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His brow furrowed. "Who?"

"Danielle."

"What about her?"

I pressed my lips together to hide a grin, finding his denial and innocent act adorable.

He looked away. "We're just friends."

"Uh-huh."

"We've known each other forever."

"Right."

"No, seriously. She's been with my best friend since middle school."

Oh. Well. That was an interesting little plot twist.

I looked down the hallway where she'd disappeared. Then back at Dylan. He was staring at his hands. The same man who'd casually listed broken bones like they were baseball statistics suddenly couldn't make eye contact. I didn't know what was going on with Dani and his best friend. But I knew one thing. There was definitely something going on between Dani and Dylan.

And judging by the look on his face and the relief on hers when she found out I was Damon's girlfriend, the feelings were mutual. Given my history with best-friend betrayal, I should've been the first person to object. The last person to root for something like this. But Dani and Dylan weren't my ex and my former best friend. And whatever was happening between them was clearly bigger than either wanted to admit. I was beginning to understand that some feelings couldn't be reasoned away, no matter how inconvenient they were. Or how many rules you'd put in place to prevent them.

My hand drifted to my purse, where the folded agreement with Damon's name on it sat like evidence of a crime. Evidence that I wasn't nearly as good at following my own rules as I'd thought.

33

A ZOMBIE WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Damon

Ten miles.

I'd run ten fucking miles, and somehow, it still wasn't enough.

My lungs burned. My calves were screaming. Sweat had soaked through my shirt, and the pain searing through my left knee told me it was a few steps away from unionizing and going on strike.

But none of that compared to the ache in my chest. I’d woken up this morning and Mikayla was gone. No note. No goodbye. No nothing.

And I was a coward.

Not in the traditional sense. I'd faced down angry bulls, broken up bar fights, and once pulled a calf out of a ditch during a thunderstorm with nothing but a rope and a prayer.

But watching Mikayla Parsons climb into her rental car to drive away? Apparently, that was where I drew the line. Because I knew myself. I'd tell her this wasn’t over. And she'd say it was. And I wasn't entirely sure I could survive hearing it out loud. Rejection wasn’t something I was familiar with and I’d decided we weren’t going to be friends.

So I'd run. Literally. Ten miles of dirt roads, rolling hills, and trying to convince myself that whatever had happened between us hadn't meant as much as I thought it had.

Guess what? It fucking had.

I rounded the bend in the lane, my running shoes kicking up dust as the farmhouse came into view.

And then I saw it. The rental car. White. Compact. Parked exactly where it had been yesterday.

I slowed. Then stopped. My heart, which had been working overtime for the better part of ninety minutes, apparently decided it hadn't suffered enough and kicked into a full-blown sprint.

She was still here. Mikayla was still here. I stared at that car like it might disappear if I blinked.

Maybe she was running late. Maybe her flight had been delayed. Maybe she'd decided she couldn't leave without saying goodbye.