The Night We Met

by Abby Jimenez

Genres: Women's Fiction

Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Say You'll Remember Me comes a beautiful, compelling novel that revels in laughter, friendship, and the messy choices life can throw our way.

In everyone’s life, there’s a split-second decision that can change everything...

For Larissa, it came when choosing which guy to ride home with after a concert. That night, she had no idea she’d met the perfect man. She and Chris are great together, co-parenting a slightly unhinged rescue Yorkie, sharing their favorite books, and judging bread (pumpernickel for the win!). For the first time amid all her side hustles to scrape by, things finally feel easy.
 
But Chris isn't the one who drove Larissa home all those months ago—Chris is her boyfriend's best friend. All Chris wants is for Larissa to be happy. Standing by on the sidelines is slowly killing him, but making a move would destroy someone else. And he’s just not that guy.
 

Release date: March 31, 2026

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

My phone was ringing.

It was five fifteen in the morning.

Mike.

I was only half awake when I hit the answer button. “What.”

“Bro, I need you to do me a favor.”

I groaned. “What favor?”

“I need you to drive Larissa and her mom to the hospital.”

I squeezed my eyes shut in the dark.

My best friend was a lot of things. He was loyal to a fault. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He was hilarious, generous, and protective of the people he cared about. But he was also the most likely to call you at some ungodly hour with a request that started with “I need a favor.”

“I told her I would take them,” he said. “Her car’s in the shop and her mom’s car is stick and Larissa doesn’t know how to drive it. It’s her mom’s surgery today.”

I rolled onto my back. “And you can’t do it why?”

“I screwed up, man. I hit it too hard last night. I’ve got the hangover of the fucking century. I think I’m still drunk.”

“Mike, it’s my day off. I’m tired.”

“I know. Look, there’s nobody else to take them. Jesse took Becca down to Wakan for their anniversary. Xavier’s in town but he’s not picking up. I even asked my mom.”

“I don’t even know Larissa,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I only met her that one time.”

“Come on, dude. She’ll never get a lift this early in the morning.”

“Can’t her mom drive them there? They can get a rideshare back.”

“And leave the car in the parking lot? And then she’s gonna be there by herself while her mom’s in surgery. Don’t make me beg you. I need this. Please.”

I stared at the ceiling in the dark. Fuck. I kicked out of my blankets. “Why’d you drink so much if you knew you had to be somewhere early?” I turned on the lamp on my nightstand and winced at the light.

“It got away from me. Look, I’ll pay you back. I’ll wash your car, dude, I’ll do anything. It took me six weeks to get this girl to have coffee with me. She might not even talk to me after this if I leave her hanging. I like her so much, I can’t mess this up.”

I pulled a hoodie over my head. “You owe me big-time. I’m serious.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey, don’t tell her I’m hungover, okay? I’m gonna say I have a migraine.”

“Whatever. Just text me the address.” I hung up on him.

I stood in the middle of my room momentarily, too irritated to move.

This crap would annoy me on a good day.

I hadn’t had a good day in a while.

All I wanted to do was sleep and be left alone. Mostly the second one.

The guys insisted on hauling me out of my house as much as humanly possible—which I appreciated objectively because they were trying to help. But this situation was Mike being Mike. And who the hell was he out drinking with? God knows if the guys had gone anywhere last night, I would have been kidnapped and thrown in the trunk.

I dragged myself to the bathroom to get cleaned up.

Twenty minutes later, I was pulling in front of a small building in a not-so-great neighborhood. The Windsor Castle Apartments.

This place was the furthest thing from a castle I’d ever seen. The units had bars on the windows. The walkway was cracked and bulging, and there was a stained mattress on the curb out front next to a busted TV with rabbit-ear antennas. I threw the car in park and steeled myself for human interaction before I got out. The sun was barely up. Fucking Mike.

I did my best to keep my mood off my face and knocked on door 104. After a moment, Larissa answered. She was in a gray hoodie, no makeup. Her blond hair was in a ponytail, and her blue eyes were bloodshot.

