I should have expected it. Maybe I’d been hoping that the fact I changed his mom’s diapers would give me a pass on the past. The angry words he spat out stung badly enough, but it was the fury in his dark eyes that was the salt in my wounds.

“I—uh—”

“What did you say?” Michelle demanded of Marcus. At least one of us had the self-possession not to take that kind of crap from a patient’s family. “What did you just call her?”

It was hard to see the angry flush rising in his olive skin, unless you looked hard—which I did.

“Why is she here?” he spat out.

“She works here.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. This was my workplace, for god’s sakes. And we hadn’t seen each other in ten years!

Carry a grudge, much?

It had been a bittersweet joy to meet his mother again. I hadn’t seen her since graduating high school. Biology, math, chemistry—not a problem. Mrs. Blake’s English class, though, nearly killed me.

The only book I really remembered from twelfth grade was Wuthering Heights, and that was mostly because I sat next to freaking Heathcliff for the whole class.

Marcus sulking beside me would have been distracting, even if I hadn’t been struggling in the first place. Eventually he looked at me, then finally spoke to me. When I knew he was smart, but he didn’t have a lot of friends; being the teacher’s kid was akin to having terminally bad body odor in high school. Actually, he’d smelled really, really good. Some boys showered in body sprays before coming to school, but Marcus just smelled like… he showered.

He stepped toward me now, ignoring the blinking confusion of his mother, and dammit—he still smelled like the football field after a rainstorm.

“Why are you here?” His voice was still low and gravelly, and it still did a number on my nerves.

Michelle tried to protect me. “Serena, you don’t have to—”

I waved at her. “It’s okay.”

Of course, I knew I’d run into him sooner or later; I was just surprised it had taken so long. I’d been home for a few months and in this job for six weeks. Maybe the fog that I’d been in at first, trying to sort out stuff in the house after the funeral, had clouded my—nope.

There was no way I would forget seeing Marcus Blake again.

Clearly he hadn’t forgotten me.

“I work here,” I repeated, in case he still hadn’t figured it out from the scrubs I wore. “I moved back when… recently.” Swallowing hard, I focused on how his eyes had gone from a soft gray to stormy clouds.

In ten years, I’d never met a man so… polarized as Marcus Blake. It was either up or down, black or white. Right or wrong. It seemed he hadn’t changed, but I had.

My own gaze swung up and down him, taking in his clenched fists and jaw. “I am a qualified professional, taking care of your mother—unlike some people.”

I hadn’t realized how close I’d gotten to him until he reeled back, like I’d just slapped him.

Michelle sucked in a breath by the door. Yeah, I’d hear about that later, for sure. My professional qualifications did not include insulting the patients’ family members, but I was hurt and embarrassed and angry—and saying all the wrong things because of it.

Part of me wanted to lean toward him again, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to punch him or just… reach out.

“Serena…”

His voice went straight to some secret part of me that throbbed and ached inside me—half shame and half longing. It was a feeling that I’d thought I’d pushed down and snubbed out since high school. Guess not.

“I grew up in the last ten years, Marcus. Did you?”

“Marcus?”

Mrs. Blake’s voice broke through the crackling energy between us. Maybe it had just taken her a few minutes to remember him. Maybe she recognized the venomous tone of his voice. God, I hoped not.

“I—hi, Mom.”

No. His voice softened, his anger dulled and his fingers stretching out against his thighs. Something inside me melted, as everything about him slid sideways, slanting into something softer when he faced his mother.

Why was I noticing how his pants fit? Get it together, Serena!

Getting to the door would have been easier if he moved out of my way. His shoulder brushed against mine, turning us both to stone. It was like an ice storm had fused us together, furious cold connecting us and freezing us where we stood.

No, I wouldn’t tilt my head toward him. No, I wouldn’t think about the way his breath curled over my neck, below my ponytail. No, I wouldn’t recall the way his hands moved over my body…

I looked up at him. That was my first mistake. Too close. Not close enough.

“Get out of my way,” I whispered.

“You first,” he hissed at me.

My co-worker cleared her throat from the hallway, reminding me that I had a job to do. I couldn’t stand here all day, trapped in the cobra-like gaze of—well, ‘world’s worst prom date’ would be a good way to describe our relationship. My eyes squeezed shut at the memory.

Somehow I broke free, almost stumbling to the doorway.

“Marcus? You’re here for the reunion?”

My hand went to the doorframe at his mother’s question. Of course, the reunion. She was getting a special teaching award, and he was probably in town to accept it on her behalf. Why else would he deign to show up?

“I wouldn’t miss it,” he said behind me. His voice was so slick I almost slipped on it.

“Serena. Serena Rossi.” His mother’s voice was soft in recollection, but I wasn’t sure if she recognized me now, or if she was remembering…

I pasted a smile on my face as I looked back at her. “Enjoy your visit with your son, Mrs. Blake.”

