The beam of my fallen phone catches movement—a tall figure, shoulders broad, the wind streaming his hair back from his face. He steps closer, and the light hits skin. Bare skin.
He’s wearing an open flannel shirt and jeans, no jacket, snow sticking to his chest like it doesn’t dare melt.
“Where did you come from—?” My voice cracks.
He crouches beside me, the storm swirling around us like static.
He’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him—impossible heat for a man half-naked in a blizzard.
“Let me help you,” he says.
I look up, following the line of his throat, the shadow of stubble along his jaw, the shape of his mouth. My stomach drops, recognition slamming into me before my brain can catch up.
The wind pushes his hair across his forehead and the flashlight catches his eyes—amber brown, bright even in the storm.
“Holt?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just studies me, like he’s making sure I’m real, too. The snow clings to his dark hair, melting into rivulets that run down the side of his neck.
“Lila.”
The way he says my name makes the rest of the world vanish. Rough, low, almost a growl under the words.
It’s full of… feeling. Like an ache. Like the sound of an ache.
And everything snaps into focus.
He looks the same.
He looks different.
He looks like every fantasy and every heartbreak came walking out of the trees to find me.
He’s still the man who once made my heart feel too big for my body.
Still the one who shattered it anyway.
Still the man who used to say my name like it was a promise?—
Then walked away like it meant nothing at all.
2
Holt
Fifteen minutes earlier
My phone buzzes, pulling me out of sleep.
If you could call this sleep—this heavy, half-locked state my body drops into every winter.
Semi-hibernation.
Warm, slow, bone-deep.
My excuse for hiding from the world.
I roll over, smack a hand across the nightstand until I find the phone.
