My body goes rigid. I hope my eyes go cold. I move to stand, to get my butt off the grass and get out of here before he comes over to make that dumb, smiley small talk of his, but Jordan grabs my arm, her eyes still trained on Bradley as he enters the field with a giant grin pasted on his face, all the way up to his grey eyes, creased happily in the corners. He runs a hand through his unfortunately stunning, windswept light-brown hair that sneaks past his ears, all overgrown and wavy. For a fleeting millisecond, I can’t blame Jordan for staring, but the millisecond is over almost before it begins.

I turn away, attempting to take my friend with me. ‘Jor. Jordan, it’s time to go—’

‘Hey, May!’

Great.

I swivel back and make sure I shoot a glare at Jordan on my way around before my eyes land on the man himself.

‘Manmayi Velasco,’ he calls, still wearing that dumb grin.

He’s significantly taller than I remember, which is not unexpected, considering it’s been just about five years. Last we’d met, he had just started to get taller than me. I don’t love the fact that even if he sat down beside me now, I’d have to tilt my chin up to look him in the eye.

He saunters over to the bleachers where we’re packing our things up, and the rest of the girls, unhelpfully, are about as gobsmacked as I am. Someone has to say something before I burst a blood vessel.

Unfortunately, that someone is CJ Bradley.

He rocks back on his dumb polished boots. Boots. He can’t have been on Oklahoman soil for more than twenty-four hours. With a tip of his head, he says with a smile much bigger than this situation calls for, ‘It’s been a minute, huh?’

Well, hot damn, it’s been more than a minute, and this fool is acting like we just saw one another last month. I’d like to call him out on it, but I’m not sure if I’m capable of forming words in my anger right now. I don’t think it’d benefit anyone even if I did try to form words.

‘You stayed,’ he continues with an air of pride. Pride? Who gave him the right? He didn’t stay. He jumped ship the second he got the option. He had the chance to come back, and he deliberately turned it down. What the hell is he so proud of?

I grit my teeth. ‘CJ—’