For the first forty minutes of my shift, I went through the motions—scanning tickets, filling buckets with popcorn, trying to shove Blake’s voice out of my head. Trying to forget the way his face looked when he told me he had been too busy loving me.

Like it was some tragic, inevitable thing.

Like I was supposed to feel sorry for him.

I gritted my teeth and slammed the cash register shut a little harder than necessary.

“Geez, you look like you’re ready to commit murder,” Riley commented, lazily stirring a cherry slushie with a straw.

“Want to be my first victim?” I asked sweetly.

“Hey, I’m just saying.” She gestured vaguely at my posture. “You’ve been out of it all night. Your energy is all—” she waved her hands around dramatically, “—off.”

“It’s not off.”

“Beverly, you handed that guy ten dollars in change for a five-dollar bill.”

I groaned, rubbing my temple. “He didn’t give it back?”

“No, he did, actually. But only because he has a crush on you.” She slurped her drink loudly. “Anyway, guess who gets to clean up the disaster in Theater 4?”

“Not me,” I said automatically.

“Yeah, see, I already called it. Enjoy the mess, babe.”

I scowled. “You’re the worst.”

“Love you too.” Riley winked, hopping off the counter.

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a broom and made my way toward the dimly lit hallway, expecting the same mess I always found: a sticky floor, stray candy wrappers, and popcorn scattered across every surface—the kind of mess that made me question whether people were raised in barns.

What I wasn’t expecting? Blake. He was sitting in one of the empty theater seats, his long legs stretched out in front of him, looking way too at home for someone who did not belong here.

My fingers clenched around the broom handle like a weapon. “You’re not scheduled today,” I said, my voice perfectly flat.

He was wearing a white T-shirt, the sleeves snug around his arms, and gray sweatpants slung low on his hips. He looked like sin and regret wrapped in the kind of nonchalance that made me furious. I exhaled sharply through my nose, scanning the room for any sign of the “mess” I was supposed to deal with.

But there was nothing. Nothing. No spilled popcorn, no overturned sodas, no abandoned napkins crumpled on the seats. The place was spotless.

My gaze snapped back to him. “Did you⁠—?”

The opening credits of Clueless flickered to life on the screen.

The last time we watched it, I had been curled up in my bed, too angry to admit I had missed him, too stubborn to let him fix things with a VHS tape and his hand in my hair.

My heart skipped a beat in spite of myself, that familiar ache creeping back into my chest. “You planned this? You can’t just⁠—”