Perfect Fit

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Do you ever wonder what happened to the girl who peaked in high school?

I think the answer depends on which version of her you’re talking about. And in my theory, there are two versions:

The All-American Girl

The It Girl

I will elaborate on the difference.

The All-American Girl was a cheerleader. The All-American Girl was a good student. She was a good person, too, and everybody knew it. Charismatic and lovely and darling. Remember her? Or a version of her? Let’s call her Annabelle.

In our archetypical example, Annabelle had a magnetic smile and cute freckles on her shoulders. She dated the quarterback, hosted the prom after-party on her family farm, organized bake sales, became the subject of several songs. After she got married, Annabelle got involved in a multilevel marketing scheme. You’re pretty sure she’s still doing that, but honestly, you had to unfollow her on principle a few years back. Even though you really, genuinely wish Annabelle and her entire downline the best.

You have nothing against Annabelle, and you never did.

The point is—

The point. Is.

You probably don’t ever wonder about Annabelle.

But I think a lot of people wonder about the other girl who peaked in high school. The brief, time-capsule It Girl. She was your high school’s female Icarus, a flawed teenager who flew too close to the sun and got burned, then fell from a great height and never recovered her hometown reputation. Archetypically.

Remember her?

Let’s call her Josephine.

Josephine had hazel eyes with green specks you could only ever see in the sunlight. Long lashes, long legs, long everything. She was known for her fashion sense and her aloof personality—and, of course, her three-years-older boyfriend.

Nobody from high school remembers Josephine as tough, or thick-skinned, or smart, or kind, or impressionable. But everyone remembers the way she appeared to them. And everyone remembers how her It Girl era ended.

I do think people wonder where Josephine is now. What she’s doing with her life. How she’s been.

I hope they wonder if they were wrong about her all along.

Anyway. Completely unrelated, but she— I— just hit a cyclist with her car.

(Not on purpose!)

(And technically, he ran into me .)

A tiny squeak spills past my lips right as I feel the collision, my body rocking forward as I stomp on the brakes. I grip the worn leather of my steering wheel, panting, and crane my neck to peer in my rearview mirror. There’s a small portion of the back window visible—about two useful inches—between the boxes piled in my trunk.

All I can see is a sliver of blue sky and a line of cars behind me.

I shift into park and unbuckle my seat belt. Outside, a driver honks, but I ignore it and move to the opposite back corner of my car—where I could’ve sworn I spotted a cyclist in my rearview about five seconds before I felt the bump.

Sure enough, a man in a clean-cut black suit and a backpack still strapped between his shoulder blades is rolling onto his knees, groaning as he palms the concrete. Beside him, his bike looks equally pummeled.

It’s the Giant Escape 3, I note absently, one of the best commuter bikes out there. I know because I almost bought one.

“Are you okay?” I ask, crouching low beside his tabletop position.

I’m apprised only of this man’s hunched-over profile at the moment, but even like this, I can tell he’s made up of lean, trained muscle, broad shoulders, a rippling back. It’s when he turns his head at the sound of my voice that I catch sight of his face full-on.

My stomach buckles when I recognize him.

Will Grant.

Large, hesitant eyes. The color makes me think his maker mixed a cloudy, marbled sky with the color of the Blue Ridge Mountains against a haze. Honey-brown hair, several inches long and in desperate need of taming after his crash. His face is clean-shaven and square-shaped, his chin very softly dimpled right in the middle. He’s older now—but still my same age, so twenty-seven or twenty-eight?—with the beginnings of crow’s feet forming in the corners of his eyes.

And look. Maybe he works on them, probably he doesn’t. But I have a three-step lash routine, and Will Grant is outdoing me.

“Josie?” His voice is different, too. Deeper, and maybe less… alive? It’s like he’s working very hard to say my name, which, sure, given the accident—

I snap out of my daze, give my head a brief shake, unlock every clenched muscle that seized in his presence. The now is more important than the then. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he groans, rolling out his neck.

“You don’t sound fine,” I say, panicked for a plethora of reasons. “You sound like something’s broken.”

