiping glasses at the counter—presumably the wife of Louie himself. When she saw me, she waved with professional efficiency.

“Come in, we’re open. Want something to eat?”

“No, I don’t. Could I just have coffee? Please.”

Besides me, the diner held one couple in love, cooing by the window like two people in a mayonnaise commercial. What a nauseating little picture-perfect scene. Someone hand me a bucket. Another guy was asleep in the corner behind an open laptop. His fingers stuck in a plate of half-eaten fries, his cheek flattened against the tabletop, he snored softly. Clearly, studying had caught up with him. And one more dark-haired guy sat alone at the third table, drinking Coke with the expression of someone who’d just found out Earth was flat after all and was being hauled around by goddamn turtles.

I dropped heavily onto the red vinyl booth at the fourth table, folded my arms on the sticky tabletop, and buried my face in them.

Great, Briar. Your first run at a “serious relationship” is complete, and you’re bringing up the rear. Tomorrow at eight thirty, you have applied math with the amazing professor you spent your entire freshman year dreaming of getting, and you’re sitting here like a panda, dissolving into molecules, while your horndog ex-boyfriend is spending the prime of his life having sex with a pretty girl—the only kind Travis ever notices.

I gave a quiet sob. Uuugh…

“Your coffee, sweetheart.”

“Thank you.”

I sobbed again, then again, and time at Louie’s began moving at the same speed as thick maple syrup spreading across a table, looking disturbingly like my tears. The worst part was, I didn’t even care whether Travis was looking for me. What difference did it make now? It just hurt, bitter and sharp, that the dream had collapsed. At some point I’d actually believed he loved me. That I had feelings for him. That the trust between us would naturally turn into something more. You just had to walk that road the right way, avoid the mistakes, and then everything would work out. I was smarter than all the other girls, right?

Except it turned out that understanding hard sciences and understanding guys are not the same thing. Thanks, life. Once again, you’ve proved you teach better than any textbook.

First the couple in love left the diner, giggling and kissing. Then the guy with the laptop woke up. He finished his cold fries with a healthy appetite, tucked the computer under his arm, and spilled out into the street. The only people left in the diner were the dark-haired guy at the next table, the waitress, and me.

“Refill, sweetheart?” The woman appeared beside me with a round glass coffeepot in her hand and gave me a sympathetic once-over. “Yours is cold.”

“Yes, please,” I mumbled, lifting my tear-stained face from my arms. “And… I’ll pay for everything. The coffee and the rent on this booth.”

“How about you, hon?” she asked my neighbor after filling my mug. “Maybe something hot for you too? You’re awfully wilted tonight, Kai.”

The guy at the table across from mine kept sitting there, staring at his fingers and an empty Coke can. He pushed it away and nodded indifferently.

“Sure. Thanks, Mary.”

Another half hour later, the digital clock on the wall showed midnight. I’d managed to delete every photo with Travis from Instagram and block his calls and his traitorous self by the time Mary came out into the small dining room with a bucket and mop. She started wiping tabletops and washing the floor. We kept sitting there, each in our own thoughts, until the waitress’s mop bumped the next table.

“All right, handsome.” The woman adjusted her apron and jerked her chin toward me with purpose. “Move over to this young lady’s table. I need to wash your half of the room. You’re both suffering anyway, so you might as well save me some time.”