The one where I started writing my first romance novel at sixteen, basing the heroes on the three boys who made me feel like the center of the universe.
“Thanks, Grandma.”
She waves me off. “Go on. You look like you need a minute.”
I do need a minute. I need several minutes. I need approximately ten years’ worth of minutes to process the fact that I’m back in Honeyridge Falls, the book club knows about my books, Mrs. Peterson is about to tell everyone else, and my ex-boyfriends have apparently been taking care of my grandmother this whole time like some kind of long-term devotion I absolutely do not deserve.
My room is exactlythe same.
Same lavender walls. Same white furniture. Same quilt my grandmother made when I was twelve. Same window seat with the cushion that’s slightly flattened from years of sitting.
I drop my bag on the bed and look around.
There are photos on the dresser. Old ones. Me at sixteen, braces freshly off, grinning at the camera. Me at prom, junior prom, sandwiched between Theo and Nate in their rented tuxes while Lucas took the picture. Me at graduation, cap askew, laughing at something off-camera.
I pick up the prom photo.
God, we were so young. Theo with his floppy hair and easy grin. Nate already brooding and intense, even at seventeen. Both of them looking at me like I hung the moon.
Lucas took this picture. Then he handed the camera to someone else and joined us for the next one. The four of us, pack complete, ready to take on the world.
I set the photo down carefully.
That was a lifetime ago. Before college. Before I left. Before I slowly, systematically destroyed everything we had because I was too scared to admit I was drowning.
There’s a box in my closet. I know without looking what’s inside. More photos, old notes, a pressed flower from the firstbouquet Theo ever gave me. I should probably throw it out. I should probably have thrown it out years ago.
Instead, I pull it out and sit on the floor like a masochist.
The first photois from sophomore year. Me and Theo in his mom’s garden, dirt on our knees, both of us laughing at something I can’t remember. I’m holding a trowel like a weapon. He’s got a smudge of soil on his nose.
That was the day I realized I was in love with him. Not a crush. Not a passing thing. Real, terrifying, all-consuming love.
Then came Lucas. Junior year, study partners turned something more. He’d explain calculus while I pretended to listen, mostly just watching the way his hands moved when he talked, the way he’d push his glasses up when he was concentrating.
And Nate. Nate, who barely spoke to anyone but somehow always ended up next to me. Who wrote me notes in class instead of saying things out loud. Who kissed me for the first time behind the bleachers and then couldn’t look me in the eye for a week.
Three alphas. Three very different people. And somehow, impossibly, we worked.
I dig deeper into the box.
There’s a note in Lucas’s neat handwriting:You’re distracting me from organic chemistry. Very inconsiderate. Also, you look beautiful. Also, stop distracting me.
The date on it is from that last spring. Two weeks later, I got the scholarship letter—full ride, across the country, too good to turn down. Back when we still thought distance was the only obstacle we’d face.
The plan was long distance. Calls every night, visits when we could, Lucas starting college on a pre-med track while I startedmine across the country, Theo and Nate holding down the fort in Honeyridge. We’d make it work. We were pack. Distance couldn’t change that.
The first month, I called every day. Texted constantly. Cried into my pillow every night because I missed them so much it felt like a physical wound.
But college was overwhelming. New people, new pressures, new everything. I was homesick and struggling and terrified of failing, and every time I talked to them, I felt the pull to just give up and go home. Be their omega. Let them take care of me.
And that scared me more than anything.
So I called a little less. Answered texts a little slower. Told myself I was just busy, just adjusting, just needed some space to figure out who I was outside of them.
The calls became weekly. Then monthly. Then...
Then I stopped answering altogether.
