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I was kissing Maisey Andrews, and her soft lips on mine were everything I had ever imagined they would be. I had conjured the idea of kissing her so vividly before that I thought maybe none of this was real at all. Memories flooded through me: soft grass under my feet, the wool blanket that had a few holes—one of a million projects that Maisey had tried out, hand knitting or some shit. It was bright pink and orange, “Like a sunset,” she had said. The soft feel of her skin under my thumb. Sometimes she wouldn’t be able to come up with the words to explain how she felt, just that they were big feelings that sometimes took over and made her spiral. Her highs were high and lows were low, she once told me. Touch usually grounded her. I had found that out somewhere in the years of meeting on top of the hill in the middle of the night. I would set my hand on hers, rub my thumb up and down her wrist or arm. It almost always worked. But when she did that to me today, after this God-awful day, something in me snapped wide open like a frayed wire. Because maybe it wasn’t just the thing that grounded her and made the heaviness lighter, maybe touching her made my own heart sputter out and calm down. Maybe all along, she was the missing piece. The scent of strawberries flooded my senses. Her damn shampoo was my favorite type of drug. Ever since she showed up before the season even began, that sense memory had hit so damn hard.

And here I was, kissing the girl I had left, the girl I’d sworn to leave in the past in order to not ruin her, to not pull her down into my own misery with me. She deserved so much more than what I could give her. But not getting to her that day? It haunted me. The burn of rubber still reminded me of the crash, of the day I fought to get to her, of the day I left her alone. I had tattooed her handwriting on my to sit with me always, a reminder. Only a singular letter had been saved from the rest my father had burned. The day I found it buried in an old bag, I took it right to a tattoo shop, so I could have a piece of her with me.

“Theo,” Maisey was gasping. My hands had found their way onto her, dragging her to me, trying to keep her close, to let this moment—this lapse of clear judgement—last forever. God, I wanted it to last forever. One hand was tangled into her hair, a loose grip tugging her to me, the other around the side of her neck creeping up to her chin. I brushed my thumb over her lips as she dragged herself away with glassy eyes.

“Yeah, Red?” I asked, feeling drunk on touching her, my skin buzzing from her lips being on mine. I wanted to keep this moment, what I would fucking do to keep it. Every semblance of a reason to stay away from her felt futile and rather stupid now. None of that even really mattered; what mattered was kissing her again. She blinked up at me, unable to form words. “Let me kiss you again,” I begged. I was melting under her touch. I would fall to my damn knees for her. “Please.”

“Will that fix it?” she whispered back, her breath tickling my lips as she moved closer again, our lips almost touched again.

“Yes.” My voice was graveled and depraved. I needed her, I needed more. Her arms wrapped around my neck, and she tugged me the rest of the way. Her lips collided with mine again. And this time, there was nothing hesitant about it.

No shock. No pause. No space left for pretending this wasn’t inevitable. The second our mouths met, every wall I had spent years building cracked straight down the middle. I kissed her back hard enough to stumble us both a step sideways. Maisey made a soft noise against my mouth—half surprise, half relief—and it nearly destroyed whatever control I had left. My hands found her waist instinctively, gripping tighter than I meant to as I pulled her flush against me. Every inch of her pressed against me. Warm and real and finally here after ten goddamn years of wanting her in every way a person could want another human being. The kiss turned messy almost immediately, like we were trying to make up for every lost second all at once.

She tasted faintly like coffee and something entirely her own that punched straight through my chest. My brain short-circuited under it, under her, under the feeling of her fingers threading into my hair while she kissed me like she was just as furious and wrecked by this as I was. I backed her toward the wall without even realizing I was doing it.

The second her spine hit it, she gasped softly into my mouth, and I swear to God, my heart nearly stopped. Because I remembered that sound, the blush that followed when I surprised her. This version—deeper now, rougher, pulling something primal out of me—held echoes of the past. Seventeen years old and laughing under starlight. Breathless after teasing me. Whispering secrets against my shoulder at midnight while the world slept around us. Except this wasn’t innocent anymore. Nothing about this was.

My hand slid up her side, fingers pressing into the curve of her waist before settling against her ribs like I needed proof she was real. That this wasn’t another cruel hallucination conjured up by loneliness and whiskey and years of missing her so badly it physically hurt.

Maisey kissed me like she was trying to crawl beneath my skin. And Christ, I wanted to let her. Her nails scraped lightly against the back of my neck, dragging a rough sound out of me before I could stop it. I felt her smile against my mouth at the reaction, smug even now, and heat surged straight through my body.

“There he is,” she whispered breathlessly between kisses.

The words hit me like a punch to the ribs. Something inside me snapped completely. I kissed her harder. My forehead knocked lightly against hers as our breathing turned uneven, the room suddenly too small, too warm. Years of tension burned between us, every argument and stolen glance and almost-confession finally erupting all at once. I had imagined kissing Maisey more times than I could count. But that night a few weeks ago—when she was in my bed, inches from me, drunkenly rambling about every single thought that came across her mind, her nose scrunching up when she laughed—it had taken everything in me to hold the long-buried feelings at bay. So I tried to stay away, skipped out on more media, got fined up the ass for it too.

I had imagined it hundreds of times, the taste of her, but none of it compared to this. None of it came close. Because the reality of her was unbearable.

The softness of her mouth. The way she melted against me and still somehow challenged me at the same time. The tiny hitch in her breathing every time I deepened the kiss.

It was all-consuming.

My hand slid into her hair, tilting her head back slightly so I could kiss her deeper, slower this time. I wanted to memorize every part of her all over again. Maisey shivered against me, nearly undoing me.

“Fuck,” I muttered against her lips, my voice wrecked beyond repair. We were out of breath now. Her eyes fluttered open just enough to meet mine, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed pink. She looked just as ruined as I felt. She smiled, her eyes lighting up bright as she let out a small laugh and her forehead fell against mine.

It was so perfect and so Maisey.

But reality was cruel, and as much as I wanted this to last forever, she was not something I could have. But for one terrifying second, I let myself imagine that this meant something. Not just old feelings and adrenaline and years of unresolved heartbreak crashing together, but something real something dangerously close to hope. My chest tightened painfully at the thought. Maisey must have felt the shift because her hand slid gently along my jaw, grounding me instantly.

“Don’t disappear on me now,” she whispered. The plea in her voice almost killed me.

I swallowed hard, staring at her while my pulse hammered violently beneath my skin. She had no idea what she was asking for, no idea how badly I wanted to stay right here in this moment forever, no idea that loving her had been the easiest and hardest thing I’d ever done. My thumb brushed unconsciously over her hip beneath my grip.

“You make it hard to go back to reality,” I admitted quietly.

Her expression softened instantly. Painfully.

“Good,” she whispered back. Then she kissed me again before I could decide whether staying was the bravest or stupidest thing I’d ever done.

The pounding on the door nearly made Maisey jump out of her skin.

“Theo!” Sebastian’s muffled voice barked through the wood. “Open the bloody door before I use my key!”

We froze.

My forehead was still pressed against Maisey’s, our breathing tangled together in the tiny space between us. Her hands rested against my chest, fingers curled loosely in the fabric of my fireproof undershirt like she’d forgotten to let go.

Honestly?