Will half sighs, half grunts, eyes on the pavement. “Does anybody who says they’re fine ever really mean it?”

His voice is coming out smoother now, more mellow, but the words are doing a better job of conveying a feeling than acting as a method of communication.

That feeling is: exasperated.

Already, after a grand total of twenty-eight words exchanged between us after ten years without seeing each other, Will Grant is exasperated with me.

“I guess what I mean is, are you imminently close to death?” I ask.

Will finally looks up again. He blinks at me twice. “I’m on my knees in the middle of an extremely busy road. That’s relative.”

“Do you need an ambulance?” I try again.

“No, I’m fine. ” This time, one corner of his mouth ticks up, though it drops so quickly I might have imagined it. “Will be, anyway.”

“I am so sorry,” I mutter, hands fluttering helplessly over his form. I’m nervous to touch him. Nervous it’ll hurt worse if I get too close.

“It’s my fault, not yours. I hit you.”

“Still—”

The driver behind us unleashes a long peal of their horn. We both turn and glare at the woman gesturing through her window.

“Let me pull over,” I say. “Can you manage your bike?”

He nods, squeezing his eyes shut before pushing off the ground.

I jump back into my car, pulling onto the shoulder of South Lamar Boulevard. It’s eight o’clock on a Wednesday morning. Traffic could not be worse heading into downtown Austin.

What’s Will doing here?

Better question: What’s Will doing here ?

My abs still do not unclench, even as I slowly rationalize that yes, I probably should have expected a run-in like this one day.

Not like a literal run-in. But figuratively speaking.

I met the Grant twins when they moved to Nashville as high school seniors. According to my sources (read: my mother), they both live and work in Manhattan now, but their family is from here. Austin. My current city of residence. I couldn’t have expected to build a whole-ass life in their hometown without seeing one of the twins eventually.

Though, between Will and Zoe… I think I’m relieved it’s him and not her.

I think.

I mutter bountiful profanities under my breath. Today is a bad day to be late. It’s a bad day to be distracted by high school memories and late.

I normally try to get an earlier start than this—and if I’m really early, I’ll ride my own bike to work and get ready at the office—but I spent too much time in front of the mirror this morning, perfecting my makeup, my hair, my outfit, reciting my presentation until I had it memorized back to front.

I send up a prayer that this unwanted reunion isn’t a bad omen.

When I turn off my ignition and climb out of my Ford Escape, Will is standing five feet from my bumper, frowning at it with his hands clenched around his mangled handlebars. Even the second time, it’s a jump scare to see him in person.

“I dented your car,” he says. “Sorry about that.”

“You couldn’t possibly have—” I cut myself off as I turn, eyes widening at the small dent on the bumper just below the rear door. “Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“How fast were you going?”

“Fast,” he murmurs darkly. “I was running late, trying to sneak past the car traffic.” After another moment he adds, “I was weaving.”

“Weaving is dangerous,” I say, like a rule-following dork.

“No shit.” He winces as he taps at a quickly forming bruise on his face with two fingers.

Will’s legs seem okay, but there’s a tear in one pant leg near the knee, and his white shirt is covered in street tar. A small scrape on his upper left cheek is perforating his skin.

A nearly dominant part of me would like to finish assessing our collective damage and get out of Will Grant’s presence as quickly as possible. My instincts are screaming at me to retreat. But, as is often the case, my people-pleasing personality wins out. I can’t leave him now that we’ve broken this ten-year barrier until every wrinkle has been smoothed. Until every wound has been cleaned, sterilized, covered up, and hidden away.

“I have a first aid kit in my car. And I can drive you,” I add. “To wherever and whatever it is you’re late for.”

Will tilts his head, his blue eyes locking on mine. “I hit you.”

“I know that. But I still want to help.”

After a beat of silence where Will openly stares at me, he asks, “Why on earth would you want to help me ?”

I laugh, the sound burbling out of me like shaken-up fizzy water through the neck of a bottle. Too many feelings, nowhere to go but out. My skin is hot and tight. I search my lexicon for an adequate response before settling on “I don’t know.”

Will’s gaze softens. I feel awkward. He probably (definitely) feels awkward. This entire situation is so damn awkward, and now my abs are starting to hurt.

