Regrets Only - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kieran Scott has written more than fifty novels for children and teens, eight of which (under the pseudonym Kate Brian) have been New York Times bestsellers. She lives with her husband, two sons and one dog in New Jersey. She is also the author of Regrets Only and Wish You Were Gone. Follow her on Instagram @KieranScottAuthor.

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Chapter 1: Paige

paige

Why is the whole world against me?

Paige Lancaster twisted the thick, leather-covered steering wheel on the leased BMW SUV she wasn’t 100 percent sure she could afford, sweat breaking out under her arms and above her upper lip. There were cars. Everywhere. People. Everywhere. Buses and kids and dogs and strollers. But there were no parking spots. And no one was moving from any parking spots. Everyone was just standing around, chatting. Gesturing effusively with their hands and laughing with their heads thrown back and their perfect teeth bared to the sun. Swear to God, the people in this town paid more for their orthodontia than they did back in L.A.

This couldn’t be the way school pickup was run these days. School ended at 3:05. What time had these people arrived in order to park? Twelve thirty? What had they done to kill the time? Was there a mommy lunch date followed by yoga class on someone’s front lawn, followed by a book club meeting and a freaking drum circle all so people could be here early?

Finally, finally someone up ahead pulled out. Paige accelerated, catching the scathing look of some mom with two long braids in her hair like Laura fucking Ingalls. Screw you, Half Pint, I’m late to pick up my kid on her first day at a new school. Paige stopped the car and hit her blinker. And now, she had to parallel park.

Fifteen minutes later, half the cars were gone, and Paige was finally out of her SUV. She hadn’t parallel parked anything since her driver’s test in eleventh grade. And that had been her mom’s Honda Civic, not the tank she was currently driving. No one had ever uttered truer words than Cher Horowitz in Clueless when she’d said, “What’s the point? Everywhere you go has valet.” But she’d gotten through it. And her tires were only about a foot and a half away from the curb. Score. She shoved her keys into her messenger bag and jogged for the pathway that led to the school.

Fifteen minutes late. Where would Izzy be at this point? Had they left her at the side door by herself? Was she on the playground hanging upside down on the monkey bars? (Was that even something her daughter liked to do?) Or was she sitting in the front office, crying her eyes out, cursing the day her evil mother had taken her away from her nanny, Martha, the only responsible adult she’d ever known in her eight years on the planet?

Thirty years ago, when Paige had attended this very same school, Piermont Elementary (ugh… thirty years?), pickup had been a whole different ball game. Back then the teachers just let the kids out the doors. Parents didn’t need to be there to receive them. They just went. To the playground. To the Country Five and Dime (which was now a Starbucks), to their friends’ houses. Or to the chauffeured vehicles waiting out front. (Some chauffeurs were parents. Others were actual chauffeurs.) But now the parking lot out front was off-limits and every child had to be handed over to one of the three adults on their release forms, one by one, before 3:15. This was the procedure Paige had learned just this morning from the very stern assistant to the principal. The one she’d tried so hard to make smile with bad jokes and aw-shucks new-to-the-school pandering. It had not worked. And now she was clearly on the woman’s shit list. One of the most powerful women in the school. Never underestimate the last line of defense to the person with the biggest office. It was something one of her first Hollywood showrunners had taught her.

Halfway up the path, the white brick walls of the school in sight through the autumn-hued trees, Paige’s cell phone started to ring. She knew she should ignore it, but she’d just gotten off the phone with her agent before leaving the house to come here, and if Farrin Schwartz was calling back within half an hour it could only be good news. Paige suspected that Farrin routinely forgot she existed. If Paige didn’t pick up, it was likely she wouldn’t hear from the woman again for two weeks, if not two months.

But Paige couldn’t wait two weeks. She needed a win. She needed something to write or revise or punch up or doctor. Anything to feel like her screenwriting career was not over. That maybe one day she’d be able to return to L.A. without her tail between her legs.

She paused to root around in her bag and had just about decided that her phone had disappeared to wherever it was that all of Mary Poppins’s stuff appeared from, when someone said her name.

“Paige? No way. Paige Lancaster?”

A male someone.

Paige looked up into a pair of blue eyes so familiar she could have sketched them with her own eyes closed.

John Anderson. He was older. Blonder. Tanner. Softer. Crinklier. But it was definitely John.

“Holy shit, John?”

The twelvish boy next to John—practically his doppelganger—snorted, eyes trained down at his phone, as the world around them seemed to go quiet. But not because they were having some sort of rom-com meet-cute moment. No. It was because every mom within a ten-foot radius had heard Paige utter the word “shit” in the vicinity of the pristine ears of their children and had paused in place, as if some sort of sci-fi time-freeze device had been unleashed on the sleepy hamlet of Piermont, Connecticut. John blushed. Blushed! And Paige laughed. The world started up again, albeit with a few more scathing looks thrown her way. She was really racking them up today.

“How are you?” She leaned in to hug him and was relieved when he hugged her back, not stiffly, not awkwardly, but as if no time had passed. Her bag swung around him and knocked him from behind, the keys and sundry things inside jangling.

“I’m good. I just… I can’t believe it’s you. How long has it been? What are you doing here?”

She righted her bag on her shoulder and wished she weren’t sweating. “Oh, it’s been a minute,” she said, and they both laughed. It had been twenty-four years. A quarter of a century, practically. How was that possible? “I just moved back. With my daughter, Izzy. We’re going to stay with my mom for a while.”

“That’s great!” John said with a smile. A genuine smile. One that still weakened her knees, and she suddenly found herself on the verge of a giggle. And it had been decades since she’d giggled. “Welcome back.”

“I guess that means you still live here, then.”

“Yep. Well, moved back after college and grad school and a couple years living in the city. You know.” He lifted one shoulder. “The usual. I’m so sorry about your dad. Everyone in this town loved him. I mean… you know I loved him.”

“Oh, thanks. Yeah. He loved you too. Back in the day.” She cleared her throat and cast around for a subject change. “This must be your son.”

John did a double take at the kid and laughed. “Yeah, yes. Sorry. Bradley, this is my old friend Paige. Paige, this is Bradley, my youngest. He’s in sixth grade this year.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Bradley, barely looking up from his phone.

Youngest? How many kids did he have? And when had he started, five minutes after they’d broken up?

“How old is your daughter?”...