A Little Too Late

Sarina Bowen

Contents (78)

A LITTLE TOO LATE

SARINA BOWEN

Tuxbury Publishing LLC

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover design by Sarah Hansen of Okay Creations.

1. Cheerful Mountain Goats

2. Less Dancing and More Snow

3. Middlebury College, Vermont

4. Not Exactly Scandalous

5. Posh Industrial

6. Eggplant Jokes

7. Skittish Kitten

8. Yes, He Definitely Got My Drunk Text

9. The Sliding Scale of Hotness

10. Double Screwed

11. The Da Vinci of Underwear

12. Captain Filthy Mind

13. Stick With The Usual Favorites

14. People Get Restless

15. Are We Really Doing This?

16. Anyone Get it on Video?

17. Like the Caribbean Sea

18. Big No No

19. An Ocean of Mercy

20. The Right Kind of Screw

21. Polish and Brighten

22. Sniper Speed

23. Such a Grind

24. The Tavern on Hicks

25. Part Mermaid

26. Never forget a woman

27. I just jinxed us

28. Some saves are guesswork

29. You could do this professionally

30. The Twist

31. A little safety pin

32. Nowhere to hide

33. Ice Ice Baby

34. The Whole Catholic Thing

35. Zambonis

36. Hockey stop

37. The Tavern Again

38. The Shots you never take

39. Gretsky was right

40. Marry Me

ONE

Cheerful Mountain Goats

Reed

There’s snow on the ground in Colorado. It must be fresh, because it’s still white and fluffy, and it coats every pine bough at the side of the road.

I haven’t seen snow in a while. And I haven’t seen snow on this road in ten years.

“Reed?” my assistant’s voice prompts. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. I’m listening.” Sort of.

“What do you want me to do about the lunch tomorrow with those friends from Stanford?” Sheila asks as I coast down the two-lane highway in my rental SUV.

“Just postpone it.” The curve of the road is so familiar, even after all this time. It’s trippy.

“You postponed that lunch already,” she points out. “So I’m going to tell them to go ahead without you. That reservation at Four Palms shouldn’t go to waste.”

“Then why did you even bother asking me?”

“I thought I’d give you the chance to do the right thing.”

I roll my eyes. Sheila is a pain in my ass, but I’ll be lost when she goes back for her MBA next year.

She knows it, too, which is problematic.

“Next up—Prashant is concerned that Deevers hasn’t signed the paperwork for this new round of funding.”

“Deevers will sign. He’s a contemplative guy. Likes to sit a moment with big decisions. Give him a couple more days before you nudge.”

“All right. Last thing,” Sheila chirps as I slow down in anticipation of the final turn. “I’m not telling Harper that you have to cancel Friday’s dinner. You have to call her yourself.”