I glance down at his bike, willing it to self-repair. “That doesn’t look operational, I’m afraid. A ride is the least I can do. Where are you headed?”

I don’t ask the other question— What the fuck are you doing in town at all, and on the most important Wednesday I’ve had in a while??? —even though it’s what I’m dying to know.

There isn’t a family-oriented holiday coming up; it’s early June. And anyway, I don’t remember the Grants being close with the family they left behind in Austin when they moved away. Will’s parents are in Nashville, and his career and personal life are in New York.

Why. Is. He. Here?

Traveling for work is my best guess, but the bike is throwing me off.

Will’s lips tug up on one side again as he considers me more seriously. It’s still not a smile, not even close. He completely ignores my previous question and says, “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll be fine—”

“You were going fast enough to put a dent in my car, ” I interrupt. “Obviously, whatever you have going on this morning is important.” For some reason, this makes his half-baked smile kick up another twenty degrees. “Calling an Uber or even a friend, if you’ve managed to acquire one of those since we knew each other”—he snorts softly—“is going to take forever in this traffic. Please let me help you?”

Will sighs and his expression gives. I’ve worn him down. “I can’t show up to meet my client in these clothes.”

“In that case,” I say, “today is your lucky day.”

“How on earth, ” Will says, “is today my lucky day?”

“Because you hit me. And I have an entire closet in my trunk.”

He eyes my body, hands clenching the handlebars tighter. “I don’t think you and I have the same style, Josie.”

I open my trunk. When some of the boxes tumble out, I’m prepared. (I have dealt with this five times already this week.) Sample testing is one of my favorite parts of my job. There’s something endlessly satisfying about feeling the design beneath your fingertips, seeing it on a real person instead of a mannequin or a computer screen.

“You look like a thirty-two?” I guess, turning back to Will.

He nods, and now his amusement has caught fire, his smile begrudgingly holding around his eyes. Are those dimples on his cheeks? I don’t remember them, but then again, Will didn’t do much smiling when we were high school seniors. They match the divot in his chin.

“That’s one of our men’s sample sizes,” I say. “We’ve got slacks in gray, black, forest green, navy blue. There are some white shirts around here, too. Different box, I think.” I put three of them on the ground, riffling through the material. “Wait, those are women’s blazers. Hang on.”

“I nearly forgot,” Will calls to me.

I stand back up, my gaze switching to him. “Forgot what?”

His voice comes out low and focused. “That you’re the CEO of a clothing company.”

I pause to consider the nuance of what he means. We’re facing each other now as adults with real careers and fully developed brains. Two things neither of us had the last time we spoke.

To Will, I was Zoe’s best friend. I once overheard him refer to me as a surface-level kind of girl. (I think it was his reaction to my girlish enthusiasm over an album release I was excited about, which enraged me to the point of mentally dismissing him.) To me, Will was Zoe’s malcontent twin brother, hot as fuck, but strictly off-limits, and too moody besides.

Funny, considering now Will’s looking at me like I hold a modicum of interest to him, and I’m looking at him noting he’s still moody but can at least manage a dimpled smile.

I fiddle with the shirt cuffs of the blouse I’m wearing. Dusty blue, tucked into high-waisted cream balloon pants. “Yes,” I say.

“I heard a couple years ago.” He cocks his head to one side, a lock of hair falling between his eyes, just as my heart stalls out and revs back to life at the idea that I have come up in conversations he was part of. “Are these—” Will points at the clothes, still in boxes at my feet. “Are you suggesting I wear trade secrets to work today?”

“Trade secrets might be a little dramatic—”

“But these items aren’t on sale yet, are they?”

“No, they’re not.”

Even though it’s the height of summer and the Texas wind is warm, I shiver as the cars passing by push the air against us in rushes, over and over.

I can’t tell if this is getting more or less awkward by the second. If I was aiming for polite, I’d ask about Zoe, but that’s a can of worms I’m pretty sure I don’t want to mentally open now, or maybe ever. Will isn’t exactly being effusive, either.

