Luke watched me the way he did when the ice was loud and the world went white around him—fixed and focused. He’d hated me for leaving without telling him why, and I’d earned that. But the year apart had broken my heart as much as it had his. He was still both—the boy I walked away from and the one I couldn’t let go. The difference was me. What I believed. What I was willing to lose.
Gentle tufts of wind rustled the edges of the blanket. Shadows lengthened across his face. I waited for the panic to spike, the familiar free fall that hit every time I let him into any place I couldn’t control. It rose. But it didn’t drown me.
He leaned back on his hands and stared at the horizon. His jaw worked, the kind of movement that meant words were close but not ready to leave him. “I’m done pretending I don’t walk into rooms and look for you. I’m done acting like it’s safer to keep you at arm’s length. It isn’t. It never was.”
“We’re really doing this,” I breathed. “After all of it.”
“Yeah.”
A muscle fluttered in my throat. I could hear my mother’s voice somewhere in the edges of that wind. Her warning lingered, low and dark, the way a bruise shadows skin. Dunn never let go of an angle. She hadn’t said it to scare me or to explain why we ran—after the murder at King Enterprises, after everything blew up. And why, later, she was pulled into Dunn’s pocket. Not by choice. By threat. He wanted her under his thumb, and keeping her there meant keeping me close too. Survival wasn’t clean. It was leverage.
I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, my thoughts shifting to what we would face at school. “Elise will go nuclear.”
“Let her,” he muttered. No hesitation. No bravado either. He flicked his gaze toward the arena door as the hinges rumbled, but no one came through. His shoulders eased. “Her opinion doesn’t matter.”
“She hates that you’re with me,” I said. The words cut, but I didn’t pull them back. “And she knows where to hit. She’ll try to come between us.”
“You already chose.”
My lungs stuttered. “Did I?” I was still half living on borrowed time, a cover-up stuck to the bottom of my shoes. Dunn Industries buying up King stock, piece by piece. I’d told him that already—out in the arena lot, where he turned his back on me before circling around. Where we called a truce on the arena’s rooftop. I thought saying it out loud would free me. Instead, it chained me tighter.
Luke didn’t flinch from any of that now. He didn’t know everything. But he knew enough to be hurt. I’d told him on the beach what I hadn’t managed before—that I ran after hearing him and Drew on that recording, after Elise cornered me with it and left me no room to breathe.That was why I needed space.I’dexpected him to throw it back at me. He hadn’t. He’d listened, expression tight, hands open. And then he kissed me instead.
His thigh pressed into mine now, a warm, heavy line. “You choosing me doesn’t erase the rest. I’m not asking you to pretend it does.” He set the food aside and dragged the blanket higher so it folded over our knees. “I’m asking you to do this with me. No lies between us. If it gets ugly, we give each other the benefit of the doubt. We don’t disappear.”
The words held weight. My throat closed around them. The last time I disappeared, I had ripped him in half and stitched myself with guilt so tight I couldn’t breathe for months.
I reached under my shirt and found the chain at my collarbone. The star charm sat cool against my fingers. I had worn it every day since he’d returned it to me. I slid the star off the chain and set it in his palm. “It’s a gesture of commitment, not a sign of divide.” The charm looked small there. Almost fragile. His hand wrapped around it, and his mouth went a little uneven. The kind of expression that would never be visible to anyone who didn’t live under his skin.
“I can’t promise I won’t be afraid,” I murmured. “That I won’t screw it up. I can’t even promise I won’t feel the urge to run when things get too much. But I can promise I’ll stop at the door. I’ll turn around. I’ll look at you. We do this or we don’t. Not halfway.”
He nodded. Not once. Slow, as if the agreement had to settle into his bones. He gently tapped my knee. “Partners,” he murmured. Then his eyes sharpened. “And more. Don’t make me pretend we’re only one thing.”
My laugh caught. “I’m not pretending anymore. At least while we’re alone.” The admission slid out of me and left a clean ache behind. “You and me. No matter the cost.”
Something eased in his shoulders then. A held breath released. He leaned in and bumped my temple with his. Nota kiss. A contact point that felt older than our new vows. I breathed him in—cedar and spice and wind and the faint smoked bite of the grill that clung to his shirt.
“Say it again,” he whispered.
“No matter the cost.”
Below, a whistle shrilled. The sound overshot the roof and spun out over the parking lot. A gull screamed back, offended.
Luke huffed another short sound. “Coach hates double whistles. Someone’s getting bagged.” The sound had carried up through the vents, thin against the wind. He didn’t get up. He didn’t even shift his weight toward the door. He stayed angled toward me, hand still cupped over the star. He didn’t pocket it.
“Keep it,” I told him. “For now.”
His thumb moved over the point. He didn’t thank me. He didn’t make a joke. Instead, he reached for the chain at my collarbone. My breath caught as he slid the star back where it belonged, fastening the clasp with careful fingers.
“It means I’m with you,” he murmured, his eyes steady on mine. “And what we want—it’s ours. We’ll get there. The things we’re fighting for don’t stay out of reach.”
The words sank in deeper than the white-gold charm against my skin.
We ate the rest of the sandwiches after that, hunger returning now that the fear had a shape. I licked juice from the ripe tomato from the corner of my mouth, missing a spot. Luke reached over, thumb wiping it away, his knuckle grazing my lip. My eyes stung, too full of everything I couldn’t name out loud.
“Tell me the worst thing in your head,” he murmured, eyes still on mine.
The ocean kept breathing as though it would never stop. “Elise will put me against a wall. She’ll use my mom to do it. She’ll find the place I’m softest and press.” I kept my voice flat. Anything else and it would shake. “She can’t touch you directly.But she can use me, Avery, or the guys to get to you. That’s what she’ll try.”
