Chapter Three
MILA
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, screen flaring against the dark. I checked the time. Midnight. The kind of hour that made everything feel lonelier, heavier, more dangerous.
Luke: You awake?
A jolt shot through me—sudden, electric, low in my chest, sparking everywhere I didn’t want it to. My fingers hovered above the screen. I stared at it a beat too long before answering.
Me: Yeah.
Three dots blinked, disappeared, blinked again.
Luke: What are you doing?
Me: Trying to sleep. Failing.
A pause.
Luke: Same. Pool deck. Stars are too loud tonight.
My lips twitched despite myself. Stars, too loud. That was Luke—athlete and poet in the same breath, without even realizing he was both.
Me: Still your favorite spot, huh?
Luke: One of them. Hard to top all the nights we stargazed. Remember the lifeguard tower?
The memory slid in uninvited—me tucked against him, the hiss of the waves, his hand pointing out constellations while I pretended to care more about Orion than the way his heart beat against my shoulder.
Me: Yeah. I remember.
Luke: We had some big dreams back then.
“We”—the word was a bruise and a balm all at once.
Me: Dreams are dangerous.
Luke: So are you.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Dangerous wasn’t wrong. I was dangerous to him—in ways deeper than kisses and late-night texts. To his family. To his future. To the legacy he was supposed to inherit. But he wasn’t running from it now.
Luke: Have you drawn anything lately?
I was halfway horizontal and then I wasn’t. My knee hit the nightstand hard enough to sting. Barely anyone asked me that or ever saw that part of me. Only Avery did. And him.
Me: Why?
Luke: Because I know you. You sketch when the world gets too heavy.
My throat tightened. I didn’t respond. If I did, it would let him in further than he already was. And that part of me—the part wrapped in charcoal lines and oil paint—wasn’t just a hobby. It was my core. My truth.
Luke: I saw you. The other night. At the boardwalk studio.
My stomach dropped. The boardwalk studio was the only space in this town that felt like mine—rich with color, untamed waves visual through the windows, and canvases stacked higher than my shoulders. A place I could breathe without someone watching.
Me: You followed me?
Luke: Yeah. After the Grill Shack. After the parking lot.
The night of that kiss. The one that still burned when I let myself think about it too long.
I’d been at the Grill Shack with Avery and her friends, doing my best to fit in when Simon, one of Chase’s buddies, slid into the booth beside me.
Across the restaurant at Luke’s table, Elise pressed herself against him as if she owned him, her hand bold on his thigh.
I’d bolted before I could stomach another second of it.
He followed me out into the dark lot, words clipped, anger taut—until all of it snapped and his mouth crashed into mine.
Me: You’re insane.
Luke: I was worried. You disappeared fast. I just… needed to make sure you were okay.
I chewed my lip. That was Luke, too. Protective to a fault.
Me: And what did you see, exactly?
Luke: The sea. The storm you painted. I could feel it from the doorway. As if you’d poured yourself into the canvas. It was…
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. The fact that he admitted he’d been standing there, watching, meant more than the words.
Me: You don’t get to spy on me, King.
Luke: Then show me what you’re working on. No spying. Just you and me.
I hesitated. Then I snapped a picture and sent it before I could second-guess. The sketchbook lay open on my bed, pencil smudges across the page. Not the storm. Not the sea. Luke’s hand. Holding the star necklace—my star.
Three dots blinked again. Then stopped. Started. Stopped. Finally—
Luke: Mila…
The single word carried too much. Memory. Longing. Promises made on the roof that felt as if they were a lifetime ago. I shut the sketchbook as though that could stop the ache. It didn’t. The graphite came off on my fingers anyway.
Me: Don’t read into it.
Luke: Too late.
My fingers froze, hovering, but I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t. Because he was right. For both of us, it was already too late.
Telling him about Lorne had been dangerous, but this—letting him see the part of me that breathed through charcoal and canvas—felt as if I was handing him my unguarded heart.
And that was a risk I wasn’t sure either of us could survive.