He steps toward me, rolling his bike with him. He’s taller than me but not by much, maybe just a few inches. Which means he’d be taller than most girls by a lot more than a few inches.

“I think we might be headed to the same place,” he admits. “Your office is in that complex on North Congress, isn’t it?”

I nod.

“So is the client I’m meeting this morning.” His lips part just a smidge, eyes roving from the boxes at my feet to the additional boxes in the trunk of my car. “Do you think there’s room for my bike in there?”

My shoulders perk up. He’s accepting my help. It feels like a truce, or at least a mutual agreement to ignore the past. “Definitely! We can put the back seats down. Take off the front wheel. We’ll make it work.”

I spring into action, climbing into my trunk so I can push the boxes toward the front seats and neatly stack them. Part of me knows my ass is aimed at Will, and part of me hopes he’s too busy taking off his bike wheel to notice. Before I climb out, I secure a pair of black pants and a white shirt that match what he’s wearing.

As the owner of a fashion brand, I’ll deny it to the day I crack open my retirement fund, but sometimes, the predictability of men’s clothing comes in handy.

Will places the bike into the space I’ve cleared as if relocating a cherished feather and then grabs his front wheel off the ground, resting it on top of the bike. His arm stretches up, straining against dirty cotton to close the trunk.

He nods at the clothes in my hands, pulling the backpack off his shoulders. “I’ll change into them in the Starbucks bathroom on the first floor. I promise not to ruin them, and I’ll make sure they get back to you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’ll get you through one day, but the inseam on these pants needs some work, and the material of the shirt feels wrong to me.”

I hand over the clothes and our thumbs brush. My nervous system spirals. Will pushes the items neatly into the top of his backpack.

Finally, my curiosity cracks all the way open, igniting the coals of my interest. “Where do you work?” I ask, heading toward the driver’s side door.

He mirrors me on the other side of the car. “I work at Ellis Consulting.”

Well then.

I school my features from sour back to neutral before slipping inside.

Ellis is the firm I wanted to use for my business, but I couldn’t afford their exorbitant rates and had to settle for a different consultant with a worse reputation.

If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be using a consultant at all. But my primary investor is “highly recommending it.”

“Nice,” I say after both our doors close, sounding as salty as I feel. “I’ve heard of Ellis. Very fancy logo.”

Cajolingly, Will says, “Revenant has a nice logo.”

“Don’t say it just to make me feel better.”

“It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

I snort. “Will Grant, I don’t know you at all. Never did, even back then. You were a brick wall of pouting.”

“I didn’t pout.”

“All you did was pout. You were Season One Conrad Fisher. You were Olivia Rodrigo’s entire Sour album, on repeat. You were Ken when Barbie took away his mojo dojo casa house. You were—”

“At least four other references I won’t understand?” he interrupts.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “All the other surface-level girls would get them.”

Will either doesn’t remember making that comment or he’s making a show of confusion by knitting his brows together. I can’t tell, because, as established, we never really got to know each other. Something seems to click, though, and his befuddlement shifts to embarrassment.

I pop open the console between us and shuffle around until my hands grip the first aid kit wedged between spare sunglasses, tissues, gum. Tampons, a sewing kit, hair clips—

“You don’t happen to have four fives I could trade you for a twenty?”

“I do, actually—” My head snaps up. We’re nose to nose.

He’s smiling now—not just an almost-smile, a real smile, both his dimples completely fleshed out and bare to me—his blue eyes starker in the shadows of the car. My breath stutters on an inhale, swirling around in my lungs.

I have felt this feeling before, with him near, causing it, and it was a huge mistake. Backpedal, immediately.

“I was just kidding, Josie.” There’s a playfulness to his tone I’m pretty sure might be a rarity for Will. As if he’s trying it on for size but isn’t quite used to it.

“You’re capable of that?”

“Only once my pouting phase ended.”

I point at my supplies. “I like to be prepared.”

He nods, biting the inside of his cheek. “Mm-hmm.”

