Rafe whistles low. “Okay. You weren’t exaggerating.”
“Told you.”
“Basketball money well spent.”
I roll my eyes and reach for the controls, turning the water on. Steam begins to curl upward almost immediately.
As he steps closer, I remember. “Wait.” I bend down, scoop up my jeans, and dig into the pocket. My fingers close around the small, crinkly rectangles I shoved in there earlier—just in case.
When I turn around holding the lube packets, Rafe’s mouth twitches.
“You came prepared,” he says.
My ears burn. “Shut up.”
He laughs softly. “Ollie.”
“What? I like being prepared.”
“I know you do.” He steps closer, eyes warm, teasing but not unkind. “You carry lube in your pocket now?”
“It’s not like I planned this,” I mutter. “I just—” I shrug. “I hoped.”
That wipes the teasing right off his face. “Hey,” he says gently, brushing his knuckles over my cheek. “Nothing embarrassing about that.”
I clear my throat, set the packets on the bathroom counter, and tug my shirt over my head to avoid his eyes.
He follows suit, peeling his clothes off slowly, deliberately. There’s something unfair about how good he looks standing there in my bathroom, steam curling around him.
And for a second, I just… stare.
It’s been years.
He’s broader through the shoulders now. Not bulked like me, but solid in a way he wasn’t at twenty-five. There’s a steadiness to him. Lines at the corners of his eyes that weren’t there before. Not aging—just lived-in. Earned.
More ink too.
My gaze drags over him, cataloging the differences like I’m afraid I won’t get to look again. The swallow that works down his throat. The familiar curve of his collarbone. The new tattoos scattered across his ribs and down his arm—finer lines, more intricate than the old ones. Bolder.
And then there’s the piercing. It glints subtly when he shifts. It’s deliciously obscene and completely him.
But my eyes snag on something that hasn’t changed. High on his side, just beneath his ribs—the small, clean lines of my old college number and a half-court.
He kept it. The air leaves my lungs quietly.
He got that inked when we were barely adults. When everything was reckless and certain and loud. I’d half expected it to be gone by now. Covered. Altered. Removed.
It’s still there.
Seeing it does something violent and quiet to my chest all at once. I want to tell him. I want to tell him I never stopped loving him. Not for a second. Not even when I told myself I had to.
But this isn’t that conversation.
Not yet.
We strip the rest of the way in silence that’s anything but awkward.
It’s charged. Thick. Not shy—just aware. He steps closer, and I feel it when his eyes shift. He’s looking at me the same way I just looked at him. I’m not the same either.
