With the door shut behind that mysterious figure next door, Bailey had managed to put him from her mind to concentrate on talking with her mother about her recent separation and The Perfect Christmas. The effort hadn’t gotten her anywhere, however. So she’d followed Tracy to an early bedtime and woke up early as well, to now find dark-rimmed eyes staring into hers.

Bailey jumped, pressing back against the pan-cake-flat pillow of her childhood, then relaxed again as she realized she was gazing at one of her old band posters and into Kurt Cobain’s compelling-likely drug-addled-gaze. Even still, she felt a tug of attraction.

Once you jonesed for a bad boy, you always jonesed for bad boys.

But she wasn’t going to think about bad boys, or mysterious strangers, or even the possibility that the mysterious stranger next door was Finn.

Even if it was Finn-itwasn’tFinn itwasn’tFinn itwasn’tFinn-this unlucky intersection of their lives didn’t make it necessary for her to see or talk to him. Not that she couldn’t! But surely it was natural to feel discomfort around an old-first-flame, wasn’t it?

Especially as they hadn’t parted on ideal terms. As a matter of fact, they were un-ideal enough to make her even more certain she should continue avoiding Finn just as she’d done for the past ten years.

With a last glance at that gorgeous, doomed Kurt, Bailey climbed out of bed and headed straight for the attached bathroom. The sooner she stopped thinking about old times and old flames, the sooner she could get on with her day. The sooner she got on with her day, the sooner she could tackle the chaos at the store and the renewed disorder in her mother’s emotional life.