I can’t tell if he’s making fun of me or not—or if, perhaps, he’s thinking about how I’m easily predictable with my hyper-organized car full of trend-right hand sanitizer and mini peanut butter protein bars—so I say nothing and pop open the kit, pulling out a couple of alcohol wipes, Neosporin, Band-Aids. When I pass the items from my hands to his, our skin grazes again, and it feels like a memory I don’t want.

I pull off the shoulder of the boulevard, braiding my car back into the traffic headed downtown. My phone is still connected to Bluetooth, and Gracie Abrams starts to play. I turn down the volume and flick my eyes over to Will beside me, who has the visor mirror open and is fixing up the scrape on his cheek. He’s careful and thorough, cleaning the wound, covering it.

“You don’t live here, do you?” I ask.

He doesn’t break focus from the mirror. “You know I lived here first, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t claiming Austin.” Vocally.

“Good, because it’s a claim you would’ve lost.”

“I was just wondering.”

There’s a pause while Will balls up the Band-Aid scraps and pockets them. “No, I don’t live here. I live in Manhattan, but I have clients in Austin.”

“Your employer doesn’t compensate your Ubers?”

“I like cycling to work,” Will says, his tone indicating he doesn’t expect me to understand the appeal. “And I chose a hotel in Zilker because it’s where I grew up.”

Okay, I will not be telling him I also live in Zilker. It would border on creepy, even though I had no idea that’s where he and Zoe lived as kids.

“Where’d the bike come from?”

“It’s a rental,” Will clarifies, eyebrow lifting. “Is this an interrogation?”

I blush and shut up, focusing on the road. “Grumpy,” I mumble.

Beside me, Will’s palms move up and down his thighs in slow slides.

“How can I make this up to you?” he asks a minute later.

“Buy Revenant products,” I joke.

“I already do that.” I glance over to see if he’s kidding, my focus catching on the tiny Band-Aid stuck to his cheekbone. But his eyes are serious and warm on mine. “I like Revenant clothes,” he murmurs. “I like the way they… feel.”

That face, coupled with the praise falling off his tongue, is flipping my stomach. It’s not even a direct compliment, and I’m still pretty sure it’s the nicest thing Will Grant has ever said to me. Which isn’t a grand assumption. It’s just factual.

“Yeah?” I ask.

He faces forward, obviously uncomfortable repeating himself. “Besides. Revenant is the Austin cult classic.”

I snort. “Did you just quote that Bite the Hand profile?”

Will laughs deeply. It reverberates around the car, spreading out like it plans to stay once he’s gone. “I did.”

“You obsessed with me or something?”

“I’m professionally intrigued by your business model,” he counters.

“That’s what all the men say to me.”

“Are you insinuating,” Will says, “that a man has actually tried to pick you up by hitting on your company?”

“Every year, at the CEO summit I go to.”

After a few seconds of silent thinking he says, “I don’t know how to respond to that,” which makes me laugh out loud.

“Exactly how much do you know about Revenant?” I ask.

He looks back over. Our eyes hold one heartbeat too long. “About as much as was written in that profile. I read it twice.”

Twice. He read it twice. He just admitted to me he read it twice.

The profile in question was a lengthy piece published by a New York digital media start-up after the editor in chief reached out to me, saying he’d gotten a tip I was one to watch, and could he interview me for a digital spread?

I’d barely had the courage to say yes. Ever since I accepted the fact that I cannot use social media in a healthy way—the same way others can’t have only two drinks, or go window-shopping but not spend any (all) of their money—press isn’t something I ever look forward to. I become obsessed with my public perception, put too much worth into other people’s opinions of me.

But that editor had seemed intentional. Plus, he never once referred to me as a girl boss (a term and concept I loathe ) in our first phone call. I liked him instantly, and when we set up a call, the conversation flowed.

That was a year and a half ago, right at the cusp of Revenant’s rapid growth. Before, I was doing only drops, making every sale to order with a handful of employees and one manufacturer. But after it published—and especially after the TikTok fashion girls covered the highlights in a bunch of viral videos I’ve never personally seen—Revenant exploded.

I grip the steering wheel, daring myself to keep my gaze forward. Every time I glance over, I’m worried I’m going to wreck for how distracting Will’s focus on me feels.

