What If It Was Us (Us #1)

Chapter 1

NOW

June

My stomach lurched as I approached the four-way stop that would take me back to my childhood town.

I had been driving for fifteen hours, and I still wasn’t ready to face the house I had grown up in.

Why? Because there were only two reasons anyone ever came back to the place they were raised—a wedding or a death. My reason was the latter.

There were no cars at the other stop signs, so I let my attention linger on the sign that pointed left for Tostela, and right for Highland.

Just turn right. The house is right. I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel in a nervous rhythm while my brain fought back and forth with the devil on my shoulder.

Something in my heart tugged at me to turn left; to head to Tostela, and to the one place that had actually felt like a real home to me.

“Fuck it,” I breathed out as I turned left.

I drove slowly down Main Street and into downtown. Most of the businesses were closed since it was a Sunday morning, but it didn’t look like much had changed in the ten years since I’d last been here.

The ice cream parlor windows were still painted with pictures of ice cream cones, and a melting sundae with dancing bananas.

The shoe store still had the same footprints etched into the door, leading to the sign above.

I felt like I had been transported straight back in time—until I spotted Delvecchios’ Restaurant.

The awning was blue instead of red, and the once-cursive signage was now a block font.

I wondered if the Delvecchio family still owned the restaurant and updated it, or if they’d sold it to new owners.

I couldn’t imagine the family wanting to change anything, and I felt a pinch in my chest. I’d spent all my high school years inside that restaurant.

I spent more time with that family than my own—and I hadn’t talked to any of them since the night of my high school graduation.

I parked my car across the street and stared at the building.

I still had the key to the back door on my key ring.

The locks had probably been changed since then, but I couldn’t get rid of it.

Every time I felt the etched D on the key, it reminded me why I’d never come back here .

. . and why I shouldn’t even be thinking about going in now.

The back of my throat started to sting. I couldn’t believe how emotional I was getting just looking at this place.

Mrs. Delvecchio always did inventory on Sundays, and I couldn’t help but wonder if she was inside, walking around with a clipboard, marking off her checklist and counting wine bottles behind the bar.

I got out the car and walked to the front door, which was now gold instead of green. There was a sign taped to it that said “Closed today for engagement party.”

Underneath, the restaurant’s hours were written in white vinyl. They were open on Sundays now; they had never, not once in all the years I worked here, been open on a Sunday. There was no way the family still owned it.

I leaned forward and cupped my eyes against the glass.

It didn’t seem like anyone was inside, and the overwhelming nostalgia was begging me to see if the door was unlocked.

I pushed the handle down and let out a small laugh when it opened.

I felt like I was fourteen again, stepping inside for the first time.

They had the A/C running on high, and I walked past the hostess stand, drawn by the familiar sight of the dining room.

The lights weren’t on, but even in the dark I could tell it was exactly the same, down to the floral carpeting.

I could smell bread baking in the back; that, along with the quiet hum of the song “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan, meant someone was definitely in the kitchen.

Before I could turn and run out the restaurant, a figure came flying through the swinging kitchen doors.

We both stopped in our tracks, sizing each other up from opposite ends of the restaurant. I knew I was fully illuminated from where I was standing, but I couldn’t see the face of the person in the back.

“Addison?” It was a woman’s voice, and before I could register whose it was, she was hurrying toward me with a smile on her face, her dark-brown hair swishing back and forth behind her in a blur.

“Julie?” I said with a laugh before I was wrapped up in a crushing hug. She was embracing me like it hadn’t been a decade since the last time I saw her, or gave her a hug.

“Are you a ghost?” she said before leaning back to survey my face. “Oh my god.” I examined her facial expression; there was no hint of animosity there. She just looked . . . happy to see me. My heart warmed. Julie didn’t hate me.

She was still just as beautiful as she had been at eighteen, when I first met her. Her long, dark-brown hair from her teens was now curled in perfect short waves at her shoulders, and she was wearing a pink floral dress that cut off at her knees.

“I didn’t know if you guys still owned the restaurant,” I said as I let myself fully look around, noticing a stack of little dinner napkins on the table closest to us with “J I didn’t even sound like myself. It was almost as if I’d exhaled, and his name was the sound my breaths were made of.

He walked toward me slowly, like he was trying to figure out if I was actually here or if I was just a mirage. He stopped four feet away from me, and his eyes bounced down to my feet, then back up to my face.

“What, um . . . What are you doing here?” Jackson asked. His fingers twitched nervously at his sides. When had Jackson ever been nervous around me?

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Peter, ya know.”

“We were so sorry to hear about him,” Julie said quickly, eyes moving from Jackson to me. Jackson didn’t add anything, his eyes studying me for a reaction.

“The funeral was three months ago,” he said slowly. Had he expected to see me? Did his whole family go? Should I ask if my mom went?

Julie’s eyes flicked between the two of us. “I gotta go check on those rolls,” Julie said before disappearing back through the kitchen door.

The second it swung shut, Jackson pulled me into a hug. It took me so by surprise that it almost knocked me over, and I stumbled back as he tightened his hold on me to keep me close. I clasped my hands around the middle of his back, and exhaled at the feel of his breath against my neck.

I couldn’t be the first to let go; I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten how good it felt to be in his embrace.

His heart was beating in time with mine, and I imagined us at eighteen years old—the last time he’d held me like this.

I lost track of how long we stood like that before he finally stepped back and cleared his throat.

“Why are you here?” Jackson asked again, more firmly this time.

I shrugged and let out a deep breath. “He left me the house. I didn’t even know he owned it.”

Jackson crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall as he processed the words. His stance gave me a clear view of the Delvecchio tattoo plastered across his right forearm, a familiar sight among all the new ones.

“That’s interesting.”

“Yep,” I confirmed. I shoved my hands in my hoodie pocket. “Did you go to the funeral?”

I watched him tense, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Marie, Jules, and I went. We thought maybe we’d see you.”

I swayed uncomfortably from side to side. After all this time, they’d wanted to see me.

“Was . . . Um, was my mom there?” I asked timidly.

He pulled in his lips, rubbing them together before letting out a long breath. “Yeah. She was.”

I nodded, not knowing how to feel about this information.

“She didn’t call you, did she?” he asked.

I shook my head no. I had no idea Peter had passed away until I got the call from our mom about the house being left to me.

Jackson mumbled something under his breath, but I didn’t catch the words.

“What?” I asked.

He shook his head, rubbing a hand down his face. “Nothing. So, how’s the house looking?”

I gave a weak smile. “No idea. I haven’t been there yet. This was my first stop.”

His eyes softened, and a genuine smile spread across his face.

A mixture of excitement and nerves swirled in my stomach at the sight of that smile.

I noticed a scar running through his right eyebrow, a line missing straight through it.

It took everything in me not to reach forward and run a finger over it.

Jackson opened his mouth to say something, but the front door swung open and I turned to see a woman walking through with a box of flowers in her arms. Her face was obscured by the bouquets, but I heard her say, “Little help here!”

Jackson hurried over to help her, and when he took the box from her, she kissed him right on the lips before turning and facing me.

Her smile fell abruptly off her face, and I couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping.

I may have thought I’d never see the Delvecchios again, but I definitely never thought I’d see her again.

The S and J—it was clicking together, finally. Jackson was engaged to Sophie Waters.