She waited tables at Donna’s, Mike’s mom’s café. I’d seen her there a few times, but she’d never waited on me. I only actually met her once, two months ago for five minutes. It was after a concert I’d been forced to attend. She’d been barefoot and she needed a ride home. It had been between me and Mike.

She chose Mike.

It struck me again how pretty she was. It had struck me that night at the concert too. Me and Mike both.

She blinked at me. “Where’s Mike?”

“He didn’t tell you?” I asked.

“No…”

Aaaand of course he forgot to text her.

“Mike’s got a migraine,” I said. “He asked me if I could take you. I’m Chris. We met that one night.”

“I remember…” she said tentatively.

She chewed her lip, then glanced over her shoulder before coming back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low. “I can call a rideshare.”

“I was up,” I lied. “I had nothing to do today,” I lied again. “It’s my pleasure. Really.”

Someone came from behind her. A middle-aged woman in a beanie. She stopped when she saw me. “Oh. Where’s Mike, hon?”

I smiled at her around Larissa. “Mike is sick this morning. I’m Chris, his best friend.”

“Chris, this is my mom, Nancy,” Larissa said, still looking uncertain.

“Nice to meet you.” I reached for the duffel bag Nancy was holding. “Let me take that for you.”

“Wow. Such a gentleman,” she said, handing it over, giving her daughter an unsure glance.

Both women looked like they’d been crying.

I didn’t know what kind of surgery Nancy was having. It was none of my business, so I wasn’t going to pry, but this was clearly something very personal taking place this morning and they’d trusted Mike enough to ask him to get them there, and he’d sent a stranger to do it instead. And didn’t even call to let them know—probably because he was passed out.

I was so pissed at him.

“Should we get going?” I asked.

Larissa nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

They followed me out to the car. I put Nancy’s bag in the trunk and opened the doors for them both. Larissa made her mom take the front seat. Her mom smelled like cigarettes.

It was a twenty-minute ride to Royaume Northwestern Hospital. I was thinking it was going to be a quiet one, but then Nancy turned in her seat to look at Larissa. “You know, the Lord gives his toughest battles to his strongest warriors.”

“Mom, stop,” Larissa said.

Nancy faced front again. Then she turned to me. “So how long have you known Mike?”

“Twenty-five years,” I said, getting onto the freeway.

“Larissa, didn’t you say there were a couple of them that night you all met? At the concert?” Nancy asked over her shoulder.

When Larissa didn’t answer, I did.

“There were four of us,” I said. “Xavier and Jesse are the other two.”

“Are all of you so handsome?”

I choked.

“Mom!”

“What?” Nancy said, pivoting to look at her daughter. “He’s handsome. Are we supposed to just sit here and pretend like we don’t notice?”

Heat crept up my neck.

Larissa was behind me, so I couldn’t see her in the mirror, but I could somehow feel her glaring at her mother anyway.

“So, do you have a girlfriend?” Nancy asked me wryly.

“Uh, no, not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Mom…” Larissa’s voice was a warning.

Nancy let out a dramatic sigh, like Larissa was ruining her fun from the back seat.

“I’m just taking a little break right now from dating,” I said, changing lanes.

“Huh.” She sniffed the sleeve of her sweater. “This smells like soup. Larissa, are you cooking without the fan on again? All my clothes smell like onions.”

I didn’t smell soup. I did smell smoke, though.

“I didn’t cook anything without the fan on, Mom.”

She sniffed her sleeve again. “You probably smell like soup, too, if it’s on me. Smell your hoodie.”

No answer from the back seat.

I couldn’t tell you how I knew it, but I sensed that Larissa was about to cry.

“Do you like podcasts?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Sometimes…” Nancy said.

“You’ll love this,” I said, turning on the radio.

I put on a comedy series I sometimes listened to on the way to the pharmacy and I turned it up enough that her mom couldn’t keep talking. Thankfully it worked.

When we pulled up to the patient drop-off, Larissa’s mom got out and then Larissa leaned into the open door. “Thank you.”

