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bother him. She got the sense he found her angry comments amusing.
    The jackass.
    She shouldn’t care. She’d moved on from that one moment—or so she told herself. She had a special someone in her life and had for a while now. Roger was everything she’d looked for in a man. Steady, reliable, loyal. With a good job and a good head on his shoulders, he was attractive and considerate and respected. They’d been together for just over a year and their relationship was solid.
    So why did seeing West make her feel all tingly inside?
    â€œWhy were you so rude to West?” Delilah asked point-blank, as if reading her mind.
    Harper chewed her lower lip, contemplating how to answer. The truth was too . . . truthful. What made it worse? Delilah used to go with West. Yeah, yeah, it was a long time ago when they’d been in high school, but still. They’d both burned bright together, running through town like they owned it and causing a bunch of trouble before they split.
    Harper wasn’t the type to poach on her friend’s boyfriends, past or present—and especially future. Thinking lusty thoughts about West was normal. Thinking she could turn a single kissing session with West into a relationship was a joke. He belonged to no one. He never really had.
    That was what made him so appealing. Weston Gallagher was . . . wild. Untamed. To her younger, much more romantic heart, he’d been the sort to send her swooning. The fact that she knew the word swooning was a testament to how many romance novels she had devoured over the years, amazing books she’d snatched from her grandma’s hall closet. They’d filled her imagination with all sorts of unbelievably romantic things, and West had become the star in her overly imaginative fantasies.
    She’d crushed on him since her early teens. And it hadn’t helped spending all her free time at the Gallagher household. She saw West constantly. He’d teased her. Tricked her. Made her smile. Made her laugh. Made her sigh in pure, teenage misery when he dated an endless list of girls who were never, ever her. Eventually she got over it and moved on, forging her own way. Though in the back of her mind, that little spark of lust she felt for West never burned out . . .
    And that one night, when for some unexplained reason he’d noticed her— really noticed her—and proceeded to drive her out of her mind with his delicious, wondrous mouth, she’d thought they actually had the potential to be something. He’d drugged her with his mouth. His touch. It was like they couldn’t pry their lips from each other’s for at least two hours. Maybe longer.
    Her skin went hot just thinking about it. They’d been young and stupid, and he’d been a little drunk. She’d been neck deep in a massive crush for her best friend’s brother, and what a freaking disaster that had turned out to be. When she realized he’d left town and never even bothered to tell her? She’d been so incredibly upset. He hadn’t told anyone. Just . . . confessed to Lane and his parents that he was leaving the morning after the party, and then he was gone. Wren had been the one who told her he was gone. At first, Harper had been upset, wondering what she’d done to make him leave.
    Then she got good and mad.
    â€œWe’ve never gotten along,” she finally said, offering Delilah a kind smile. “I know you have a soft spot for him, but the two of us . . . I was always at his house when I was a kid, and he gave me endless grief. He and Holden terrorized Wren and me.”
    â€œBut still. I’ve never seen you talk like that to anyone. Not even Bryan Atkins when he dumped you on prom night right in front of everyone,” Delilah pointed out.
    Harper barely held in the sigh that wanted to escape her. This was the problem with growing up in a small town and never leaving. Everyone knew her secrets. It hadn’t