Free If You Want Me by Kayla Perrin Page B

salads, sandwiches. Frozen yogurt.”
    “Wow. This place has changed.” It had been a junk-food junkie’s haven years ago.
    “It’s Saturday, so it’ll be quiet. The kids still hang out here during the week.”
    Marcus opened his door and got out of the car, and Alice did the same. They met at the front of the Mustang and he gently rested his hand on her back as he led her inside.
    Alice couldn’t shake the odd sensation at his touch.
    Maybe it was simply the memories she couldn’t shake. The fact that she and Marcus had once been close but she’d let time and distance come between them. Still, at this moment, it was like nothing had changed between them. He was bringing her to their old hangout to talk, just as he had so many years before.
    “You want coffee, juice?”
    “Frozen yogurt sounds nice,” Alice told him. “Strawberry, if they have it.”
    Three elderly women sat at a table several feet away, so Alice seated herself at a table near the front door. She didn’t want anyone getting a good look at her. Just in case.
    Folding her hands in her lap, she looked out the window. Sitting here was like taking a step back intime. She could almost see the smoke as it lingered in the air, almost hear the chatter of a roomful of students. She glanced around the store and her gaze caught the NO SMOKING sign. So much for the vision of students puffing away on cigarettes. Indeed, times had changed at Maxi’s.
    It was right here at Maxi’s that Alice had fallen in love with Marcus. They’d first started talking after her father had died. Every day for a full week after his death, Marcus had brought her here to talk about how she felt. He had held her hand as she talked and cried, had let her rest her head on his shoulder. He’d comforted her and assured her that he understood what she was going through because he’d lost his mother.
    Unlike the kids who picked on her because of her weight, Marcus was never ashamed to be seen with her. He didn’t mind when everyone saw her rest her head on his shoulder, knowing full well his jock friends could tease him for being such close friends with someone who wasn’t part of the “in” crowd. And when she was with Marcus, other kids didn’t bother her. It was like being with Marcus gave her a certain level of respect. When she was with him, everything about her life seemed perfect.
    But it wasn’t only the sad time after her father’s death and how Marcus had been there for her then that she remembered now. She and Marcus had shared many laughs at Maxi’s over a hot chocolate or a soda. He’d share with her all the crazy things his friends did for various girls’ attention, or something funny that had happened in one of his classes. She’d shared with him her passion for acting. Not only had he understood her dream like her fatherhad, he’d encouraged her to pursue it. Spending time at Maxi’s after school had come to be the highlight of Alice’s days.
    Her old high school was a couple of blocks away, a place she had never cared to see again. Today she had seen a handful of her former classmates, people she’d never thought she would see again. People she didn’t want to see again. But it hadn’t been as bad as she would have expected. To her, she was the same old Alice, but to them, she was different—successful Desirée LaCroix—and for the first time, they had treated her like a person who had feelings.
    “It’s strawberry,” Marcus told her as he appeared at the table and placed the clear plastic cup holding the pink frozen yogurt before her. He sat down with his own chocolate doughnut and cup of coffee.
    “Great.” Alice took in his firm stomach and broad shoulders. “I guess it’s true what they say about cops and doughnuts.”
    “That’s one stereotype I’m not going to deny.” He smiled.
    Nostalgia washed over Alice at the sight of that smile. How many times had she and Marcus sat in this place, maybe in these very same seats, talking about