"He's totally the chilling type," I say suggestively.

  Kat cackles on her way to shower while I clean up the kitchen, not at all opposed to a day lounging on the couch, reading, watching a movie, catching up on my blog, and checking in with UBoss all with the backdrop of the sparkly scene out the window, quilting the city in a snowy hush.

  *

  The main character in my book Sweetie Pies and Queen Bees makes bad decision after lousy choice. She has me frustrated and disappointed and more than once, I want to throw the book across the room or sit her down and talk to her.

  Love Letters by C.K. Flynn, resting on the table, seems to glitter and flash. I turn back to my book and read another page, giving the main character a second chance. However, she goes back to her crappy boyfriend, who's a despicable cheater. I glance at Love Letters again.

  "Oh, fine," I say, tossing down Sweetie Pies and picking up Love Letters, "One chapter."

  Two chapters in and I'm about a paragraph away from doodling C + N 4Ever in the margin. I can hear him narrating the text in his husky, sexy voice. After a few more chapters, I lose track of time and place when Kat brushes in, her cheeks flushed and her hair mussed.

  I tear myself away from the page.

  She bites her lip, gazes at the ceiling, and says, "He's definitely the total package."

  I raise an eyebrow. "Then what are you doing back here?"

  "I got overwhelmed," she says. "I mean tired. We… It was…I—"

  "You're flustered," I say, sitting up.

  She doesn't deny it. "We watched a really great movie. I'm going back over to watch another one soon. I just didn't want you to get lonely over here all by yourself."

  "Movies? Is that what you're calling fun now?" I ask, sensing she's having sex along with the start of feelings, emotions…Katya! "And you don't have to worry about me. I'm hanging out with C.K. Flynn and his characters," I say, waggling the book at her.

  "C.K. Flynn and," she looks at the cover of the book, "is a fictional author and those are paper people."

  I stick my tongue out at her.

  "I'll just sit here and remind you that humanity exists outside your bookish world."

  I return to my page.

  She mumbles, "It must be a really good book."

  I ignore her because I'm desperate to find out if the main character finds the third letter, which was lost in the mail.

  Kat reads over my shoulder and then fans herself. "Wow, hot scene. " She asks, "Who writes this stuff?" She flicks to the cover. "Oh right, C.K. Flynn."

  "Carrick Flynn Kennely," I say without tearing my eyes from the page.

  "But that would be C.F…." she takes a deliberate pause. "Wait, you're not kidding are you?"

  I shake my head.

  "Carrick, the tall, dashing, muscled Marine is a romance author?"

  "Yup."

  "So Carrick is your actual book boyfriend."

  "No, he's not my boyfriend. He's not even my friend. He's something else."

  "If by something else you mean a sexy beast who you want to sex up—"

  "Katya," I say.

  She holds her hands up in innocence. "I was just reading over your shoulder. That scene is hot. I imagine if he can write with such burning detail…"

  I shoot her a bitch brow.

  "Ooh. You're getting good at that."

  "And you're just horny. Why don't you go back over to Spencer's?"

  Her sigh is fluttery. "Well, you don't have to twist my arm."

  I settle in for a few more chapters of romance in Rome, hardly believing Carrick wrote with such compelling intensity. I hardly noticing Katya singing in the other room.

  Then the book takes a turn. After a minor rift in their friendship, the main character and the love interest finally have their moment—a sexy, blissfully big one—but then he leaves her to struggle through a crisis on her own. My eyes flick from word to word, sentence to sentence. I see myself in the main character, Olivia and Carrick in Xavier. I see us in the story, and I'm humiliated all over again.

  Tears I don't want to shed stream down my cheeks and I sob, lamenting all that happened in the past and last night. Carrick is an asshole, a betraying bastard mongrel. He had no right to write about this, even if he changed the names and identities of those involved. I share the same stinging guilt with the main character and that's all it took to read between the lines.

  Warm fingers grip my hand. "Navy, what is it? What's wrong?"

