Excerpt #1
“My name’s Ian, by the way.”

“Nina.”

He knelt down beside my bleeding leg and dug around in the box. “That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks. It’s short for Nina.” After the words popped out of my mouth, I wanted to smack myself on the forehead for sounding so stupid.

Thankfully, Ian mistook my word vomit for humor or charm or something and laughed. He pulled a couple wet wipes from a pack and cleaned my leg and cut as best as he could before shoving them into a small plastic bag. Then he spread some white ointment on the cut and unwrapped a couple of Band-Aids. His fingers were long and moved quickly like this wasn’t his first time. After he put two Band-Aids on my cut, he pressed the edges down to make sure it was firm.

This time I felt the warmth of his fingertips on my skin, and the goose bumps that rose on my arms in response.

Rubbing my arms to make them go away before he noticed, I gently stood up. “I’m okay now. Thanks.”

“Are you sure? Your face still looks kind of red.”

Embarrassed, I adjusted the sunglasses until they fell lower on my face like a shield. “No, it’s just—the sun. It’s hot today.”

He glanced up at the overcast sky. It was so thick with clouds that you could barely see the sun anywhere.

“It was sunny earlier,” I said quickly. “Like scorching sunny.”

“Yeah, Texas’s weather is pretty unpredictable.” Still crouched down, Ian leaned to the left to pack everything up. When he was done though, he still didn’t immediately get up. Instead, Ian stared at something on the rock behind me. I followed his gaze and groaned out loud in horror. There was a dark butt-shaped smudge right where I had been sitting a few seconds ago.

With a puzzled expression, his eyes slid up and down my legs—which sounds way dirtier than it was. I almost wished it was dirty so at least I’d know he was thinking of me in a cute-girl-I’m-attracted-to way instead of a weirdo-girl-he-regretted-bumping-into way.

I knew the exact moment when my embarrassing situation clicked in his head. It was almost like his brown eyes cleared—as impossible as it was. My first instinct was to bury my face in my arms and flee, but my feet were frozen in one spot.

To my surprise, Ian didn’t immediately run away. Instead, he stood up, still digging in his bag. His head ducked down until I couldn’t see his face anymore. Especially as one hand messed with his hat, tugging it side to side. I could see that his ears were flaming red though. “Well, I think I have something else in here to help you with . . . that. If you—you need it.”

“What do you—” I glanced down at my legs and his pink face. Until my eyes finally landed on the tampon and pad he held out in his hand.

Oh. My. God.

Excerpt #2
With a deep sigh, Ryan stood up and walked behind my chair. “By the way, where did you get that jacket from?” he asked, pointing his chopsticks at the jacket draped on the back of my seat.

I almost choked on the mouthful of noodles I had just put in my mouth. It took a few minutes and a full glass of water to clear my throat enough to speak. My fingers played with the soft fabric for a second or two before picking it up. “Actually, I wanted to tell you—”

“It’s funny. It looks exactly like the jacket that Ian lost last week,” his sister, Anh, interrupted from the other table. “Remember when my car broke down on the highway and he had to come get me? Afterward, he rushed back to the hiking path to find the jacket.”

Ryan laughed. “I don’t know why. It’s a plain navy jacket. I bet . . .”

I couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation because there was a loud ringing in my ears when his sister said the name Ian. Surely, I heard her wrong. There was no way—it couldn’t be, because there was no Ian. There was just Ryan.

I cleared my throat. “Who’s Ian?”

“Ian, my twin brother.”

. . .

Twin brother. Twin brother. TWIN BROTHER.

The words echoed over and over in my head but it took a while for them to sink in. Like I had downed a mango slushie way too fast and my brain was still fighting the cold to work properly.

But if Ian wasn’t Ryan and Ryan was just Ryan, then that meant Ian actually existed. And if Ian existed then he was . . . he was . . .

Here.

As if I had conjured him by thinking his name too many times, a guy suddenly appeared at the doorway. Again with the light behind him like he was glowing. Still tall and lean like Ryan was, although now I could see that he was skinnier than his brother. He wasn’t wearing a cap this time. His hair was obviously shorter than Ryan’s and a bit darker. But the same eyes. The same perfectly straight nose. And even though he wasn’t smiling, I had a feeling that his dimple would be on the right side of his cheek. Not on the left like Ryan’s was.

Judging by the shocked look on Ian’s face, there was no doubt that this was my Ian.

Excerpt #3
“Are you sure we’ve never met before? Because you look very familiar.”

“No, I don’t think so.” His eyes flickered down to my empty coffee cup still on the seat between us. “Nina. That’s a pretty name. Now I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

Except he didn’t.

Narrowing my eyes, I searched his face for something—anything—but he continued to give me a small polite smile.

Then two things hit me at once.

First, maybe he didn’t recognize me because of my makeup. I mean, I was wearing more than I usually did. A lot more. I barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror this morning. Plus, on my hike, I wore those huge sunglasses that covered half my face. And my hair was in a ponytail.

Second, if he didn’t remember me . . . then maybe this was my chance to make another first impression. A better one. Like WAY better. It wouldn’t even be hard. I was already off to a pretty good start. This was practically the definition of a rom-com meet cute, one that would make it into the theaters.

I mean, sure, I planned the whole thing, but a meet cute was still a meet cute, right? And it’s not like I planned the crazy car. That was a happy coincidence.

“So . . .”

I straightened on the bench. “Yes?”

Kicking his left foot at the sidewalk, Ryan jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I was thinking, after we talk to the police do you—do you want to get some ice cream with me? I know this place nearby that makes awesome homemade waffle cones. It’s the least I could do, since you saved my life.”

For a split second, as he gazed down at me with such an earnest expression on his face, a pang of guilt seeped into my gut. He was such a nice guy, both now and on the hike. He probably wouldn’t mind if I told him the truth. After all, the more I lied to him now, the worse it was going to get.

But when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.

The thing is, it wasn’t every day that I got a chance to rewrite history. Instead of being the weird girl he met on the hike who got injured and wet her pants, I could be the cool girl from the coffee shop. The one who knew about Spider-Man comics and liked mystery novels. The one who went around saving people and probably had her entire life planned out. And definitely didn’t have any family issues. The girl I always wished I could be, at least for a little bit.

And this was something I was definitely going to take advantage of.

Plus, technically, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Not really. I was just tweaking our meet cute story a teensy bit. If he didn’t remember me, then it wasn’t really my fault.

I gave him a bright smile. “Make it a double scoop and you’ve got yourself a date.”