The fire crackled, sending sparks up into the dark sky. Emma took a sip of whiskey and let it burn down her throat.
She’d been so sure. That night, out here, when Natalie had asked about the woman she couldn’t forget, Emma had been certain she’d seen something flicker in Natalie’s expression. Recognition, maybe. Or hope. She’d been so sure that if she just asked the right question, if she could find the right words, Natalie would finally admit that the kiss had meant something.
But silence was an answer too.
The sound of footsteps on gravel made her look up. Through the orange glow of the flames, she could see a figure moving down her drive. Natalie’s silhouette, unmistakable even in the dark.
Emma’s stomach clenched. She took another sip of whiskey and stared into the fire. She didn’t want to hear Natalie tell her she was sorry, that she’d never meant to lead Emma on, that the kiss had been a moment of weakness she regretted. Emma had spent five years in Australia trying to forget that afternoon in the woods, and she’d almost managed it. Almost.
The side gate creaked open. Natalie’s footsteps were soft on the grass, hesitant.
Emma exhaled slowly and didn’t look up.
“Emma?” Natalie’s voice was quieter than usual, unsteady. Emma could hear her breathing, quick and shallow.
“I’m fine, Natalie. You don’t need to?—“
“Please. Let me say this.” The words came out in a rush. Emma’s head snapped up. She stared at Natalie across the flames.
Natalie gripped the back of a chair, knuckles white. Emma’s breath caught. She saw Natalie’s fingers flex against the wood, the slight tremor that ran through them.
Emma kept still, afraid to move lest she break the fragile thread of this moment. Natalie’s voice cut through the crackle of the bonfire, a taut wire of words strung between them.
“That summer… The whole flight I kept trying to find the words,” Natalie began, eyes restless as they skated over Emma’s face before falling to the fire. “And they wouldn’t come. Because what was I going to say? Everything I told you that day was true. My life was in LA. I was too old for you. I had nothing to offer that wouldn’t end with me leaving again.”
Emma’s next breath came sharp. She’d heard those reasons before, accepted them as fact. But now Natalie stood before her in the quiet night, bringing those memories back with a voice that trembled with what might have been regret.
Natalie kept going. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About that kiss. About how I’d been crazy enough to kiss you in the first place.”
Emma felt the burn of recollection—the archway, the rain, the warmth of Natalie’s lips before she’d pulled away, full of excuses and apologies. The echo of it tugged at something deep inside her, years of doubt and longing pressed into a single heartbeat.
“And I thought, even if I don’t have the right words, even if I can’t promise you anything, I have to at least be honest about the fact that I have feelings for you.”
Those words were everything Emma had wanted to hear. Fear and hope collided, leaving her unsteady.
“And then I got here and you were gone.”
Emma couldn’t look away from Natalie’s eyes now. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was thick with everything left unsaid over five summers and five years apart, pressing against Emma’s ribs until breathing became deliberate.
When Emma finally spoke, her voice emerged softer than she’d intended, shaped by the weight of all those unspoken years. “You have feelings for me,” she repeated, barely a whisper, the reverence in her tone underscoring the enormity of those words between them. “All this time?”
Natalie nodded. Emma exhaled, shaky and uncertain.
The space between them felt too close and too far at once. What had seemed impossible now felt within reach.
Emma set the whiskey tumbler down on the flagstone beside her chair. The glass made a soft, definitive click. She stood up, the movement fluid, her eyes never leaving Natalie’s face across the fire. The heat of the flames licked the air between them, but Emma felt a deeper warmth, a current pulling her forward.
She walked around the firepit. Natalie didn’t move. Her hands were still clamped on the chair back, her knuckles pale inthe firelight. When Emma stopped in front of her, she could see the fine tremble in Natalie’s fingers, the way her throat worked as she swallowed.
Emma didn’t speak. She reached up, her palm cradling the side of Natalie’s face. Her skin was cool from the night air, soft. Natalie’s eyes widened, her lips parting on a silent inhale.
Then Emma kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was five years of silence and a question finally answered. It was hunger, fierce and undeniable, her mouth claiming Natalie’s with a certainty that left no room for doubt or retreat. She felt Natalie stiffen for a heartbeat, a fraction of a second of pure shock, and then Natalie melted into it. Her hands released the chair, coming up to clutch at Emma’s shoulders, her fingers digging into the fabric of Emma’s tank top.
The kiss was all heat and pressure. Emma’s other hand came up, tangling in the dark waves of Natalie’s hair, holding her there. She poured everything into it—the loneliness of Sydney, the ache of thinking that she would never taste Natalie’s lips again, the ghost of a kiss in a rainy forest that had haunted her for half a decade. Natalie made a small, broken sound against her mouth, a surrender, and kissed her back with equal desperation.
When they finally broke apart, they were both breathing hard. Emma rested her forehead against Natalie’s, their noses brushing. She could feel the frantic pulse in Natalie’s throat beneath her thumb.
