There was something almost magnetic about the way he crossed the clearing, like Zach had his own gravitational pull and Colin couldn’t help but go to him.
I’d been noticing for weeks now how Colin found reasons to bring up Zach in conversation. The way he’d check his phone constantly, waiting for Zach’s texts. The way he got this stupid, goofy grin whenever Zach complimented his bass playing.
Colin thought Zach was just a really cool guy. An awesome new addition to the band. Someone he wanted to hang out with all the time.
I thought it was definitely more than that.
But like I’d told Stella last night, that was Colin’s journey to figure out. It wasn’t my place to say anything until he was ready to see it himself.
I took another sip of beer and went back to scanning the crowd for Stella.
Ah, there she is.The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders released all at once, and I let out a breath that turned misty in front of my face.
She stood on the far side of the bonfire, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket, talking to Holly and Harrison. The firelight danced over the apples of her cheeks, turning her dark burgundy lipstick almost black. She laughed at something Harrison said, her head tipping back, and even from here I could see the way her eyes crinkled at the corners.
God, she was beautiful.
And I wasn’t supposed to be staring at her like I wanted to drag her into the woods and?—
Her gaze cut across the field and landed on me.
For a second, neither of us moved. The noise of the crowd noise faded into static. Stella’s lips parted slightly, and I watched her tongue dart out to wet them before she looked away, her hand coming up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks flushed darker, and even as she turned back to Holly, pretending to focus on whatever story was being told, Stella’s eyes slid back to me just long enough for me to catch it.
I took another sip of beer and forced myself to turn around.
Fuck. This whole pretending thing was going to be way harder than I thought.
If Zach was Colin’s gravitational pull, then Stella was mine—had been for years, if I was being honest. The difference was that I knewexactlywhat that pull meant. And I wanted desperately to close the distance between us and make it clear to everyone here exactly who she was going home with tonight.
Instead, I forced myself to play it cool.
Or at least I tried to.
I talked to Charlie Emerson about the declining lobster population in the Gulf of Maine and how global warming was impacting our fisheries. I helped Jemma Price—soon-to-beJemma Emerson—carry a box of donations from her car. I even let Mrs. Patterson from the post office tell me a twenty-minute story about her grandson’s tuba recital.
But the whole time, I was fully aware of exactly where Stella was at all times.
When she moved to stand in line at one of the food trucks, I tracked her out of the corner of my eye.
Someone made her laugh, and my jaw tightened.
Then Jemma’s brother Jeremy leaned in close to say something in her ear, and I had to physically stop myself from crossing the clearing and reminding him that he had a whole-ass boyfriend standing three feet away.
I clenched my jaw and forced myself to look away, focusing instead on the bonfire until the flames blurred in my vision.
From seemingly out of nowhere, Colin appeared at my elbow. “Dude, why are you staring at my sister?”
I blinked and turned to face him, the beer I’d been nursing all night halfway to my mouth. “What?”
“Stella.” He gestured across the fire with his bottle. “You’ve been staring at her for like five minutes straight. It’s kind of creepy, man.”
“I wasn’t?—”
“And she keeps looking over here, too.” His brow furrowed, confusion replacing his usual easy grin. “Is this because of what happened yesterday? Because I’m really sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make things weird by bringing up the whole crush thing. I know she was pissed, and if you guys are awkward now, that’s my bad?—”
“Colin—”
“I just thought she already knew, you know? But clearly she didn’t, and now everything’s weird between you two, and I feel like shit about it?—”