“I’m just going to park the car and then I’ll meet you inside,” I said.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Mike asked me to stay with you—”

“I’m fine. Really, I am. Thank you so much. I can get a rideshare back.”

Then she closed the door before I could argue and started walking her mom to the automatic doors.

I waited for a minute, watching her go like she might spin around and change her mind.

She didn’t.

I know I should have been relieved that I’d just gotten my day back, but I wasn’t. Mike had seemed adamant that he didn’t want her alone. It didn’t feel right leaving.

Part of me considered parking and going in anyway, but on the chance she didn’t want my company, I opted not to. I didn’t know her well enough, didn’t want to force my presence on her.

I put the car in drive and was almost to the street when I realized Nancy left her bag in the trunk. I didn’t have Larissa’s number to text her to meet me out front. I had no choice. I parked and went in.

The second they took Mom back to the OR, I burst into tears again.

I’d been crying most of last night and part of this morning. Mom too.

Dad had used my Social Security number to open credit cards in my name. I found out because they’d garnished the tax return I’d been waiting on to fix my car. I got the email yesterday.

Mom wasn’t working, and we were barely making the rent. I didn’t know how we were going to pay these medical bills, and now I didn’t even know how I was going to afford to get my car out of the shop. I couldn’t take any more time off work. I was living paycheck to paycheck, doing odd jobs just to afford groceries.

I’d babysat last night until midnight for the lady upstairs to make twenty extra dollars. I put him to bed at nine and fell asleep on the sofa, and he pried my eyelid open to tell me he woke up and drew a picture of me—on the wall of his room with his mom’s makeup. I laughed because it was so not funny, it was.

I felt so bad for the mess, I didn’t even take the money.

I pulled my legs into my chest on the gray waiting room chair and put my forehead to my knees.

I didn’t want to be alone at the hospital. I wanted to go home.

I wanted to put on my ratty emotional support grandma underwear and take off my bra and climb into bed and sleep until it was over. I wanted to order delivery food I couldn’t afford so I could eat something I didn’t have to cook and most of all I wanted someone else to figure it out. The brain energy it took for me to just do the basics at this point was more than I had to spare.

And on top of all of it, according to Mom, I probably smelled like soup.

I cried harder.

I was weeping softly into my knees, grateful that I somehow had the whole surgical waiting room to myself to sob in peace, when someone cleared their throat. My head shot up. Chris stood in the entrance, holding Mom’s bag.

When he’d showed up this morning instead of Mike, I’d almost broken down right then and there.

I didn’t like to ask for help, it had taken a lot for me to do that. Then Mike sent Chris instead of coming himself.

I could barely process it. I felt horrible that a man who barely knew me had to wake up so early to come do this. I was embarrassed by Mom’s nervous word vomit in the car, I was upset that Mike made us an inconvenience for somebody else, and I was baffled at why he hadn’t given me a heads-up and sent Chris unannounced.

I liked Mike. He was funny and distracting, and I’d needed that more than I’d realized with the last few months being so draining. But after what happened this morning, I was seriously questioning whether I should keep dating him.

I probably wasn’t being fair. He had a migraine. Maybe it took everything he had just to call Chris and get him to come instead. Maybe he was in excruciating pain and looking at his phone was debilitating. But something felt off about it, and I was too emotionally and mentally exhausted to examine it. I’d barely eaten last night, I was shaky from low blood sugar, I had a caffeine headache creeping in, and I was likely not thinking rationally, but my knee-jerk reaction to Mike not showing was to just break things off because I did not have the capacity to deal with unreliable people right now.

Chris stared at me for another few seconds. Then he grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the coffee table, walked across the room, and sat down next to me.

“Here.” He put the Kleenex into my hands.

I took them. “Thanks.” I wiped my nose.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently.

I nodded at my hands in my lap.

He didn’t say anything and after a moment I looked up at him. He was sitting there studying me. He looked genuinely concerned.

He had really pretty brown eyes. It struck me as weird I hadn’t noticed them the night we met. Maybe the lighting wasn’t as good. I also hadn’t been this close. Or maybe I hadn’t registered how kind those eyes were and that’s what made them beautiful now.

