Read Online After Hello by Lisa Mangum - Free Book Online

muscle moved in his jaw. “You’ve got to keep moving. Stagnation kills.”
    “Profound,” Sara said with a raised eyebrow.
    “Truth,” he said again. He stepped around a man with a briefcase and fell back into step with Sara. “We made a bet—me and Jess. She bet me that I couldn’t bring back her heart’s desire if all I could use to trade was a sugar packet.”
    “And you knew the tickets were her heart’s desire.”
    “I knew Donovan was her heart’s desire. The tickets were just an excuse to get them together.”
    Sara tilted her head. “But you could have done anything, then. Movie tickets would have been just as good. It didn’t have to be front-row seats to her favorite play.”
    “You’re right—it didn’t have to be,” he agreed lightly.
    Her green eyes filled with light—and admiration. “Show me.”
    “What?”
    She tilted her head the other direction. “Show me how you trade. Jess gave you all those sugar packets. Trade one for me.”
    A smile hovered around Sam’s mouth. “Okay. What do you want?”
    Sara started to shrug, but Sam held up his hand.
    “Don’t say you don’t know.”
    “I wasn’t—” she started.
    Sam ignored the lie he saw on her face. “I can’t trade without knowing what’s at stake.”
    “I thought the important thing was to keep things moving.” Sara waved her hands in small circles in front of her as though stirring the air into action.
    Sam shook his head. “If you don’t know what you want, you’ll never get it. What’s more, if you don’t know what you want, you’ll never know when you do get it.” He reached into his bag and withdrew a packet. He offered it to her on the palm of his hand. “So, Sara without an h, tell me—what do you want?”
    Sara looked from Sam’s hand to his eyes and back again. Then she carefully took the sugar packet, turning the small square over and over in her fingers. She was quiet for a few steps. A bike messenger zipped past in the narrow space between sidewalk and street, his bell chiming a shrill warning. A few high clouds skidded across the sun, casting dappled shadows over the trees. Sam and Sara walked past the open door of a German deli, the distinct scent of mustard and bratwurst billowing out in a cloud around them.
    “There are lots of things that I want.” Her eyes stayed focused on the packet, and her voice sounded softer than he’d expected.
    He looked at her sharply; he hadn’t meant to strike a nerve—at least not one so clearly close to the heart.
    He brushed his hand against her wrist. When she looked up at him, he said gently, “Well, then, pick just one, and let’s see where it takes us.”
     

Chapter 11
     
    Sara
     
    I couldn’t pick just one.
    The moment I’d touched the sugar packet, a thousand thoughts cascaded through my mind.
    I want to go shopping in Times Square.
    I want to go to the top of the Empire State Building.
    I want Dad to finish his meetings and come see the city with me.
    I want to travel to Paris.
    I want to fall in love so hard it makes me cry.
    I want . . .
    I shook my head. Sam didn’t know what he was asking. How could this small pink square of processed sugar be transformed into my heart’s desire?
    I want Mom to come home.
    But I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell anyone that. Because it wasn’t true, I told my heart. That wasn’t what I wanted. Mom had left. She had made her choice, and she hadn’t looked back.
    Now that I’d thought about it, though, I couldn’t not remember. The late-night fights, followed by mornings of frosty silence. Then, one night, anger filled the kitchen like buzzing flies circling a corpse.
    I was only eight, so I didn’t understand everything Mom and Dad had said to each other; I didn’t understand the significance of the suitcase by the door. Even when she crouched down to where I sat hidden beneath the kitchen table, my stuffed dog clutched to my chest, and said, “I’ll talk to you soon, sweetie,