  I meet Kat's eyes, holding me steady, keeping me from sinking back into the brokenhearted void that nearly dismantled me. The eyes belong to my best friend, a woman who's always been here for me. She deserves the truth.

  I inhale, choking back the cries as words I've never spoken aloud organize themselves on my tongue. "I was best friends with Claire. After she died, Carrick and I got close. Very close."

  Katya wraps her arms around me.

  "We had a moment. Well, more than a moment. It was wrong. It was right." I lost my virginity and something I can never get back. Trust. But he gave me something too. The confirmation that I can't trust guys, at least the ones that aren't the love interests in books. I also came away with a burning desire to kiss him on the lips and punch him in the mouth.

  Chapter 30

  Carrick

  This morning I woke to Blizzard Bob raging outside and my heart melted by a girl who I'd frozen in time, keeping her in the past so I didn't have to deal with my fears.

  I pull on my boots, coat, and hat, heading outside to walk my way to the truth. First, I need to summon courage to embolden me to believe the best is possible because as usual, I fear the worst. She might reject me. She might tell me she hates me and never wants to see me again. She might say we should go our separate ways. She already has. I have to be okay with all of those possibilities, but the hope brightening inside me since that first encounter makes me fear I won't be able to handle anything other than a yes.

  The rumbling plow trucks create furrowed walls where the edges of the sidewalks should be. The shushing of the snow and the scrape of the plow blades are the only sounds against the stillness of the city. I breathe deep, welcoming the peace so that I can think.

  I take a lap around the park, ignoring my cold toes and frigid fingers. All I need are words.

  An older man in a fur cap with earflaps shovels the sidewalk in front of his café.

  "Are you open?" I ask.

  "In this? Ha! This is what we call a regular Saturday back home," he says in accented English.

  I order a coffee, a tea, and select a few pastries from the case.

  "You are good not to let a little bit of snow stop you from leaving your apartment and carrying on with your day," he says, handing me the paper bag. "People can't handle snow. This is nothing. A little storm. They shut down, close up, and lock themselves inside their houses. Everyone thinks, 'Snow day! Save me!'" He pulls the flaps down around his ears and mock cowers, freaking out at the first flake.

  A smile plays around the edges of my lips and I say, "No, this is Saturday."

  He smiles appreciatively and salutes me. "That's right. Enjoy it."

  "I will." Encouraged, I march back into the snow, into Saturday, and balance the paper cups and paper bag in one hand. With the other, I pull out my phone.

  Several palm sweating rings in, Navy answers with a strained, "Hello."

  "It's Saturday," I say.

  The line is quiet, and I worry the connection is poor because of the storm. I hasten past pleasantries. "I'm wondering if I can stop by. I want to ask you something. It's important."

  Nervous static fills my chest at her silence.

  "Yeah. I have something to say to you too," her voice is quiet, even.

  "Can I come by?"

  "Yeah." The line goes dead.

  I tell myself there's nothing to worry about; it's a regular Saturday. A snowy, rare day of peace in the city. Despite what the old guy said, I'm glad everyone stayed home.

  I buzz Navy's apartment, wiping my boots on the mat. I can do this. After everything that's gone on, I owe us a chance. I live with enough regret as it is, but I'll never forgive myself if I don't try to make things right and see what could happen.

  As I make my way down the hall, dogs yap from behind a closed door and her roommate knocks on 7G.

  Her eyes narrow at my approach and she doesn't smile.

  I continue to their apartment and knock lightly on the door. When it opens, I spread my arms to hug Navy, but she turns and leaves me hanging. I close the door behind me.

  "Don't bother taking off your coat," she says.

  "Are you okay? Is something wrong?" I ask, hoping, but not necessarily expecting her to say yes to my question, but certainly not anticipating such a frosty reception.

  "Yes, Carrick. Something is wrong." Her arms fold across her chest and her face is pink and puffy.

  "What happened?" I ask gently.

  "You happened."

  "I don't understand."

  "I got to chapter seventeen, Carrick."

