I cross my arms, fixating on his eyes and ignoring the beard flirting with my peripheral vision—scruffy arrogance and full I-chop-wood-shirtless energy.
“You changed the curtains.”
“Hello to you too.” As if the beard isn’t enough, he leans on the bar—full fuck-me-forearm out—and crosses his ankles like he’s posing for the “Lumberjacks of Lust” calendar.
I want to punch him in the taint.
“They’re hideous.”
He glances at the fabric. “They’re new.”
“Exactly.”
A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth, and suddenly I’m seventeen again, sitting on that window seat trying—and failing spectacularly—not to fall in love with my brothers’ best friend.
My best friend.
And thanks to the Morgan charm being a class A controlled substance, I went down fasterthan a cow during a midnight tipping spree fueled by cheap beer and teenage hormones.
He nods toward the camera around my neck. “Still preserving everything for posterity?”
“Every crime needs a witness.” I lift my camera and aim it straight at his smug face.
The shutter clicks.
One frame.
One breath.
One step back into the past I swore I’d outgrown.
Chapter One
Sierra
The lodge barglows with twinkle lights and too-loud laughter when I drag my ass into the great room after twelve hours buried in century-old records.
Oh, and two more marinating in red light and developer fumes. My spine audibly begs for death, but I'm still upright, so here we are.
My eyes go straight to the window seat out of muscle memory—and then skid to a halt on something catastrophically worse.
I freeze.
I flatline so hard my vision tunnels.
My gaze snags on their fingers clutching those photos—my secret stash, a time capsule of Sierra's Worst Decisions—and the look on their faces says I just became a tragic punchline.
My lungs forget how to lung.
My soul leaves my body.
“Oh my God,” Holly whispers, flipping one over. “Ev?—”
I lunge.
“GIVE ME THOSE!” I squeak in a frequency only panicked rodents can hear.
Holly jumps. “Sierra! We weren’t—I mean—we didn’t know?—”
