Booth glanced around the parking lot of the Hat Trick Brewery but didn’t see his friends’ cars. That was to be expected. He was a few minutes early. Inside the gastro pub, after giving his name to the hostess and posing for pictures with a few fans, he sat and pulled out his phone.

He’d gotten into the habit of checking Jane’s blog daily, sometimes more than once a day, because her posts appeared at different times. He liked seeing the photos of her. They really were well done and she looked dynamite in every single one. Demurely confident, if that was possible. He didn’t think she realized just how beautiful she was. He also set a Google alert on his computer to notify him when she was mentioned on the Internet. He loved seeing so much positive press about how successful her fashion show had been. Apparently the lingerie orders were pouring in, and he was absurdly proud.

Today, he saw a new post with the headline, “Pink Lemonade Picnic.” Below that was a picture of Jane that took his breath away. She stood in a meadow with her back to the camera. The skirt and top she wore were so feminine, his Y-chromosomes fell to their knees in homage. Her hair was in a loose ponytail and she had a straw sun hat in her hand, the ribbons from it fluttering behind her.

Ignoring the verbiage she’d typed, he scrolled through the rest of the pictures. His eyes paused for a long while on one where she just stood, facing the camera this time, looking down. He could see the tops of her large, full breasts. Her legs were bare and so were her feet in this photo. Sandals dangled from her hooked index finger. Another picture he loved was of her on a picnic blanket. Next to her was a plate of fresh fruit and the camera caught her as she was sipping pink lemonade, her pouty mouth pursed around a straw.

He’d never been jealous of a straw before.

“Who’s winning?” Alex asked, obviously assuming Booth was checking the score of the highly contentious playoff game going on tonight.

Alex Sullivan and Calder Griffin had walked up and he hadn’t even noticed. Once a teammate, Alex had transitioned out of hockey and into sports broadcasting. Calder still played for the Barracudas. He was one of their star forwards.

“I have no idea who’s—hey!” He must have looked guilty as he fumbled to turn his phone off because Alex snatched it out of his hand.

Booth cursed under his breath and prepared himself for the inevitable ribbing.

“What’s this?” Alex asked. “Big Girl Panties? What the fuck, Mac, you have a panty fetish?” Alex handed the phone to Calder.

“Fuck you,” Booth said. “No, I do not have a panty fetish. Big Girl Panties is a fashion blog.”

Shaking his head, Alex raised a brow. “You’re not exactly improving your case here, buddy.”

“Let’s sit down and I’ll explain.”

The crowd went wild as one of the teams scored.

“No, let’s go somewhere else,” Calder said. “This place is a madhouse.”

Half an hour later, they were sitting at a table at a gourmet pizza joint. Their order was in and their beers were being delivered. It was a happy coincidence that they carried Hat Trick beer.

“Here’s to hanging out with the guys,” Calder said.

“Amen,” Alex said as they all clinked their steins.

“This is perfect,” Booth said. “Here we can enjoy the great beer and get away from the noise.”

“Sorry. I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with so many fans,” Calder said. “My agent and I are in talks and what with the baby due soon, it’s been stressful. Becca’s business is here, so we obviously want to stay in San Diego, but we’re having trouble agreeing on the money.”

“What a surprise,” Booth said.

“I don’t miss that part of hockey,” Alex said, sipping his beer. He licked his lips appreciatively. “You know when they first opened Hat Trick, I didn’t expect the beer to actually be very good, but this is really great.”

Booth shook his head. “Me either. I thought it would tank after a year or so, because come on, what do hockey players know about making beer or running a restaurant?”

Calder said, “Yeah, but Slater has an MBA. Dude’s really smart.”

“He has an MBA? Shit. I didn’t know that,” Booth said. Sometimes he felt like a lesser man because he hadn’t finished his degree, but then he looked at the life he led and thought he might not be as book smart as some other guys but he’d done pretty well for himself.

Alex cleared his throat and when Booth looked up, he saw his friends staring at him. “What?”