“Nancy left her bag in the trunk,” he said.

“I know.” I sniffed. “I didn’t have your number to call you. Mike isn’t replying to my texts.”

“Migraine.”

“Yeah. I know.” I drew in a shaky breath. “Thank you. You can go home now. I’ll be fine.”

“No.”

It took me a second to register what he’d said. “What?”

“No,” he said again. “I’m staying.” He gazed at me levelly.

I laughed a little, and it completely threw me out of my spiral. “What if I don’t want you to stay?” I asked.

“Don’t care. I took a job. I’m gonna do it. And you can’t fire me. You didn’t hire me, you’re not my boss.”

He got an amused scoff out of me.

“Have you eaten yet today?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Why don’t we go get breakfast. My treat.”

“I… I don’t know if I should leave…”

“She’ll be in surgery for at least an hour,” he said.

“How do you know? You don’t even know what surgery she’s having. Unless Mike told you.”

“He didn’t tell me. With prep and recovery, no surgery takes less than an hour. The hospital has a text message notification system for updates. I’m sure they set you up,” he said. “There’s a café just across the street. If they page, we can have you back here in five minutes.”

He waited for my reply.

“I’m hungry but I don’t think I can eat,” I said.

“Then maybe we should just go, sit down in a booth, and rate the bread.”

“Rate the bread…” I said slowly.

“Yeah. They’re a bakery too. We can get a bunch of different loaves and eat them. Rate them from one to ten. When your stomach’s upset, you can always eat bread.”

He looked at me, stone-cold serious.

I let out a breath. “Okay. I have to check the menu, though. I have a nut allergy.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll do it.”

Then without another word, he pulled out his phone and dialed.

I don’t know why this made me want to cry again. Maybe because I was exhausted and even the small task of making sure the restaurant was safe felt overwhelming to me right now?

I watched him call.

“Peanut allergy or tree nuts?” he said, putting the phone to his ear.

“Both.”

He nodded. “Hi,” he said. “I was wondering if you have any nuts on the menu? I was going to come by with someone who has a nut allergy. Are you sure? Can you triple-check? Ask the chefs. Okay.”

He moved the phone away from his mouth. “I’m on hold. They’re checking with the kitchen. Is the allergy severe?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you have Benadryl?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Where’s your EpiPen?”

“In my purse?”

“Let me see it.”

“You want to see my EpiPen,” I deadpanned.

“Yes.”

“Okay…” I took it out and handed it to him.

He cradled the phone with his shoulder and looked at the expiration date and then the color of the liquid. He seemed to be satisfied with its condition and handed it back to me.

“It passes inspection?” I asked, mildly entertained.

“I’m a pharmacist. Minnesota has big temperature fluctuations, which can affect the quality. This one looks good.”

When I kept giving him a look, he gave a goofy one back to me.

“I’ve been entrusted with your care and I’m taking you out to eat,” he said. “I like to know your rescue medication isn’t expired.”

Before I could reply, the person came back on the line. “None at all?” he said into the phone. “No Nutella or peanut butter or almond flour? Great. Okay, we’ll be right over.”

He hung up. “Nut free.” He nodded over his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go get you some coffee.”

We made the short walk across the street and he held the door for me on the way in.

The place was cute—small with a bar full of red stools and booths against the window with tiny vases that had a single pink carnation in them. There was a cold case with muffins and pies and cookies in it by the register and baskets full of fresh baked breads on the wall behind it.

The hostess put us in a seat by the window. A minute later, our waitress came over with coffee. She was a middle-aged woman who reminded me a lot of Mom. “You kids need a minute with the menu?” she asked, filling our cups.

“We’re going to do five loaves of bread,” Chris said.

She looked at us over her glasses. “Five? They’re big, you know.”

“Yeah. We want to try them all,” he said.

“Okay…” she said. “How about for your girlfriend?” She looked at me. “You just want bread?”

“Oh, I’m not his girlfriend,” I said.

