Falling Into You (Colburn Brothers #3)

Prologue

TUCKER

I was fourteen the first time I climbed through Hazel Pierce’s bedroom window and nearly broke my ass on her nightstand.

Not my smoothest move, but in my defense, it was dark, my ribs hurt, and my plan hadn’t extended much past Get out before Hank wakes up.

Hazel shot up in bed with a gasp and a swing of her desk lamp like she was about to commit justified homicide. “Jesus, Tucker—”

“Shh!” I hissed, clutching my shin, which I’d just introduced to her nightstand at full speed. “You trying to get me killed?”

“You’re the one breaking and entering!”

“Breaking and limping,” I muttered.

Her room smelled like vanilla lotion and sawdust from one of her dad’s projects, sweet, grounding, and like safety and comfort.

She clicked on her lamp and squinted at me. Her hair was wild, her T-shirt crooked off one shoulder, and she had that sleepy glare that somehow managed to make me feel both scolded and lucky to be alive.

“Your dad?” she whispered, because this was not our first rodeo.

“House was…loud.” I was never able to say the words out loud.

Her expression softened. She didn’t ask for details, didn’t make me talk. She just scooted over on the bed and pulled back the blanket. “You take the bed. I can sleep in the chair—”

“No. The floor’s fine,” I lied.

“You’re not sleeping on the damn floor. There’s room for two.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I climbed in next to her like it wasn’t the thing I’d been wanting all damn year.

We’d been neighbors since kindergarten, best friends since we were fourteen, and she was the girl I’d been secretly in love with since the first time she punched me in the arm and made me laugh, when normally all I wanted was to disappear.

She turned on her side to look at me, and I saw the second she caught sight of my swollen lip. I was grateful when all she said was “You look exhausted.”

“Thanks. Real boost to the ego.”

“Anytime,” she said, and her smile, that slow, crooked smile that could stop traffic, made my chest feel weird.

We were silent for a few minutes. Me, because my eyes kept drifting closed, my mind finally able to shut down for a few, her because she was thinking, which I knew because she was doing it loudly.

“Was it bad?” she finally asked.

“No.” Another lie.

She nudged my socked foot with hers under the blanket. “Kiera asleep?”

“Yeah. She’s getting good at pretending everything’s fine.”

Hazel nodded, eyes shadowed. “Yeah. I know that trick.”

That landed like a stone in a still pond. No splash, just deep and true.

She lay back, staring at the ceiling. “One day we’re gonna get out of here.”

I smiled because she said it like a promise. “You think so?”

“I know so.” She turned her head toward me, her eyes catching the moonlight slanting in her window. “We’re meant for more than this town.”

“Pretty sure my life goals start and end with sleeping eight uninterrupted hours.”

“We’ll find a place where that’s possible.”

“‘We’?”

She shrugged. “Someone’s gotta make sure you eat breakfast and don’t die of man flu.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It’s a work in progress.”

We both grinned, but the air between us had changed—charged, humming, like something was about to shift if we dared let it.

She yawned but didn’t look away. “Your lip’s bleeding,” she whispered, like she couldn’t not say it.

I swiped at it. “Barely.”

She sat up, rummaged through her nightstand, and came back with a crumpled tissue. “Hold still.”

Her thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, light and careful, but the touch jolted through me like a live wire. Every nerve in my body woke up at once.

Hazel froze too, her breath catching, eyes flicking to my mouth.

We stayed like that, close enough for me to feel her heartbeat in the air between us, close enough that the scent of her shampoo made my chest ache.

Then she cleared her throat and mumbled, “Okay, stop staring at me. I know how wild my hair is, thank you very much.”

I loved her hair, but the moment snapped. Too bad my pulse didn’t get the memo.

“You can stay till morning. But if my dad finds you, I’m telling him you were here fixing my leaky sink.”

“I don’t have any tools with me.”

“Guess you’d better be quiet, then.” Her voice was a whisper as she turned off the light. The room filled with moonlight and the faint tick of the clock on her nightstand.

“Hey, Haze?” I said into the dark.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

She didn’t answer right away. Then, almost too soft to hear: “Always.”

Outside, a coyote called from somewhere past the ridge. Inside, I listened to her breathing, steady and sure, a rhythm that loosened something tight in my chest.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel trapped.

I felt at home.