  My face lifts into a smile. "You're reading Love Letters?"

  She chucks the book at me. "I read enough."

  I fumble, but manage to catch it. "You don't like it—?"

  "No, Carrick, I hate it. And I hate you." Her eyes blaze and the words burn a hole in my heart.

  "What? I don't—" I choke out.

  "I don’t appreciate being humiliated all over again. Once was enough, thank you."

  "Humiliated?" My shot at redemption slips between my fingers.

  "Carrick, when you came home for Claire's funeral—" She swallows what looks like a bitter taste.

  "And we were both so upset. I apologized for how everything went with you and Zach."

  "And then later that night we met on the beach and you told me how sometimes tragedy makes us realize important things—"

  "And I confessed how much I cared about you, how I'd always cared about you."

  "You showed me exactly how much you cared by making love to me under the moon and then—"

  "I left because I was joined the Marines and…spending the summer there, back home, I couldn't do it. I wanted to forget everything that happened."

  "Even me," she says in a small voice.

  I want to hold her so badly right now, but we have our adversarial armor on. "No, I freaked out. I couldn't deal with being around my family, dealing with the guilt about how I should have knocked sense into Claire's boyfriend when I had the chance." I scrub my hands down my face. "Not a day passes when I don't wish I could punch that fucker in the face."

  "I just call him asshole," she whispers.

  "He can't hear you. He's dead."

  "Exactly. And so is the past."

  I fear she means us.

  "You left me to deal with it all on my own, Carrick."

  "But what about now? The future?"

  "You ruined it when you left without—I waited for you. I shouldn't have trusted you. Having sex on the night of the funeral should have been a huge red flag."

  Here comes the truth, the one a Marine shouldn't be afraid to admit. I set the book down and inhale. "I got scared, Navy." I sink onto the stool in the kitchen. "I was afraid of what would happen to you if I didn't come back. You'd already experienced the loss of your best friend. What if I didn't make it? What if I'd told you I loved you and then died in a bombing or was shot?" My eyes burn. Hers are wet.

  "Carrick, at least if you'd told me that I would have known instead of being left with questions that chipped away at my heart, breaking it bit by bit. And it was wrong what we did. You leaving was punishment for betraying Claire. When we made The Boyfriend Book she told me we should hook up." She shakes her head. "I told her I'd never ever hook up with you. I promised her. I am the one who broke a promise."

  "Please believe me when I say, I didn't regret or feel guilt over the night we spent together. Claire used to tease me about the crush I had on you. She wanted us to be together."

  The ache in her face flashes to surprise.

  "She always thought we'd be perfect together. She even tried and failed to get me to ask you out, but I knew Zach liked you and I was—it all comes down to fear which is a difficult thing for me to admit."

  "Why didn’t anyone tell anyone anything? I felt the same way." She shakes a notebook in her hand. In bubbly letters, I recognize as my sister's writing, the cover says The Boyfriend Book.

  I toe the wood floor with my boot. "You could have told me."

  "No, I couldn't have." Her voice is a whisper. "I was afraid too. Terrified you might not feel the same way. And then there was the tall, gorgeous, blond cheerleader and the girl on my field hockey team, the redhead that always brought you lunch, the girl with the terrible laugh…"

  I shake my head.

  "And Zach, your best friend. And Claire, I didn't want anything to come between our friendship, but in the end, everything fell apart anyway, not in the way I feared, but much, much worse."

  "I'm so sorry, Navy."

  "I am too. Sorry for the guilt I've felt for having sex with you on the night of my best friend's funeral. I'm sorry for the aching heart I've carried around, wondering why you walked out on me. And I'm really, really sorry to say, I want you to go away. I don't want to see you again."

  I want to ask her why she's sorry, but then the last words catch up with me. "Can't we talk now?"

  "We were talking. I'm done with words."

  I rally. "But I'm not. You only reached chapter seventeen. There's more to go. The ending is the beginning."

