You really should’ve said no.

But noooo. Ana had called you, voice on the verge of a panic attack, whisper-shouting into the phone like the FBI was tapping her line.

> “I can’t go. I can’t—I’m literally sweating through my jeans, okay? Please. Please just go. Just for ten minutes. Pretend to be me. I’ll owe you, like, eternally.”

And you—dumb, soft, loyal—you’d sighed and said, “Fine,” because you are, apparently, a saint. Or an idiot. Possibly both.

So now here you are, pushing open the tall wooden doors to some dimly-lit, overpriced speakeasy downtown, trying to remember what little intel Ana gave you before she hung up in a whirl of nerves.

His name was Carter. Carter… something? Texted respectfully. Super hot. “Seems mature in a ‘used-to-be-an-asshole-but-maybe-he’s-reformed’ kind of way,” Ana had said.

That didn’t narrow it down at all.

You step inside, the air cool and perfumed with citrus and expensive bourbon. A jazz cover of “Toxic” is playing, which feels deeply, cosmically ironic.

And then you see him. Corner booth. One arm slung across the backrest. Wearing black. Hair tousled.

You freeze.

No. No.

That’s not just any Carter. That’s Carter Royce.

Your ex-boyfriend’s older brother. Four years older. Hazel eyes. Army vet. The guy who made fun of your glasses when you were sixteen and had a head full of frizz.

Carter freaking Royce.

Last you heard, he was engaged. Living in Texas or Arizona or wherever ex-military-hot-men go to vanish. Now he’s back, tatted, broader than you remember, and apparently very much single—because why else would he be here, on a blind date?

You consider turning around. Faking your own death. Ghosting Ana forever.

Too late.

His eyes lift. Land on you. There’s a blink. A pause. And then— The smirk.

That same slow, maddening smirk that once made every girl in a three-block radius swoon and made you want to punch a wall.

“Well,” he says, leaning back like he owns the damn bar. “Didn’t expect you.”