Ali turned just slightly and saw them intercept him, all teeth and nostalgia and perfectly filtered memories. Her stomach dropped.
Dylan— Mac— looked past them for a second. Toward her.
Their eyes locked.
Panic surged. She bolted, ducking toward the far side of the field where the shadow of the building gave her cover. Her sneakers didn’t exactly make for a silent escape, but she moved fast, weaving around the edge of the structure like the old days when she knew every inch of this place.
But he was a football player.
And he still knew how to chase.
“Ali, wait— please.”
She stopped cold.
Her back against the warm brick, eyes squeezed shut.
It was happening. After ten years.
The gravel crunched under Ali’s sneakers as she twisted, intending to run, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a curse, when he caged her in. He opened his mouth, whatever he was going to say, she really didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t hear it. She panicked and her mouth was suddenly on his— urgent, familiar, devastating. His hands gripped her waist like he still knew exactly where she broke, and her body betrayed her completely.
Ten years. Ten years and still, this.
Her fingers threaded into his hair, pulling him closer like she hadn’t once built her whole life around staying away from this exact moment. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t slow. It was teeth and lips and memories colliding under a Georgia sky that smelled like salt and pine.
When he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered her name—“Ali”— like it meant something again, that’s when her heart finally buckled.
The heavy door swung shut above them, muffling the music from the ballroom. Ali barely registered the sound before Dylan was pushing against her— so close she could smell the warmth of bourbon and something sharply clean, like soap and stadium air.
“Ali,” he breathed. Just her name, but it wrecked her.
She didn’t answer. Didn’t trust herself to.
Instead, she grabbed the lapels of his blazer and pulled him in like something primal had taken over. Their mouths collided in a kiss that felt like a fire alarm— urgent, loud, and impossible to ignore. He groaned softly against her lips, his hands finding her waist like they’d been waiting ten years for the chance.
“You shouldn’t have come back looking like that,” he murmured against her mouth. “You look like something I dreamed up.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, breathless. “Just— shut up and kiss me again.”
And he did. Harder this time.
Her back scraped against the brick wall as his body pressed into hers. The heat of the masonry combining with the heat of their kiss, grounding her for a half-second before his hands were pulling up the hem of her dress. His fingers skimmed the skin of her thighs and she gasped, arching toward him.
He hissed in a breath. “Still so soft,” he muttered. “You used to— God, I remember exactly how you sound.”
“Don’t say that,” she warned, her voice breaking. “Don’t pretend like this is still—”
But then his mouth was on her throat, and the rest of the sentence vanished. She tilted her head, letting him taste the curve of her neck, the hollow of her collarbone. He tugged her dress up higher, and she helped, hitching it until it bunched around her hips.
Her hands were just as greedy— pulling at his belt, unfastening his pants with more desperation than finesse.
“You’re shaking,” he said, touching her cheek.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“I don’t care.”
