The Last First Touch by Rocklyn Ryder

Abby:
What’s it like to look back on your dating life and not cringe, I wonder?
When I think back over all the guys I’ve dated all I come up with is a list of regrets going all the way back to that summer before my senior year of high school when I made out with Jeremy Stevens at the end of summer beach party up in Lakeview.
Talk about cringey.

***

The guy with the guitar stops playing intermittently to discuss his technique with the group of mesmerized kids. I watch the kids mimic the way he holds his fingers on the fret board.
This must be the guy that’s taking over teaching music down here.
I take in the dark hair, the wide shoulders, the bulge of obvious biceps under an otherwise loosely fitted flannel shirt.
When he raises his head to look up at me, the view of his close-cropped, dark hair gives way to a chiseled jaw and a wide smile as recognition fills his deep brown eyes.
My initial interest is immediately replaced by a wave of nausea that moves through me as I realize that the new “Jeremy” teaching music at the recreation center is the same old Jeremy of my awkward adolescent fantasies turned nightmares.
My voice fails and I resist the urge to break into a run as my very first regret stares up at me.

Jeremy:
I’d been crushing on the Abster since the sixth grade. I hoped that make out session before our senior year back in high school might have meant she felt something for me too.
Then she ghosted me.
One look at her today and I know that what I felt for her was more than a crush.
She might still be out of my league, but at least now I have something to offer a woman like Abigail.
Maybe there’s more than one reason I’m back in Landsburg, I think, maybe this is my chance to show Abby that I’m not that same loser she remembers from high school.
If I can just get a second chance with her, I’ll make sure she never regrets kissing me again.