I change the subject back to him. “What kind of companies do you work with?”

“Lots,” he admits after a second. “But usually start-ups.” Will shifts next to me, adjusting in his seat, and changes the subject right back. “The CEO isn’t worried about being late?”

“Cut me some slack. I was at the office until two in the morning yesterday.”

Will whistles. “More trade secrets, or can I ask?”

“Just finalizing a presentation.”

“On what?”

“Is this an interrogation?” I parrot.

“Cute.”

I throw him a good-natured eye roll. “Actually, I’m pitching a strategy to a consulting firm today. We’re probably going to hire them.”

There’s a pause. “Not Ellis, though.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, as if Will already knows I’m not working with his employer.

“No. I can’t afford Ellis.”

The tall buildings of the city loom before us as we cross the bridge over the Colorado River. I turn, heading toward North Congress Avenue and the building where my company rents a floor. Downtown is alive right now, people crossing the street with lattes in hand, wearing everything from streetwear to last night’s college date-party costume. I spot a thirty-something woman in a Revenant blazer. It sends a zip of happiness from my head to my toes.

“Where should I drop you off?”

“I usually lock up at the bike rack in the garage.”

We head in that direction. Will’s presence in my car seems to grow, like he’s filling up the space just before he leaves it. He shifts again, one elbow leaning on my console. I finally catch his scent—which hits my memory in the same instant. He smells like warm cedar logs baked in sunlight. There’s something sweet but almost earthy about it, too.

He also smells a bit like pavement. That’s probably circumstantial.

I pull over by the bike rack and pop the trunk. We climb out and meet around back.

“Do you need help getting back to your hotel later?” I ask. “Or the bike shop?”

Belatedly, I realize that if Will says yes, I’ll have to see him again. Stupid, stupid. But I can’t seem to help myself.

Will picks up his bike. There’s not a hint of strain in his voice when he speaks, which I find biologically fascinating. “You know, for a corporate exec, you’re not making me feel like I’m wasting your time just by breathing near you.”

“Is that your general experience with my kind?”

“Mostly.”

“Guess I can be different after all,” I snark.

His face takes on an expression I can’t interpret. “Thanks for the help, Josie. Really. But I’ll take care of myself from here.”

“Okay.” Relief and regret flood me in equal doses. I rub the heel of my palm against my hip bone. “It was… good… to see you.”

Will snorts. “Sounds like you really meant that.”

I throw him a look. Will smirks—which I take as his parting sentiment—before he bends over, unzipping his backpack and pulling out a bike lock.

Only once I start my car and strap in is there a knock on the window that makes me jump.

Will stares at me through the glass, gesturing for me to roll the window down. I do.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, leaning his forearm along the gap in the door. He’s close enough that I can smell peppermint on his breath.

“I’m not scared of you,” I manage.

“What time is your presentation?”

“Um.” I blink. “Eleven thirty.”

He nods, and his eyes go distant. “Okay.”

Okay?

“I…” Will trails off, then shakes his head slightly. He pulls his weight off my car and takes a step back. “It was good to see you, too.” He rubs his lips together. “Josie.” My name comes off his tongue like he’s tasting the way it sounds. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“You will?” My voice sounds horrified.

Dimples. Both of them. “Of course. I’m going to fix your car.”

I shake my head. “No need. It’s just a tiny scratch—”

“Josephine,” he scolds, voice low, and my whole body violently erupts, hearing my full name from him after all this time. “I am going to fix your car.”

“Mkay,” I manage, then locate the cognizance to add, “Least you can do, honestly.”

“There she is.” Will taps twice on the hood and starts backing away, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “I have to go.”

“Yes. That was the whole point of the ride.”

He bites on a smile. We’re finding our groove. Still, thank God this is almost over. My abs are exhausted.

“I’ll find you,” he says. “Somehow.”

I nod. “Do that.”

Will keeps staring at me until he turns away, picking up his pace as he heads for the ground entrance of the building. I’m halfway tempted to shout after him, to ask if he’d mind fixing me, too, because I think the way he just slammed into me broke open a wound I thought I’d closed for good ten years back.