Just then, the door chimes again, and I sigh a breath of relief. “Stacy, you jerk! You left me in here naked without my clothes! Just for that, I get to wear your red dress to the rehearsal dinner.”

I wait for her teasing laugh, but instead, a rumbling voice comes that makes my world tilt. “You’re naked on the other side of that door?”

My stomach drops through the floor. Ryan. Does he have some sort of radar that goes off when I’m in the middle of a humiliating moment? Maybe if I just stay really quiet, he’ll think he was hearing ghosts.

“June?”

I hold my breath.

“June, I know you’re in there.”

Shoot. I need to throw him off my scent. “Umm, no hablo…eagles.”

“Your Spanish is just as bad as it was in high school.”

Time to bring out the big guns. I assume my very best ghost voice this time. “Whattt do you meannnn? I’m just a ggghooossttt.” Someone sign me up for a part in A Christmas Carol because I nailed that ghost voice.

“So you’re a Spanish ghost now?” He sounds closer. I swear, if he looks through that crack, I will find a pair of trimmers and shave a stripe right down the center of his gorgeous hair.

“Yessss—I mean…siiiii.” It’s in this moment that I think I might have finally cracked under the pressures of life.

Ryan is quiet for a minute, and I’m hoping that maybe he left. But that’s ridiculous because I never heard the door chime. I would give anything right now for a magic blue genie to pop out of a lamp and give me three wishes. For the first, I’d selflessly ask to end world hunger. For the second, I’d give Ryan a permanent green booger that always hangs out of his nose. For the third, I’d beam him away to the farthest speed-dating service and lock him in for a million years, forcing him to go round and round a table of prying women until he loses his mind.

I peek through the crack in the stall door and find that Ryan has moved across the room and is leaning his shoulder against the adjacent wall, gaze cast down to his crossed boots. He’s facing away and wearing a plain white T-shirt that stretches across his back muscles flawlessly. Those dark jeans make his butt look way too good, and I’m not even a butt-admiring type of girl; however, even I can admit that his is something to behold. He’s also wearing a baseball hat, and from this position, I can see the ends of his hair curling out the bottom. He looks relaxed and effortlessly sexy, and I want to kick him.

“So why are you naked in there?”

I step away from the crack in the door. “I’m not naked. I’m wearing my…underclothes, but that rude woman stripped me out of my dress before she and Stacy left me in here to rot.”

“Underclothes? Are you in the nineteenth century?”

“I wish I were, because then YOU would be a gentleman and offer to bring me my T-shirt and jeans.”

His low chuckle rolls over me. “I’m definitely not that.”

“Ugh. I hate you.”

“I know. You told me that last night. Repeatedly.”

My face flushes at the memory of him driving me home, carrying me into my house, tucking me into bed. I hope to goodness that he won’t bring up what I said last night, but of course he does, because he’s evil. “You also told me a few other things last night. My favorite was that you wished I had ki—”

“Stop! I remember what I said. It was the alcohol talking last night, nothing more.” I hope lightning doesn’t strike me. “Now, will you shut up and give me my clothes so I can come out?” I hear his footsteps, and hope blooms in my chest.

“So what you’re saying is, you’re stuck in there until I give you your clothes?”

I don’t like the mischievous lilt to his voice. Not one bit.

“Uh…maybe. Why? Are you going to set fire to the building? Try to smoke me out so you can see me in my underwear?”

He chuckles. “Nope. Even better.”

Chapter 7 Ryan

I hear June audibly swallow. It makes me smile. “If you want your clothes back, you’re going to have to answer a question for each article of clothing.”

“You little sh—”

“Ah-ah-ah. I wouldn’t be rude to the host of the game if I were you.”

She groans. “Why are you just as annoying as an adult as you were as a teenager? I thought men were supposed to grow out of their obnoxious phase.”

“Most do. I chose to grow into mine.”

I find it interesting (and disappointing) that June still hasn’t realized that I only teased her so much back then as a way of flirting. More than once I contemplated confessing my feelings for her, but her hatred felt like an insurmountable obstacle. There was no use telling her I was wild for her, because I’m fairly certain she was wild for my blood—spilled all over the pavement with a chalk drawing outlining it.

“Ryan…” says June. “Do me a favor? Eat glass, will you?”

“Oh, come on, June Bug. Can’t take the heat of a few get-to-know-you questions? Fine. You could always just come out and get your clothes yourself.”

There’s a long pause followed by the sound of her forehead banging against the stall door. “What’s question number one?”

I grin. “Number one. How much have you missed me on a scale of one to ten?”

“Negative fifteen. Next question.”

I toss one of her socks over the door. “Number two. What’s your biggest fear?”

“That I’ll have to see you again tomorrow.”

I put my hand over my heart even though she can’t see me. “Wow. That one hurt.”

Her fingers raise above the stall’s wall and she wiggles them. “My other sock, please.”

After throwing it over, I lean back against the wall and fold my arms, preparing my next question. “If I had asked you out in high school, would you have said yes?”

This should be a movie moment. One of those scenes where she laughs and admits that she would have said yes in a heartbeat. Needless to say, that doesn’t happen.

Instead, she lets out a bark of laughter and says, “Absolutely not. Because number one, it would have ended up being another one of your pranks. And two, I was too good for you back then.” I can hear the smile in her voice and imagine her sticking her nose up at me.

I toss her shirt over. “Then tell me this, June Bug. If you’re so much better than me, why are you still single?” I’m smiling in the silence, waiting for her zingy comeback, but the more time that passes, the more my smile fades. “June?” Shitt. I’m not totally sure, but I think June is sniffling in there. I press my ear against the side of the stall to listen closer. “Are you…crying?”

A sharp sniffle. “NO. Just…” She’s definitely talking through tears. “Ugh, Ryan, can you for once do something nice for me and just give me my damn clothes?!”

The urgency in her voice shocks me. June—the bold, give-it-right-back woman—has a tremble in her voice that I’m pretty sure is because of tears streaming down her cheeks. I feel horrible. The worst of the worst. What I thought was good-natured teasing is making her full-on cry. I didn’t mean the question seriously. If anything, I was just trying to fish around and find out about her dating history. Somehow, I managed to strike a very sensitive nerve—one I would have never intentionally hit.

Without hesitation, I toss June’s jeans into the stall. Neither of us speaks during the time it takes for her to dress, because I’m not sure what to say, and I don’t think she wants to say anything. But I do manage to run this scenario over again and again in my mind at least fifteen times and wonder how it tore her up so quickly. I would have expected June to march out in her underwear and kick me in the crotch for saying something that hurt her feelings before I expected her to cry. But it’s becoming more and more clear that June is not the same girl I used to know. She’s a woman who has a history I might never get to learn about.

A moment later, the door to the stall flies open, and June barrels out—more representative of the woman I was anticipating than who she was in that changing room. Gone is the vulnerable June from a moment ago. She squares her shoulders and levels me with white-hot anger.