“No.” I set my mug down on a table by the window. “Let’s go outside.”
The cold nipped at my cheeks, but the sky had lightened to a pale winter gray. We shoveled snow in silence, side by side. The rhythm of it, the crunch and scrape and exhale, felt almost normal.
“Remember when we built a fort behind the school after that huge blizzard?” I asked.
He looked over. “You made it a castle.”
“I demanded a throne.”
“You made Kacen and me sit in it and call you queen.” Kingston smiled, slow and soft.
It was too easy to fall into the old cadence. Too easy to let my guard down a little. When we were done and he took the shovel from me, his fingers brushed mine. Even with gloves on, the jolt that shot through me wasn’t from the cold.
“Scarlett,” he said, barely above a whisper.
I looked up. His eyes met mine, and for one breathless second, we were teenagers again. Standing on the edge of everything, aching for more. He leaned in slightly. I swayed toward him. And then I blinked and stepped back.
Not yet. Not like this.
He didn’t try to follow through. Just nodded once and looked away.
Back inside, I warmed my hands by the fire while he made something on the stove that smelled like garlic and a little slice of heaven. My stomach growled, loud enough that he looked over.
“You sure you’re not hungry?”
I gave him a flat look.
“Thought so.” He placed a bowl in front of me a few minutes later. Pasta, perfectly seasoned. A piece of bread on the side. I didn’t want to thank him. But I did anyway.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
I ate slowly, letting the warmth seep through me while I watched him from the corner of my eye. He’d changed so much. Life had forged him into something hard, but the tenderness was still there, tucked underneath all the guilt.
“I used to dream about you,” I said.
He froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Oh, yeah?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.” I almost smiled, imagining the first place his thoughts took him.
“Tell me about it.”
“Sometimes it was your voice. Or your laugh. Or the way you always sat behind me in homeroom and kicked my chair during announcements.”
He smiled. “You always looked like you were gonna turn around and kill me.”
“I still might.”
He chuckled. “Fair.”
I set my fork down, the food forgotten. “You haunted me.”
“I haunted myself.”
The fire popped. He leaned closer, making my breath catch.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” he said. “But I want to try.”