“Stop stalling. Tell us why you’re looking at a fashion blog,” Calder said.

“Yeah. If you don’t start talking,” Alex said, “I’m going to tweet that you have a panty fetish. And I have forty-two thousand followers.”

“Forty-two thousand? No shit?” Calder looked surprised. He and Booth both pulled out their phones.

“Oh, hey, I have sixty-one thousand,” Booth said. “I didn’t know I had that many.”

“I have fifty-eight,” Calder said.

They both grinned at Alex who rolled his eyes. “For shit’s sake, screw both you guys. We were trying to put Mac the Panty Sniffer on the hot seat, remember?”

“For shit’s sake, I’m not a panty sniffer,” he said a little too loudly. People at nearby tables turned to look, which made Calder and Alex burst out laughing.

Thankfully, their pizza arrived at that moment and they dug in. They’d each gotten a different individual pizza, but all three had no compunctions about reaching across the table and snatching a piece from another guy’s pie.

After they’d assuaged the worst of their hunger, Calder said to Booth, “Okay, so let’s hear it. I have a feeling this is a long story.”

It was pretty much the story of his life, starting from the day he met Jane to the present, and he told it. He couldn’t help himself. Once he started talking, he couldn’t stop. He shared everything with them except the sex details, because he considered that to be sacred ground, not just because it was Janie, but because to him, when a man and a woman got naked with each other, there was an unspoken agreement that what happened between them was just that—between them. After his experience with Janie and seeing how what he’d said affected her, he’d never shared any details with anyone about his sex life.

“So now I find myself checking her blog every day.” Multiple times a day.

Calder signaled the waiter for another round of beer.

“I don’t blame you. She’s sure pretty,” Alex said. “You, ah, don’t happen to have any pictures of her in that lingerie, do you?”

Booth scowled, suddenly realizing there probably were pictures, maybe even video from the fashion show. When he thought about Alex—or any man, for that matter—watching Jane drop that robe, he felt a little riled up.

“You still love her,” Calder said. “That’s what I’m taking away from that story. You’re still in love with her.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m still in love with her,” Booth said. “I was in love with her, but who knows what kind of a person she is now? A lot can change in eleven years. I do know I can’t get her out of my head lately though, and I don’t know what to do about it."

Alex leaned forward. “I know what you need to do. Dude, you need to go after her. This is the part just before the end of the rom com movie. You need to go grovel and beg for her forgiveness and declare your love. I mean, that’s what I did, and look where I am now! I’m fucking married to a beyond beautiful, amazing wife who is so far above my pay grade it’s not even funny. I have a daughter who slays me every day with her cuteness. Did I show you the picture of her eating banana? It’s fucking adorable.”

Calder cleared his throat and Alex blinked. “Oh, okay, right,” Alex said. “Not baby picture time.” He put his phone back in his pocket. “But the rest of it is spot on. Go after her, Mac. She got away from you once before, you can’t let it happen again.”

“But I don’t know if I love the Jane of today.”

Alex waved a hand as if what Booth had said was immaterial. “What you need is a grand gesture. I had a fantastic grand gesture all planned out and I maintain that it would have worked if Claire hadn’t…” He trailed off. “You know, never mind. Doesn’t matter. The point is, chicks love grand gestures. I could name you dozens of movie grand gestures that worked like a charm.”

“That’s the movies,” Booth pointed out.

“And even though they’re called grand gestures, sometimes they don’t have to be all that grand. They just have to come from your fucking heart. That’s the real key. You have to mean it.”

“Sully,” Calder said to Alex, “shut up for a second. You’re jumping the gun. She and Mac haven’t seen each other in over a decade. All that time, you never emailed her or called her…right?”

Booth shook his head. “No, but I thought about her.” She’d been part of his pre-game ritual his entire career. She’d taught him something way back when that he continued to do to this day before every game.

“So it’d be weird if he just jumps in ready to pick up where they left off.”

