Reason Is You (9781101576151) Read Free

entertainment. I was drunk and hysterical and attempting to open my car door with a house key, and he charmed me with his arrogant good looks and convinced me to walk home instead. We took the long way by a diner and he sat with me as I bought a hot chocolate and a muffin.
    He was old, I thought at the time. Thirty-one, he told me. Almost twice my age, but he had that sexy, confident, hot-as-hell older-guy thing going for him. He laughed at my bumbled attempt at flirting and told me to drink my hot chocolate. I was too buzzedto notice the other patrons that cut their eyes my way and whispered about
that loony Dani Shane talking to herself again.
Or maybe I was just hardened to being the town joke.
    Call him my guardian angel, or whatever, but he probably saved my life that night. And unlike the others, he didn’t move on. He became my only friend. I won’t deny that my hormone-ridden brain played out more than a few fantasies involving Alex. He was hot for a dead guy, and funny, too. It was easy with him. Instant. Like I’d known him all my life.
    When I left for college at nineteen, he left a white rose on my windshield, and that was the end of it. At the time I thought I’d at least see him when I came home to visit, but no. He was done with me.
    Until that moment, when he chose to chat it up with Riley as a grand entrance.
    With Riley
.
    My head said to walk forward, but my feet went numb. Then he looked my direction, and suddenly I was head-to-toe buzz with blood rushing in my ears. I took a deep breath and attempted normal as I made it down the steps without tripping.
    Riley saw Alex. Riley wasn’t supposed to see people like Alex.
    She had her usual folded-arms-with-one-hip-jutted stance, looking annoyed as hell, while Bojangles circled the yard in a frenzy with his nose to the ground. Alex slowly took off his glasses and locked his blue eyes in on mine with that arrogant little smile of his. I felt heat radiate from every pore.
    “Dani,” he said, low and smooth, and all the breath left me. “My God, look at you.”
    I opened my mouth to say the same thing, that after twenty-plus years he still looked exactly the same, hot enough to melt my shoes. But then the mommy gene stood up and waved and I remembered Riley was there.
    He laughed, a deep throaty sound, as he pointed at Riley.
    “I knew it had to be.”
    A nervous noise squawked from my mouth. Nothing profound like I always imagined it would be.
    “The eyes were the first clue,” he said with a wink.
    Riley frowned, her expression a mix of disgust and wariness.
    “God, you know this perv? He was here on the car watching me and won’t tell me who the hell he is.”
    He smirked. “The sweet, gentle nature was the clincher.”
    I couldn’t quit staring. Alex—right there in front of me. My whole past poured down over me in a whoosh, as I locked eyes with the one person that had made it all bearable.
    “Mom!”
    Riley’s voice jolted me back and I jerked her direction. “What?”
    Her face screwed up in disgust as she studied me. “Ew.”
    “What?” My eyes widened as I imagined boogers on my face or something.
    “God, Mom, could you be more obvious?” she said under her breath as she looked from me to Alex. “What, did y’all date or something?”
    Alex laughed, and I felt my jaw drop a little, and I briefly wondered if my deodorant would hold up to the nervous breakdown coming on.
    “Not exactly, sweetheart,” he said, his gaze hardwired into mine.
    The disgust came back again, as I knew it would.
    “I’m not your
sweetheart
, and you can do googly eyes with my mom all you want but stay away from me.” She turned to go and then threw back over her shoulder, “By the way, it’s summer. The all-black thing is a little Goth.”
    I stared after her, trying to process it, then closed my eyes and willed it all away. I had never once had a three-way conversationwith Alex. No one had ever seen him but me. That whole circus act with Riley had