The breeze ruffles her hair and she pushes it out of her eyes.

“No.”

She studies me and I stand still and let her look me over and work out whatever she’s pondering. She starts walking down the sidewalk and I fall in beside her.

“All those years,” she begins, then stops.

I nod. “Yeah?”

She chews he bottom lip, then, “All those years, when I saw you around town, I'd smile at you and you’d never smile back, you’d just turn away.”

There’s a bitter taste in my mouth. I realize it’s guilt and regret.

“That’s true.”

She’d smiled at me from the time I was seventeen and until the day after I turned twenty-one. Gavin and I had our twenty-first birthday in Romeo. I’d just fought off my father’s second takeover attempt since ousting him from the company. I was in a hell of a mood and Gavin was ready to party. We’d gone and spent the night at the bar—the one and only time I’ve ever gone on a bender. Gavin went home with a tourist looking for romance in the Town of Love. Not me. For some reason, I stumbled out of the bar at four a.m. and fell asleep on the bench outside the library.

Jessie shook me awake three hours later. She was returning a pile of books to the book drop. When I opened my eyes, the sun felt like a knife prying open my skull.

“Will? Are you okay?” she’d asked.

And because I felt like I was going to die by hangover, it was only natural that she looked like an angel. She gave me that slow, cautious smile and I closed my eyes to block it out.

“Should I call someone? Gavin?” The way she said “Gavin,” breathless and worshiping, sent a howling jealousy through me. Gavin was likely in bed on round number six with his birthday girlfriend and here Jessie was, the woman I’d always wanted, here she was, wanting Gavin.

“What can I do to help?” she asked.

Kiss me, want me, I ached to say. But I was bruised and sore from another corporate battle with my father. And the world’s worst hangover and a six-year-long hard-on for this woman, the one who doesn’t want me, made me say bitterly, “You can help by leaving me the hell alone.”

She gasped and I grew angry at my inability to do such a simple thing as be charming.

“I’m not Gavin,” I added viciously. “So stop smiling at me.” She may smile at me, but she beamed at Gavin.

I got my birthday wish. In the years since, Jessie never smiled at me again. I’d loved her smiles. I’d hated her smiles. But I hated it even more when the smiles stopped.

I look over at Jessie and I’m pulled back into the present.