“She’s my best friend’s girlfriend,” Chris said.

“Huh,” she said, uninterested. “You want the pumpernickel too?”

“Is it good?” he asked.

She gave a shrug. “Not my cup of tea. Cindy, what do you think about the pumpernickel?” she called over her shoulder to another server wiping a table down.

“It’s kind of ass.”

Chris glanced at me, and we shared an amused look.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Pumpernickel’s rye, right? I like rye,” I said.

“Me too,” Chris said. “Ass can be subjective. We’ll take it.”

The waitress mouthed “Ass can be subjective” while she wrote the order down. Then she grabbed our menus and left.

“I’m not really his girlfriend,” I said once she was out of earshot.

He lowered his coffee cup. “Oh. Sorry. I just didn’t know how else to—”

“It’s fine. We’re just seeing each other right now. It’s not anything official.”

“Noted. Do you have a pen?”

“I think so.” I dug in my purse and handed him a generic ballpoint. He started writing on a napkin.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making a bread-ranking scoreboard.”

I watched him with amusement while he drew a grid. “You’re really serious about this,” I said.

“Aren’t you? This is important work we’re doing.”

He finished the tally sheet while I emptied three vanilla creamers into my mug. I took a long swallow and the calories and caffeine flooded my system like liquid energy. I felt instantly better.

When he was done with the scoreboard, I took the napkin and started drawing a floral border around it.

“So I need to know,” he said, sipping his coffee. “How did you end up barefoot with Lexi at a Jaxon Waters concert?”

“Someone threw up on her boots in the bathroom,” I said, shading a daisy. “They could not be saved.”

“So you gave her your shoes?”

“I did. One of us had to piggyback the other one out, and she’s stronger.”

“Did you get your shoes back?”

“Yes. She returned them the next day—but it was touch and go for a while there. She is known to take things. Mostly hoodies.” I held up the napkin to show him my sketch. He gave me an approving nod.

“Did you know Lexi before you started working together at the diner?”

“Yeah. We used to live in the same building,” I said. “She got me the job.”

“Do you like working at Donna’s?” he asked.

I shrugged. “I like the hours. I’m a morning person.”

He scoffed. “I’m not.”

My face fell. “I’m sorry…”

He seemed to realize what he’d implied. “No, it’s fine. I didn’t mind waking up—”

“I thought you said you were already up.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Okay. I was not up. But I’m happy to help. Seriously.”

I gave him a look that called bullshit.

“I mean it,” he said. “I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I would have woken up anyway and just laid there, so at least I’m doing something.”

I didn’t get to press him for more because the bread showed up.

The server dropped it off, then brought us two plates and a ramekin of butter and left again. She was right, they were huge, lined up next to each other across the table like we were at a farmers market.

“So how’d you meet Mike?” I asked while he pulled the French loaf in front of him and started slicing.

“We grew up on the same street. Jesse and Xavier too. Went to school together.”

“Same college too?”

He slid me a piece. “No, Mike didn’t go. He went into a trade.”

I cocked my head. “A trade? What trade?”

He looked surprised. “He’s a licensed master plumber. He didn’t tell you?”

“No…”

“Yeah. He can do all of it,” he said, buttering his slice. “It’s his side hustle right now. He prefers the personal training, but he is a plumber.”

Huh. I had to admit, that impressed me. And Mike had never mentioned it, which sort of impressed me more.

He nodded at me. “Have you met his stepdad yet?”

“Not yet,” I said, taking a bite of the bread.

“You’ve probably seen his billboards. The Toilet King?”

I had to cover my mouth when my jaw dropped. “That’s Mike’s stepdad? The Henry Tudor guy with the plunger?”

“Yeah. That’s why Mike went into the business. I think Tony wants to leave it to him when he retires.”

“I had no idea that was Donna’s husband. Wow.”

He took a bite and chewed, then he gestured to mine. “Thoughts?”

“I like it,” I said. “It has a really nice crust on it.”

“Yeah, but almost too much. It was a little hard to bite into,” he said, examining it.

