The golden boy’s Bluetooth speaker accidentally disconnected, broadcasting his phone’s audio across the architecture studio before anyone realized what had happened. A woman’s voice floated from Declan Vaughn’s phone, low and intimate. “Baby, I’m freezing.”
Chapter 1
Declan lunged for the screen. Too late.
Half a dozen guys around the drafting tables burst into laughter. Someone whistled. Another called, “Come on, Vaughn. Don’t cut off the good part.”
Declan, captain of the university soccer team and the kind of handsome young man professors forgave before he apologized, recovered quickly. He grinned and held the phone against his chest.
“The rest is private.”
“Who is she?”
Declan leaned back against a desk. His eyes slid toward me for only a second.
“Some ice queen who finally decided to thaw.”
The room laughed again.
I didn’t.
I knew that voice.
Eden Monroe and I had lived three houses apart since we were nine. I had heard that voice whisper answers during high school exams, shout at Little League games, argue with her father, sing off-key in my mother’s kitchen, and call my name from a hospital waiting room when I broke my wrist at seventeen.
I had loved her almost as long.
And that voice had belonged to Eden.
Before I could decide whether I wanted to leave, the studio door opened.
Eden walked in carrying her laptop and a paper cup of black coffee. She was twenty-two, sharp-featured, self-contained, and already running a medical technology company out of rented office space downtown. She had the kind of focus that made people move when she entered a room.
Declan crossed to her immediately.
“Eden,” he said, suddenly sheepish. “Tiny problem.”
She looked at him.
“That recording from Friday night? It accidentally played.”
His ears turned pink in a way I had learned not to trust.
Then he glanced at me.
“Maybe you should explain things to Jude. You know how he gets.”
The mention of Friday struck harder than the recording.
Friday had been my birthday.
Eden had promised to meet me.
She never came.
Her eyes found mine. Instead of embarrassment or apology, I saw irritation.
“Jude,” she said, “you know me. Whatever you’re thinking—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
My voice surprised even me.
Eden stopped.
I closed my sketchbook and slipped it into my bag.
“You’ve told me plenty of times we’re only friends. Friends don’t owe each other reports on who they spend Friday nights with.”
Declan stepped between us.
“See, this is what I mean. Why does everything have to become a scene?”
“I’m not making one.”
“You always do.” His voice softened with theatrical concern. “Eden told me your jealousy is wearing her out.”
That one landed.
Not because I believed Declan.
Because Eden didn’t correct him.
For years, I had been the one waiting outside her meetings with dinner when she forgot to eat. I proofread investor presentations I barely understood. I drove her father home after surgery. I answered calls at two in the morning when her software crashed.
And apparently, somewhere along the way, devotion had become a burden.
I pulled the strap of my bag over my shoulder.
“Declan’s right about one thing.”
Eden’s expression changed slightly.
“I’ve been bothering you.”
“Jude—”
“I won’t anymore.”
I walked out before she could answer.
At eighteen, Eden had promised me that once we got into the same university, we would finally give us a chance.
At nineteen, when I reminded her, she barely looked up from her laptop.
“Do we have to put a label on everything right now?”
At twenty, she said her company was too fragile for distractions.
At twenty-one, she said I should stop pressuring her.
So I waited.
Then Declan appeared.
He needed rides. He needed advice. He needed help preparing for interviews. He lost his wallet. His car broke down. His ankle hurt. His apartment flooded.
And Eden, who rarely had twenty minutes for me, always seemed to find hours for him.
By Monday, campus gossip had turned me into the fool who couldn’t accept that Eden had chosen someone else.
I avoided them until Thursday, when I found them crossing the quad together.
Declan spoke first.
“Jude, don’t read into this. I lost my driver’s license. Eden was going downtown anyway.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
I kept walking.
Eden caught my sleeve.
“You blocked my number.”
I looked at her hand, then at her face.
It had taken her six days to notice.
“My phone was acting up.”
Relief crossed her features.
Then, as if we had stepped back into our old roles, she reached into her purse and pressed a black credit card into my hand.
“Do you need money? The PIN is your birthday.”
The words hung between us.
Her face went white.
“My birthday,” I repeated.
Eden closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
Declan shifted uncomfortably.
“I forgot,” she whispered.
I handed the card back.
“It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t.”
She pulled out her phone and began canceling meetings.
Declan stared at her. “You have the investor presentation this afternoon.”
“It can wait.”
“For a birthday dinner?”
Eden looked at me.
“This matters.”
That simple sentence woke up every stupid hope I thought I had buried.
We went to Romano’s, a little Italian place where we had eaten after high school football games and bad report cards. Eden ordered my favorite pasta. She asked the waiter for cake.
For ten minutes, I almost believed we were finding our way back.
Then she put her phone beside her plate.
Its screen lit every thirty seconds.
She checked it every time.
Finally, I asked the question I had been carrying for almost a week.
“If you forgot my birthday, why did you text me Friday night and tell me to wait in the alley behind Fourth Street?”
Her eyes lifted.
“What?”
“You told me to wait there. You said you had a surprise.”
Before I could say more, her phone rang.
DECLAN.
Eden answered immediately.
“What happened?”
She listened, stood, and grabbed her coat.
“I’ll be right there.”
I stared at her.
“Eden.”
She hesitated.
“He needs me.”
Then she hurried outside.
I watched through the restaurant window until she disappeared into a cab.
The waiter brought out a slice of chocolate cake with one candle.
“Should I wait for your friend?”
I looked at Eden’s empty chair.
“No.”
Outside, evening traffic moved under the streetlights. Inside, the candle burned lower beside a plate that had already gone cold.
For the first time in ten years, I understood that Eden wasn’t the person leaving me behind.
I was the one who had to decide whether to keep waiting.
