“Um, you all through senior year.”
“That was different. Thanks to all those long goodbyes, I couldn’t get out for—” I flicked my eyes to my belt buckle “—reasons.”
She swatted my arm before digging into her purse for her keys.
“But I always watched you to make sure you were safe.”
Because I could never take my eyes off her. Not that first day we met, not when she was running up and down the soccer field, not all those times she was in my arms and I’d revel in how fucking lucky I was to have her. Maybe I had been memorizing her without realizing it, knowing she’d become my most painful and beautiful memory.
It was why I hadn’t been able to look her in the eyes on the night I’d broken up with her. My resolve had been dangling by a thread, and all these years later, I could still feel how close I’d been to falling at her feet instead of speeding away from her as fast as I could.
Teasing my beautiful ex-girlfriend wasn’t the worst offense.
As long as it stopped there.
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee once in a while. That cake was pretty good.”
Her expectant gaze triggered that same inner turmoil demanding me to bring her closer, when stepping away was the only thing to do.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and nodded.
“That could be nice,” I said, not wanting to promise or commit, but I didn’t have it in me to tell Emily no. I never had.
She shifted toward me after unlocking her door, pressing her hand to my chest and brushing her lips against my cheek.
Just like that, I was fourteen again and flexing my fingers into a fist to ward off the tingles down my arm.
She lingered for one glorious second before pulling back.
“Goodnight, Emily,” I whispered as I pressed my lips to her temple. “Thank you.”
She nodded and stepped inside. I waited until the lock clicked before heading to my truck, this time taking a moment to give her door one last look before I drove away.
5
JESSE
“Didyou see a lot of your friends last night?”
I smiled at Maddie’s reflection in my rearview mirror. She looked so much like her mother. Sometimes it was a comfort and momentary balm to all the grief, and sometimes it was a gut punch, especially as the resemblance to my sister seemed to deepen each day.
She was only eight years old, but because she was so tall, she was often mistaken for ten or twelve. Despite her height, she was a young eight—affectionate and clingy—and we were all too happy to indulge her. Her legs would drag on the floor whenever she’d climb into my lap, but I’d never deny her the reassurance that we both needed.
“I did. Not as many as I thought I would, but it was fun to see how everyone changed.”
“Kind of like when you go back to school after summer, and everyone looks different.”
“Exactly. But this is after twenty summers, so everyone lookedreallydifferent.”
I reached back and squeezed her legging-covered knee until I pulled a giggle out of her.
“I thought maybe you were going on a date.”
My eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.
“You did?” I said, recalling how she’d eyed me with suspicion as I’d slipped my feet into the black loafers I’d kept for special occasions—or any other time I couldn’t show up in jeans and boots. “What made you jump to that conclusion?”
“You were dressed up.” Maddie peered at me with the same big brown eyes as her mother had had and scrutinized me the same way. “And Grams said I couldn’t stay up to wait for you.”
