Holly Winters was standing in the driveway of 45 Maple Street, pulling luggage from the trunk of a Honda Civic that had clearly seen better days and possibly better decades. But it wasn’t the car that made me stare with the intensity of someone who’d forgotten how to blink—it washer.
Jesus Christ.
The slightly overweight teenager who used to follow me and Matt around like a determined puppy with pigtails and an endless supply of questions had grown into... well, into a woman who could stop traffic on Fifth Avenue during rush hour. Her dark hair caught the porch light as she moved, longer now and piled up in a messy bun that still had the kind of casual sophistication that suggested she’d learned things about being an adult woman that teenage Holly had only dreamed about.
Even from my second-floor vantage point, I could see she’d gained curves in all the right places—and I meanallthe right places. Even under the oversized hoodie and sweatpants, I could see her fuller figure in all its glory. She moved with a confidence that was entirely new and completely mesmerizing, like someone who knew exactly how good she looked and wasn’t apologizing for it.
I watched her pull a suitcase from the trunk. When she straightened and pushed her hair back from her face, the gesture was unconsciously elegant, the kind of natural grace that some women spent years trying to cultivate.
This was not the Holly Winters I remembered.
The Holly I remembered. She’d been sweet and smart and occasionally annoying in the way that best friend’s little sisters were specifically designed to be. I thought she was cute back then, a bit chubby, but cute and bubbly, and it suited her.
This Holly—this grown-up, curved-in-all-the-right-places, moving-with-confident-grace Holly—was an entirely different category of problem.
I watched as Mr. Winters immediately took charge of the heaviest bags with the kind of paternal efficiency that suggested this homecoming had been eagerly anticipated. Mrs. Winters supervised and chided Holly’s dad to lift with his knees.
Holly laughed at something her dad said, and the sound carried across the narrow space between our houses. I remembered that laugh—bright and infectious and completely genuine, the kind of laugh that made everyone around her smile, whether they wanted to or not. Some things never changed, even when everything else transformed beyond recognition.
She glanced toward my parents’ house, probably noticing the lights I’d turned on, and I stepped back from the window before she could spot me lurking like some creepy neighbor conducting unauthorized surveillance. Which, technically, I suppose I was now.
From my new position slightly behind the curtain—because I was apparently a thirty-one-year-old man with the emotional maturity of a teenager when it came to surprisingly attractive neighbors—I continued watching as Holly organized her luggage with the kind of systematic efficiency that suggested she approached most things in life with strategic thinking. Even from a distance, I could see her gesturing as she talked with her parents, hands moving expressively in the way she’d always done when she was excited or nervous or working through complicated thoughts.
Some habits were apparently eternal, which was oddly comforting in the midst of my current life crisis.
What was less comforting was the way my body was responding to this new version of Holly Winters. Seeing her as a confident, gorgeous woman was making those old feelings thatI tried to deny seem quaint by comparison. Chubby, sweet and bubbly was all grown up, and it was fucking with my head a bit.
This was problematic for several reasons, not least of which was that I was supposed to be using this sabbatical to figure out my career crisis, not to develop complicated feelings about my best friend’s sister. Matt had always been protective of Holly in the way that older brothers were genetically programmed to be, and I had no interest in testing the limits of our friendship by explaining that I’d spent the last twenty minutes cataloging everything attractive about his sister.
Plus, Holly was clearly dealing with her own situation. All the boxes and suitcases suggested she was moving back home in some kind of life transition that probably didn’t need the complication of her childhood neighbor developing an inconvenient attraction.
I forced myself to step away from the window and return to unpacking, but I found myself listening to the sounds of her homecoming with more attention than was strictly appropriate. The slam of car doors, the murmur of family conversation, the eventual quiet that suggested they’d moved all the boxes inside where I couldn’t accidentally eavesdrop.
The silence left me alone with the realization that my sabbatical had just become significantly more complicated.
I’d come to Everdale Falls expecting to spend a few weeks in quiet contemplation, maybe doing some hiking, possibly reading all the books I’d been meaning to get to for years. I’d envisioned peaceful mornings drinking coffee and watching the mountains, the kind of restorative solitude that would help me figure out whether I wanted to return to corporate law or find some alternative that didn’t require anxiety medication.
What I hadn’t anticipated was having the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen arrive next door at practically the same time I did, looking like every fantasy I’d never admitted tohaving and probably dealing with her own complicated life situation that would make any romantic interest from me inappropriate and poorly timed.
The universe, it seemed, had a sense of humor about my attempts at simple solutions.
I finished unpacking mechanically, hanging up clothes and organizing toiletries while my brain processed this new variable in my carefully planned retreat from reality. Holly Winters, grown up and gorgeous and living thirty feet away from my temporary bedroom window.
This was either going to be the most awkward few weeks of my adult life, or... what? What was the alternative? That I’d somehow work up the courage to approach her, that she’d be interested in reconnecting with her brother’s old friend, that we’d discover some kind of meaningful connection beyond my appreciation for her physical transformation?
The realistic answer was that I’d spend the next few weeks being politely friendly while privately struggling with inappropriate attraction to someone who probably remembered me as that older kid who’d tolerated her presence during summer afternoons and helped her with algebra homework when Matt was too impatient to explain things properly.
My phone buzzed with a text, interrupting my spiral into romantic pessimism. The message was from my assistant back in New York:Morrison asking about your return timeline.
Already? For fuck’s sake. I’d been gone a day.
I stared at the message for a long moment, thinking about my corner office and my pending cases and the partnership track that was supposedly waiting for my return. Three weeks ago, those things had felt like the most important elements of my life. Now, sitting in my childhood bedroom while processing the reality that Holly Winters had grown up into someone who couldprobably distract me from any amount of career ambition, those Manhattan priorities felt distant and oddly irrelevant.
I typed back:Timeline still TBD.
Which was true, even if my timeline calculations had suddenly become more complicated than simple career contemplation.
I set my phone aside and returned to the window, noting that the Winters’ house had settled into nighttime quiet.
