Lucas sighed and leaned closer. “Look Riley, as much as I enjoy trading barbs with you—or at least receiving all of yours—it’s been six months. Don’t you think it’s time we make amends? Or if not amends, can we be friends? Something?” He lifted his hands in a supplicating gesture. “I’m sorry about everything, and I want things to be better between us. What do I have to do?”
The answer to that, unfortunately, was to time travel and make different choices—to be the sort of boyfriend who’d been faithful.
And then, even though she hated thinking about that time, it all came back in a rush.
When Riley moved to Lark Springs at the end of her sophomore year of high school, she’d had a crush on Lucas from the first time she laid eyes on him. A large percentage of the girls at Lark Springs High were either Team Lucas or Team Jace in their crushes. Jace was the quieter, more studious one, and Lucas was a flirt and an unrepentant prankster.
Riley had loved Lucas for his confidence and humor, for the way he refused to be too serious in class and made everything more fun.
He never noticed her. Not really. He was a year older and constantly surrounded by adoring girls.
Two months before he graduated, he started dating Winter Harris—homecoming queen, beauty pageant winner, and the undisputed prima donna of the senior class. She went off to college and bigger and better beauty pageants, and he joined the police force and stayed in Lark Springs, but the two still had a long-distance relationship. Then after three years of college, Winter dumped Lucas for the son of some rich tech oligarch.
Riley may have secretly rejoiced when she heard the news.
It wasn’t long afterward—and therefore fate—that Lucas pulled Riley over for going ten miles over the speed limit in a school zone.
“No junior high kids are around,” she said when he came to her window to chastise her. “I would’ve seen them and stopped.”
He glanced at her over his sunglasses, unimpressed. “The speed limit still applies.”
“It’s the middle of the day,” she pointed out. “All the children are safely tucked behind their desks. I couldn’t hit one if I tried.”
He wrote something on his pad. “This isn’t the debate team, Riley. You don’t get a rebuttal.”
She was surprised he remembered that she was on the debate team. “Okay, debating was never your thing. How about I challenge you to a game of racquetball? Winner gets out of paying the ticket.” She played racquetball once a week. She could beat him.
He tapped his pen against the pad, and she thought he was about to lecture her for trying to weasel out of the fine, but his all too familiar smirk appeared. “Make it basketball and you have a deal.”
“Basketball? You were all-state in basketball.”
“I might let you win. You never know.”
“I went to every game. You never let anyone win.”
“Every game?” He nodded appreciatively. “I might give you a couple of points for being such a dedicated fan.”
She coughed. Lucas’s ego hadn’t changed since high school. “I wasn’t afan. I had to go because I was a cheerleader.” She put her hand to her heart. “I’m wounded that you don’t remember the sacrifices I made to cheer you on. You can make it up to me by ripping up that ticket.”
His eyebrows drew together. “Wait, were you actually a cheerleader?”
Good. He didn’t remember that no, she hadn’t been. She’d been on the pom team. She’d still been at the games, still done all the hard choreography, but without the glamor of a cheerleading title.
“The fact that you don’t remember is only making this worse. I stayed up late baking cookies for the team. Now in order to make it up to me, you’d better take me out to dinner as well.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
His grin grew. “Fine. We’ll play to see who pays the ticket, then I’ll take you out to dinner to apologize for never giving you the attention you deserved.”
“Finally,” she said. “I can rest assured that learning how to do the splits wasn’t in vain.”
That basketball game, it turned out, was a memorable one. Neither of them played by the rules. At one point, she swiped the ball from him, and he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. Another time, he backed her up against the basketball pole in an attempt to take the ball from her.
“Are we out of bounds?” she asked.
“Probably.” He leaned down and kissed her.
It was magical. It was all of her high school wishes coming true.
Those sorts of memories would only make her weepy and sullen. They reminded her of all that could’ve been but wasn’t. It was better to concentrate on the other memories.