“Incredibly weird,” Booth agreed. “I did make some strides when we had coffee in that I don’t think she completely hates my guts now, but we’re definitely not to the place where I’ve made enough points for her to take me back, and honestly, I don’t even know if I want that.”

“So just take it slow and find out,” Calder suggested. “Text her.”

“Sext her!” Alex said.

“No.” Calder gave Alex a slap in the head. “Send her funny pictures. Just talk. Reestablish the friendship and once you’re friends, you can move on from there.”

“I guess that’d work,” Alex said.

Booth’s phone made a sound which meant Jane had posted something. He checked it out, trying to pretend it was nothing more than a normal text, and it was a “Coming Soon” post. Jane often talked about post themes that were coming up, especially if she planned to travel. This was one of those posts.

When he didn’t return to the conversation, he said, “Sorry. Jane posted something. She’s going on a trip to Connecticut.”

“What’s in Connecticut?” Alex asked.

Calder scooted his chair over to look at his phone. Alex did too.

“A summer camp for grown-ups?” Booth read aloud as he read the description on the website.

“Interesting,” Alex said. “I’d go to that. Claire and I love to do outdoor things.”

Calder batted Booth on the arm with the back of his hand. “Maybe you should go.”

“Weren’t you the one who just suggested I take it slow?” Booth asked. “In what world is showing up against all odds at the same obscure summer camp taking it slow? The minute she sees me the jig will be up. It would be obvious I’m stalking her.”

“That’s true, but here’s what I’m thinking,” Calder said. “If you go to camp, it demonstrates to her that you seriously want to see if there’s still something there between you. She did have feelings for you too, right, back when you were teenagers?”

A wave of lust and longing swept over Booth as he remembered Jane, naked and straddling him, moaning the words “I love you” as she took him into her body, and how intensely he’d felt everything then. Honestly, he’d always sort of chalked it up to hormones, but the more he looked back, the more he became convinced that it wasn’t his pituitary gland that had been in charge—it had been his heart.

“Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat because his voice sounded rough. “We loved each other. It was mutual.”

“So, like Alex was talking about this is a…subtle grand gesture. It’s a grand gesture switched up to be an opening gambit instead. You take the first step. Wear your heart on your sleeve and give her the power. I think you kind of owe it to her anyway.”

Alex sat there, looking smug.

“I’ll think about it,” Booth said. He had to admit the idea had merit. He did want to let her know he was interested, but this big a move would take further thought. Maybe what he’d do is go to Connecticut, show up at camp and make it plain that if she was uncomfortable with him being there, of spending time with him there—as little or as much as she chose—he’d leave. That seemed reasonable to him. Plus, assuming she wasn’t going to camp tomorrow, he could still test the waters and ease into things with the texting and all that.

Unfortunately, Alex called him the next day. “Dude, I called the camp and they don’t have any vacancies.”

“You what?”

“I figured you were going to chicken out, so I thought I’d help you along.”

“Okay. Thanks?” Booth said.

“But I put you on the waiting list and gave them my credit card number to reserve it. It’ll my early Christmas present to you.”

Booth laughed. “What’s the likelihood someone cancels?”

“Well, I asked that and they said it wasn’t very likely. That’s why I have a plan B,” Alex said.

Booth was afraid to ask. “What’s plan B?”

“You know how people crash weddings? You need to crash the camp.”

“The hell I do. That’s insane. I’m not going to do that.”

“Look, it’s not that crazy. That camp is big. It’s hundreds of acres, lots of wilderness. All you have to do is pitch a tent in the woods, somewhere hidden, and act like you’re a registered guest. Piece of cake.”

“Dude, I am not a mountain man. I don’t even think I could start a fire.”

Alex scoffed. “It’s May. You won’t need a fire. You just need a good sleeping bag.”

“Sully, look,” Booth said, “I appreciate your willingness to help, but this is not happening. I’ll just do what Calder said. I’ll just make friends with her again and take it slow. I’ve waited eleven years. I can wait a little longer.”