  She shakes her head. "I've been embarrassed enough and I'm sorry I've wasted so much time, energy, and tears on someone so insensitive." She steps closer to me, her eyes flaming with anger. She stabs the scar and tattoo on chest and says, "Carrick Kennely, last night I fooled myself into thinking you were the one, but you just broke my heart all over again."

  I capture her finger, twining my fingers through hers, trying to find stillness amidst this fight. The brush of my skin on hers sends a hot thrill through me just like it did when we'd secretly hold hands in my dark living room watching movies. Just like it did when we were at the couple's yoga class. Just like it always has. Our eyes meet and the softness I see fans the flame of hope.

  I pull the envelope out of my jacket and pass it to her. "I'm trying to be brave, Navy. I don't want this to be goodbye. I'll only leave this time if you truly want me to. Otherwise, I'll stay here, with you in your apartment or faraway, in Rome or wherever you want to go until you trust me again, until I have proven to you that the depth of my feelings for you goes back years and years. That I'm no longer afraid of what our families might think or of hurting you. I already have and the pain of that for me is what I've carried all this time. I tried to write it out with a plot twist. I thought you'd see that. The only thing worse than taking a chance and failing is living with the regret of not having tried. I want to try with you, Navy. Please."

  Without opening the envelope, she crumples it in her fist and says, "This is goodbye, Carrick. Leave." The finality of her words keeps me glued to the stool. I'm a fighter. I don't want to let her go. I sit there when the door slams to her bedroom. I'm still seated when her roommate returns, her cheeks blazing and wearing the kind of smile I've only seen on Navy's lips once.

  I already miss that fucking dimple.

  Chapter 31

  The Horizon

  I cry until the snow stops. I cry until Katya finds me in a ball, clutching a crumbled envelope. I cry until I'm out of tears.

  She bundles me up and scuttles me to the train station. I stare out the window as the rough water of the Long Island Sound appears and then disappears behind snow banks and the backs of coastal towns.

  My mind is as blank as the gray sky. I feel washed of color, empty.

  A car waits for me, ferrying me to the Cape.

  I spend several days shrouded in silence as though I left my voice in the kitchen with Carrick, assaulting him with virulent hate and contempt. After what I read in the book, I can't imagine how many other people saw my story in his words. He claims never to have told anyone he authored Love Letters, but there's no reason for me to believe him.

  My room smells like salt-air and the subtle, nose-tingling residue of hairspray and perfume. My sheets are clean, my pillow fluffed. Katya must have called ahead to tell my mother that my complete and utter failure at life was complete.

  My bedroom door creaks open. A plastic tray clinks on the wooden surface of my desk. The curtains whoosh open, and I squish my eyes tighter. The mattress shifts. My mother strokes my arm.

  "It's time to get up, Navy dear."

  I mumble something along the lines of no, leave me alone-I'm never getting up-I failed at life and can't face myself.

  "I understand you're sad, but it's nearly been a week and today is Valentine's Day. You've spent enough time alone, holed up in here."

  Gee thanks, what a gentle reminder.

  "Katya mentioned you'd been going on some dates, but then had a falling out with an old friend after he told you something important." I imagine the string of pearls bobbing on her neck as she swallows. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  I shake my head, mashing it into the pillow. I don't want to talk or think about it, but it's all I can do, going over the battleground and inspecting the casualties until my mind has turned to mush.

  "Listen," she starts, but the door slams into the springed stopper fixed to the trim.

  A solid, mountainous figure stomps in. My sheets whoosh off me and I flinch, tucking my legs to my chest.

  "Honey, you said fifteen minutes. It's only been ten," my mother says.

  I roll over, confused at my father's presence on a weekday afternoon.

  "Enough is enough. Young lady, I think you'll agree that since you came back here you still consider us your parents and as such, I expect your obedience. I command you get to your feet."

  I rocket to sitting and my mother presses gently on my shoulder. "Honey, I don't think this is the time to upset Navy."

  "No, clearly she's already done that to herself."

  "Don’t be insensitive, dear," my mom says.