“So what’s your rating, then?” I asked.

He bobbed his head. “I give it a seven and a half out of ten. You?”

“Nine out of ten.”

“Really. That high.” He wrote down my answer. Then he set the napkin aside and started cutting slices of the sourdough. “So how long is your mom going to be in the hospital?” he asked.

“Just today if everything goes fine. She slipped on some ice and broke her wrist. It didn’t set right.”

“I thought it was cancer or something. You both seemed a little upset.”

“I was upset because I just found out my alcoholic degenerate father with a gambling addiction managed to get my Social Security number and open a twenty-two-thousand-dollar credit card account in my name. It’s in collections.”

I probably shouldn’t have dumped this on him, but I wanted to blurt it out. Hurl it at this stranger and watch him flinch when it hit him.

But he didn’t flinch.

“My mom died three months ago,” he said. “It was unexpected. I’ve just been a little… out of sorts myself. So I get it.”

We looked at each other, some unspoken understanding passing between us, like we were agreeing to be whatever kind of mess we needed to be at this table. That it was mutually acceptable to just eat this bread and be in our feelings and say whatever it was we wanted to say without judgment from either side—which was good. Because sometimes I was too tired and too done to pretend I was fine.

“Has he ever done this before?” he asked.

“To my mom,” I said, watching him butter another slice. “She said he never had access to my Social, so she told me not to bother worrying about it. Obviously she was wrong.”

“You can’t dispute the debt?”

“I can. I will. But it’s a process and it doesn’t always get reversed. They took my tax return money yesterday. I was going to use that to get my car out of the shop. My mom’s been out of work for two months. She’s going to need another month to recover enough to go back. I’m paying all the bills. I just didn’t need this right now.” I stared at the piece of bread on my plate. “You’re a pharmacist?” I said, changing the subject.

“Yeah. I work at Bergmans.”

A big retail pharmacy chain. He had a good job, and he was smart. I couldn’t imagine being able to understand all that chemistry. It felt harder than being a doctor for some reason.

“That’s a lot of school,” I said. “I never liked school,” I admitted.

“Oh yeah? What do you like?”

I shrugged. “I like cooking—sorry if I smell like soup, by the way.”

“You don’t smell like soup. You smell good, actually.”

I paused and looked up.

“Not that I’m sniffing you,” he said quickly. “It was just when I held the door for you and you walked past me, I—”

“I’m glad I don’t smell like soup,” I said, holding back a small smile.

He cleared his throat. “Are you going to be a chef, then?”

“No,” I said, going back to the napkin. “I’ve worked in enough restaurants to know I don’t ever want to cook in a kitchen.”

“Did you go to college?” he asked.

“No. I took a pottery class once.”

“You’re artistic, then,” he said, somehow making my sad education sound interesting.

“I guess so. I sew a little bit. I make my own clothes sometimes, my own jewelry. I got really into paper quilling at one point and I was pretty good at it, but you can’t make that a job.”

His cell phone vibrated. “Sorry, hold on.”

He read the message. “It’s Mike, asking where we are.”

I watched him while he texted a reply. He looked stern when he was focused. Sort of how he looked that first night.

I knew Chris was single from Mom’s prying in the car. Lexi mentioned it, too, when she was auctioning off which guy friend I should get a ride home from the night of the concert. I’d picked Mike, mostly because he actually smiled and seemed less irritated at being asked.

I laughed a little to myself remembering it. Mike had been actively flirting with me and in the middle of it, Chris mumbled something about being closer to my city than Mike was. He’d said it like he was honor-bound to inform me of the logistics so I would be fully aware of how much I was inconveniencing Mike.

I chose to inconvenience Mike.

Two months ago meant Chris’s mom had just died. I guess I could understand why he’d been a little dark.

He was still a little dark. But that was okay. I didn’t care so much this time around.

We tasted the sourdough and both gave it a nine.

“Should we try the pumpernickel?” he asked.

“Yes.”

We bit into it at the same exact time and chewed, watching each other for the reaction.

I swallowed. “Well?” I aske. . .