[Polaris Series 04] • Hearts Aligned

“There’s plenty of fish in the sea.”

Great advice if you’re a fisherman. I wasn’t. I also wasn’t a player. I wasn’t a ‘love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. I wasn’t scared of commitment. That is, until Melissa Cross showed up, stole my heart, and then disappeared with the pieces. It took awhile, but I made a new life for myself, one that didn’t include any part of her. Except, it turned out, it did. Our lives are more connected now than they ever were…and maybe my heart wasn’t as disconnected as I fooled myself into believing.

* * *

“Keep your friends close and your heart closer.”

I always assumed this little pearl of wisdom from my mother meant to treasure the man I fell in love with more than anyone. Until the day I learned that it really meant to hold tight to your heart, because once you gave it away, nothing in the world hurt more than leaving it behind when the relationship had to end. I thought I’d moved on. I thought I’d built a new life that didn’t—couldn’t—include Chris Matthews; until the man I’d never forgotten showed back up in my life. Turns out I must still own a piece of my heart otherwise I never would have been able to feel it shatter all over again.

Our lives seemed destined to be aligned, but would there ever come a time when our hearts would as well?

*This is a STANDALONE NOVELLA*