Ivory skin and green eyes. She looks too much like her brother, like my best friend, to be anyone else. For the first time in nine years, my heart of ice melts—just a little. For Brice. For Stella.
Without a whole lot going on in my brain, I lock my eyes onto hers.
And then, I’m walking. I can’t seem to stop myself. The women in front of her and the women behind her blur. Stella is here. Sure, she’s all grown up with curves she didn’t have at fifteen and hair that’s grown out of that unfortunate freshman year cut. Shiny blonde tresses stretch down her shoulders in golden waves. She’s still sporting round, metal-rimmed glasses. Her cheeks are pink, and while she’s currently covering her mouth in shock, I imagine her lips just as they were when we were teens: pink and plump.
And then I promptly imagine Brice beating the thought right out of me.
The thought makes me smile.
Huh. I can’t actually remember the last time I smiled.
I peer at Stella, surprising myself again. Because I see Brice when I look at her—and while it hurts to see my best friend through the eyes of his sister, it hurts a lot less than I thought it would. In some ways, it’s like the pressure that’s been pressing on my chest for nine long years has finally eased up.
“Stella,” I say, feeling that foreign smile on my face. It’s like an alien creature crawled onto my mouth and forced the corners upward—because it’s not like me, not anymore. But I also can’t help it from happening. My saving grace is that all my teammates are back in the locker room, not witnessing this spectacle.
Stella’s hand falls from her mouth, and those lips are just as I remembered—which only makes my grin widen.
Her head bobbles in a shake. “Roman? What are you doing here?”
I swallow, coughing out a chuckle—whoa, that’s pretty strange too. “Me?”
She presses her eyes closed. “Right.” She nods toward my kit. “Red Tail.”
“But you—” I motion toward her, realizing I’d really,reallylike to hug the girl.
It’s Stella. Which leads me to Brice. And the whole Everly family. They meant a lot to me once upon a time. While my parents were fighting, divorcing, and griping at the other to keep me, the Everlys loved me. Brice was like my brother, and his parents welcomed me with open arms—sometimes for extra-long weekends. Like Thursday to Monday.
“What areyoudoing here?” I ask her.
“My friend got us tickets to the game.” She motions tothe girl beside her—one of many that, until this minute, has been nothing but a blur to me. “This is Willow.”
“Hey,” Stella’s friend says. She’s eyeing me, but I’m not really looking. I can only see Stella.
The restroom line moves up and so does Stella. I follow in step just as I hear from multiple blurred fans around us. “Roman Graves?”
Crap.
“I should—” I throw a thumb over my shoulder. If I’m not back in time, Coach is going to kill me anyway.
“Yeah.” Stella nods as the line moves again. “I should go too.” She points into the bathroom entrance.
My heart flutters as if it’s been dead and dormant for years and someone has just shocked it to life once more. “Hey,” I murmur, heart pounding. “I’d love to catch up. There will be interviews on the field directly after the game. Could you stick those out? Do you have time?”
“We have time,” Stella’s friend, Willow, says.
Stella’s cheeks go pink, and her throat bobs in a swallow. “Maybe. We’ll see. I should—” She tilts her head toward the bathroom.
“That’s Roman Graves—” another blurred face whispers.
“Right. Can I—” I step in, needing to touch her, needing to know that she’s real. After all this time, I thought it would break me to see her, to see any of them. I was wrong.
“Oh.” She hiccups, and her cheeks bloom pink. “Of course,” she says, reaching out to fold me into a quick hug. It’s like I’m breathing in the lilac tree the Everlys had outside their home. It bloomed every summer and was the sweetest thing I’d ever smelled. The scent clings to Stella as if she were that lilac tree’s personal gardener.
It’s a short hug and then she’s gone, disappearing through the bathroom entrance.
“Twenty-one? Roman Graves?” a man now cutting through the women’s bathroom line says. He’s holding a Red Tails hat and a Sharpie.
But Stella is gone, and with her the short-lived light that reset my insides.
