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Commitment-Land?”
    “Shut up,” I growl. “That’s not what I want right now.”
    “Hey, I heard Cally Fisher’s back in town,” Max calls from behind the counter.
    “Cally Fisher?” Sam asks. “You shitting me?”
    I grab a pair of forty-pound dumbbells. “Yeah, I saw her already.”
    Max grunts. “Did you tell her to fuck off?”
    I drop the weights and turn on him. “Don’t.”
    Max lifts his palms up in surrender. “Message delivered and received, man, but you do remember that she totally burned you, right?”
    How could I forget? “It doesn’t matter anymore. That was a long time ago.”
    Sam chuckles. “Who knew she could still have a hold on you, what, six years later?”
    “Seven,” I mutter, dropping down to the bench to rest my head in my hands. I swear my mind hasn’t stopped spinning since I spotted her lost outside my house.
    “You still want her,” Sam says softly. It’s not a question.
    Max heads over to join us. “Is she sticking around?”
    “Her mom died. She’s here to move her sisters in with her dad, then she’s heading back to Vegas.”
    “That sucks,” Max says.
    One look at my eyes, and Max is backing up. “Fuck. And I thought you had it bad for Maggie.”
    My phone buzzes again.
    “Meredith again?” Sam asks.
    “Probably.”
    Before I realize what he’s doing, Sam scoops my phone off the ground and reads my text, his eyes going wide.
    “That shit’s private,” I protest, but I really don’t care. There’s nothing worth protecting about my relationship with Meredith. But then Sam lets out a low whistle that has me whipping my gaze back up to him.
    “‘This is Cally,’” he reads. “‘Is your offer still good for tonight?’”
    I snatch the phone away from him, half convinced he’s screwing with me, but sure enough, Cally’s message is staring back at me. I punch the call button without hesitation.
    “William?” I would recognize that sweet voice anywhere.
    “Cally?”
    “Yeah. I hope you don’t mind. Lizzy gave me your number. I didn’t want to call in case it was a bad time.”
    Max smirks, but he and Sam head to the other side of the gym so I have some privacy. We’ll give the assholes credit for that much at least.
    “Of course it’s not. Is everything okay?”
    The line is silent for a few beats too long, and I look at my phone to make sure it didn’t disconnect. Then finally, she says, “If you seriously don’t hate me, I’d like to go to dinner with you tonight. That would be…amazing.”
    “Can I pick you up in an hour?”
    “Okay.” Pause. “William?” I love the way my name rolls off her tongue. She takes my very corn-fed, middle-America name and makes it sound almost exotic.
    “Yeah?”
    “Could we go for dinner somewhere outside of New Hope? I just remember how people talk and I don’t want that.”
    There’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to push. Not now. “I know just the place. I’ll see you in an hour.”

    “You look cheap,” Drew says from behind me as I take in my muddled reflection in the old mirror. “Do you really have a date, or are you planning to stand on the corner and give five-dollar blow jobs?”
    I spin on her. “Watch your mouth, missy! You think Mom would want you to talk like that?”
    She lifts a brow, unimpressed by my wrath, and returns her attention to her cell phone.
    With a long, deep belly breath, I turn back to the mirror. She’s right, of course, which just pisses me off more. I brought clothes suitable for cleaning, unpacking, and sleeping. Nothing for a date with the sexiest man I’ve ever met. And as much as I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that’s just a bunch of crap. I was forced to open a box of Drew’s clothes and borrow her black cotton dress—a “favor” she only allowed when I promised I would send her money for a new dress. But Drew is shorter than me and less curvy, so something that looks sweet and sophisticated on her makes me look like a floozy