Mom’s eyes light up and warmth spreads in my chest. I know I haven’t spent as much time with her as I should. Now that the divorce is behind me, I can focus on the things that really matter.

Just because my marriage is over, doesn’t mean my life has to be.

Mom raises her glass of orange juice. “To new beginnings.”

I clink mine against hers and smile.

And to sexy men in suits who I’ll never see again.

Jaxon

My hand searches the spot beside me for Raegan. When I feel nothing but a cold sheet, my eyes pop open. Where is she?

“Raegan?”

Silence.

I flip the covers off my body and swing my legs out of bed. My clothes are in a heap on the floor where I left them, but hers are not entangled with mine.

I shuffle down the hall. “Raegan, you sick again?”

The bathroom door is open, light off. I check the living room and kitchen, but Raegan is nowhere to be found.

As I head back to my bedroom, my gaze lands on a black high heel twisted in the corner of my comforter on the floor.

Huh. That’s a first. Normally, I can’t get the girl out the next morning. But this one? No goodbye. No awkward can I get your number and call you sometime? She left in such a hurry, she didn’t even bother to put on her other shoe. Is she trying to act out some weird Cinderella fantasy?

I reach for my phone on the nightstand. Let’s see if she stored her number before she left.

No such luck.

I crawl back into bed and lay flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling. An odd sense of disappointment settles into my chest. Odd because I don’t know anything about the girl. Odd because we didn’t even have sex. Raegan is nothing more than a random woman I brought home from a bar. I shouldn’t care that she’s gone.

But there was just something about her. Something that made her seem like more than a random woman I brought home from a bar.

Either way, she’s gone, so I head to the shower and go about my day.

Later while I’m changing my sheets, my dad’s picture pops up on my phone. I click the green button and hold the phone between my ear and my shoulder. “Hi, Dad.”

“Jaxon. Just calling to make sure you’re coming to dinner tonight.”

“I’ll be there. Does Mom want me to bring anything?”

“Just your handsome self!” she calls from somewhere in the background.

What is it with parents always talking to you on speaker phone?

“Bring Nana’s ring,” Dad says. “I talked to Harry at work. He said his brother-in-law is a jeweler and can take a look at it.”

“I already told you, I’m not hocking it.”