One Night Between Former Friends

1. Chapter 1

“Oh my God. It can’t be!” Krystal’s breath caught, and her heart began to race. She stared, blinked, then stared some more. She really needed to close her mouth and look somewhere, anywhere else, before someone noticed, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

It is. It really is!

“Oh my God,” she repeated in a murmur.

“Krystal Stevenson! We do not take the Lord’s name in vain!” her best friend screeched through the cellphone’s speaker in a spot-on imitation of their childhood Sunday school teacher.

The strident words jolted Krystal, and she glared at her phone, momentarily distracted from her shock. “Ow. I was using that ear, you know!”

“Sorry,” Miri answered in a tone that wasn’t particularly repentant. “What can’t be, exactly?”

Krystal’s full attention returned to the woman standing off to the side of the crowded resort lobby.

Dozens of FunDaze employees loitered around the room with their luggage, and a few were clustered near her, but Krystal would have recognized that dark hair, lean frame, and relaxed yet confident stance in a crowd three times this size.

“Ceth O’Malley is here.”

A puff of air rustled through the speaker. “As in, the woman who single-handedly ignited your bisexual awakening, Ceth O’Malley?”

“N-no,” Krystal protested even as heat began to prickle in her cheeks. “As in my former grad school roommate.”

“Who you were lowkey obsessed with for the whole two years you lived together,” Miri answered dryly.

Krystal bit her lip, eyes still fixed on Ceth, who was listening to something a nearby colleague was saying. Her smooth lips were upturned in a half-grin.

It was the same grin she’d greeted Krystal with that first time they’d met years ago.

Krystal had been sitting in a coffee shop waiting to meet Ceth in person, after they’d chatted online about becoming potential roommates.

She’d been a bit high strung as she waited, with her iced latte only making things worse.

It’d felt like waiting for a blind date, although Krystal had laughed a little too hard at herself for making the comparison.

With no photos exchanged beforehand, Krystal hadn’t known what to expect beyond a vague impression from the name Cethlenn O’Malley.

Sounded Irish. A redhead with Celtic-fair skin, maybe.

Nothing had prepared her for the tan, darkhaired woman with intense brown eyes that seemed to search her inside and out.

Ceth had truly made her breath catch. Krystal had fumbled through that whole first meeting, chattering too much and too fast about who knows what as she’d been prone to do in stressful moments since childhood when her mom would scold her for getting “overexcited.” Somehow, Ceth had agreed to be her roommate anyway, kindly overlooking the embarrassing display of nerves that Krystal had chalked up to excitement over the new living arrangement plus simple surprise at Ceth not being like she’d expected.

Krystal knew better now, of course.

“Okay, yes, fine,” Krystal conceded with a groan before lowering her voice. “The Ceth O’Malley I was lowkey obsessed with.”

Miri cackled at the admission. “Wow! So what’s she doing there? Does she work for FunDaze too?”

“I don’t know. I literally just saw her as I was getting ready to check-in.”

“Oh! Then I’ll hang up so you can go talk to her,” Miri said.

Krystal’s throat squeezed shut, and her pulse picked up again.

“What? No! Don’t you dare run off and leave me like this, Miriam Baxter!

You really think I should just walk up and say hi?

Shouldn’t I wait and see if she sees me first?

What if she remembers what happened last time we spoke, and she still hates me?

Or, shoot! It’s been eight years… What if she doesn’t even remember or recognize me? What if—”

“Krystal, breathe!” Miri interjected sharply. Krystal paused and gulped hard before slowly taking a breath.

“I’m going to need you to get a grip.” They were the firm words and tone Miri had used countless times to help snap Krystal out of a spiral when the two of them had been younger.

The fact that Krystal still needed that at the age of thirty-two might have been embarrassing if she weren’t still so preoccupied with seeing Ceth again.

She drew in another breath. “Okay, I’m good now. Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Miri answered in a softer tone. “Now, what do you want to do?”

Krystal shook her head a moment and continued watching Ceth interact with her colleagues.

She hadn’t changed much. Her black hair was shorter, now brushing gracefully over the top of her shoulders.

She wore a sharp, well-fitted pair of slacks and a blazer instead of the jeans and t-shirts she’d always worn in grad school.

But that quiet, intense energy still radiated from her.

Krystal could sense it all the way across the room.

Snippets of memory from all the ways she’d been drawn to it before swam through her mind, and her heart began to thump harder and faster, pushing her from the inside until she had no choice but to act.

Her eyes swept to the desk, which was finally clear of the line of FunDaze employees that had been clustered around it since she’d arrived.

The two desk clerks huddled over their computers, probably overwhelmed by the number of check-ins for what was supposedly the most well-attended annual conference in the company’s history.

The venue wasn’t operating at capacity either due to renovations, with attendees being required to double up on room arrangements for the first time.

Krystal drew in a sharp breath, giving her phone a quick squeeze for luck before heading toward the desk.

“I want my old roommate back.”