Stuck: A Secrets and Lies prequel by Booth, Ainsley (e books for reading .TXT) 📕

Above our heads, the speaker crackles to life. “Our apologies for the long wait, folks. Unfortunately, due to weather and other circumstances, we are returning to Toronto. We should be back in the city by ten o’clock. If Toronto is not home, and you need assistance for the night, please see the ticket agents in the station for accommodation options.”

Hazel makes a sad face as the train begins to move back in the direction we came from. “Well, that’s too bad.”

I refresh my Twitter search. No update on the collision. “Yeah.”

“Will you try to get on one of the trains tomorrow?”

I shake my head. I’m already emailing my client. “This meeting will be rescheduled to the new year. You?”

“I’m going on holiday, and have reservations I don’t want to cancel, so I’ll head out again in the morning. Hopefully the rooms they find us aren’t too far away from the station.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “You don’t live in Toronto?”

She shakes her head. “Stratford.”

I wouldn’t have pictured her as settling in a small town. “Fascinating.”

“Is it?” She laughs. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” I’m smiling now, too.

“Where did you think I’d ended up? Not that I’m assuming you thought of me.”

“I did think of you. From time to time.” My throat gets tight, thick, as I think about the reckless years after graduation. Luke’s ascent to the pinnacle of Bay Street trading, our launch into our own boutique firm. I should have thought of Hazel more often. Remembered the derision she felt for me and taken a lesson from that, instead of learning it the hard way, after risking everything. “I don’t know. I wondered what you were up to. I didn’t think about where, though. In a lot of ways, I froze us in that moment.”

“That night?” She breathes the two words, and heat crawls up the underside of my skin.

“Yeah.”

She blinks slowly, and God damn it, I’d kill for us to be alone on this train right now. For there to be a dark nook somewhere we could replay that night, have another chance at a dirty kiss to test that still very-much-there sizzle. “What do you remember?”

My balls pull tight against my body as I drop my gaze to her mouth. “I remember wanting to talk. It was too loud, and everyone we knew was there, so you didn’t want to get too close right there on the dance floor.”

She licks her lips. “Do you remember what you wanted to talk about? I’ve been trying to figure that out. How that night started.”

“Regan had started dating someone else,” I said slowly. “And that was good. I was happy for her, but it was bittersweet because I’d fucked up and lost a good thing with her. Even if we weren’t meant to be forever, I regretted not being a better boyfriend while we dated. So I was feeling sorry for myself, and her, and then you showed up. You were just…you. Bright. Happy. I couldn’t stay away. And I wanted to find out if you knew about Regan’s new boyfriend. Which is, as I say that out loud right now, an incredibly immature set of thoughts. I know that, but there it is. Welcome to the mind of a twenty-one-year-old shithead.”

“I didn’t know, actually. Not until the next day.” The words slide out like silk, soft and secret.

An unsettling thought burns in my mind. Would it have made a difference? But there’s no point in retracing old ground. “Without putting too fine a point on it, when I’ve thought of you over the years, it’s always fondly as the one who got away.” I smile. “And it’s for the best that you did. It took me years to sort myself out.”

“Really dodged a bullet?” She winks. “I’ve thought about you, too. Not as the one who got away.”

“I imagine not.” I say it dryly, but with affection.

“But that kiss…” Her voice drops to a sweet, husky note. “I’ve thought about that. Where it would have taken us. And never in all of those permutations did I guess at this.” She spreads her hands wide.

“How many permutations?”

Another slow blink. Were her eyelashes always that luscious dark brown tinged with blonde tips? How stupid was I a decade ago that I never noticed? She smiles. “There were some elements of that evening that I’ve used over and over again in my stories. The way you…” She trails off and looks at my hands, then back up to my face.

And she blushes.

But I don’t find out what it was—the way I what?—before the steward returns to collect our dinner trays.

Once we’re alone again, she changes the subject. “Who have you kept in touch with from school?”

“There are people who stayed in the city and got into the business world. I see them from time to time. I stayed in touch with some of the guys until everything imploded. Did a few bachelor parties to Vegas, that sort of thing. But that’s all in the past.” Except for one person. “And I hadn’t been keeping up with Regan, but I wrote to her last year. Part of making amends, the process of repentance, is an honest reckoning of the hurt I’ve caused. She wrote back and wished me well.”

“She didn’t tell me you’d reached out,” Hazel murmurs. “We talk semi-frequently. Follow each other’s lives online.” She hesitates. “She’s married. Did she tell you?”

“Yeah. Two kids. She seems happy. I’m glad.”

Hazel nods. “She is happy.”

“Does she know that I kissed you, back in the day?”

Her eyes blaze. “Of course she does. I wouldn’t have kept that from her.”

No, of course not. My neck flushes and my gut twists in shame.

“I’ll tell her about this, too.” Hazel drags her lower lip between her teeth. “Although now I’m wondering why she didn’t tell me you’d been in contact.”

“Maybe for the same reason I wrote to her, and not to you? You were very clear with me that you didn’t want to