“Thank you, Serena.” I smiled as she winked. She recognized me. Witnessing a patient’s lucid moments gave me so much pleasure, but today it made me nervous.

“You’ll let me cut in for a dance with my son, won’t you?” My stomach flipped at her words. What had he told her, back then? But her voice was soft and amused, so I just nodded.

“Yes, Serena. Save me a dance.”

The tone of her son’s voice was very different.

* * *

To say I was distracted for the rest of my shift would have been an understatement. In fact, I was next to useless. Thankfully, I only walked into two walls for the hour I had left at work.

Over the years, I’d managed to put my memories of Marcus Blake right beside Shakespeare on my mental shelf—both of them largely painful experiences punctuated by blissful flashes of comprehension. Wherefore art thou, guilt and shame? Oh yeah, right there—digging into my chest like heartburn from hell.

Michelle gave me some curious looks, but was too polite to ask me why one of the town’s most celebrated exports wanted me to drop dead. I made it through the rest of the evening on auto-pilot, doing everything I could to avoid Mrs. Blake’s room.

It wasn’t until I parked my car in my parents’ garage then dropped my purse on the kitchen counter, that I realized Marcus was the first person to really penetrate the shroud of grief around me. In his presence, I felt a different kind of pain.

It was nothing compared to the pain I’d caused him, though.

I’d developed a crush on the ferocious, silent boy beside me in English class. Slowly, he’d opened up to me. We became friends—at least as much as you can be friends in high school when you’re from two different cliques. Well, I had a clique of sorts, being on the cheer squad. He was his own clique.

God, I was so stupid back then. So shallow and worried about what other people thought all the time, and those “other people” weren’t worth it.

Being on the squad gave me access to the “popular kids,” but I never felt like I fit in. My parents weren’t rich; my dad was an accountant and my mom worked at the library. I was an only child, and I committed the worst crime a teenager could—actually liking my parents. But when in high school, you play along as best you can—until you get played.

All the school assemblies and PSAs reminding us to respect each other’s differences didn’t have a chance of combatting real peer pressure in action. Like when they looked at me with horror at the news that I was going to prom with Marcus Blake.

“Dork-ass Flake?” Two of the football players in our little group of “popular kids” chortled and bumped fists. But that was one of the more polite names I’d heard them call him.

I laughed nervously along with my friends, not about to tell them how I agonized over asking him to the dance. I was already on the fringes of the group; I didn’t want to invite complete social ostracism.

One of their girlfriends snapped her gum in disbelief. “Seriously, Serena? Omigod, I still think one of these days he’s going to come to school in a long trench coat with a machine gun.”

“Please,” I’d said. “He’s not that bad.”

“I get it.” Brandon—I think his name was Brandon?—had draped himself over Miss Bubblemint and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “It’s a pity thing. Serena here is doing community service. Is this, like, an extra credit thing for English?”

I was silent.

“Maybe Rena has made an arrangement with Blake to blow her freak son for a good grade,” one of the guys suggested.

Still, I remained silent. Disgusted, but silent. They were still falling all over themselves, laughing, as I walked away.

Later I regretted that silence. I regretted a lot of things.

In retrospect, it was amazing that anybody survived the pressure of high school. Everything seemed so damn important at the time, and none of it really was.

It was depressingly easy to relive all those memories here, in the house where I grew up. I’d heard a theory that emotions were tied to places, like a kind of psychic fingerprint. My remorse over Marcus was worn into the grooves of the hardwood floor.

It was no surprise that I tossed and turned in bed, my head achingly crowded. Eventually, I went downstairs and sat in front of the TV. I don’t even know what was on. I would have sworn that I hadn’t gotten any sleep at all, if it weren’t for the doorbell waking me up at a little after eight the next morning.

“Okay, okay. I’m coming.” I pulled down my tank top, which had ridden up my torso, smoothing it down over the old pair of scrub pants that I slept in.

My eyes felt swollen and my nose a little stuffed up, like I’d been crying. Probably hay fever, I thought as I looked outside at the sunny May morning. I startled as the doorbell rang again.

The prickling feeling at the back of my neck told me exactly who to expect on my doorstep. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but my heart still skipped as I saw Marcus standing there, his hands in his pockets and his eyes hidden by designer sunglasses. He looked as though he was about to leave, his gaze focused on a sleek sports car at the curb.

When I opened the door, the expression on his face looked about as grim as I felt. He, at least, looked fresh and well rested. His coal black hair was still damp from a shower, but he hadn’t bothered shaving. He wore the same pants from yesterday, but beneath a black button-down shirt. The sleeves were pushed up his arms, exposing an expensive-looking watch on one wrist and a tooled leather cuff on the other.

I blinked, questions jumbled up in my head. Where did he stay when he came to town? Had he kept his mother’s house? Did he stay in a hotel, or crash with a friend? A woman? Curiosity and bile rose in my throat—both of which I swallowed back.

We must have stood there, staring at each other, for at least a minute. Then I found my voice, and a little of my backbone with it.