Seven
Lyra
I can still feel Byron’s arms around me, the weight of his pendant at my throat. The kiss that almost happened set me on fire and not even a cold shower doused those flames.
Probably I ruined any possible benefit of the frigid water by reliving that moment over and over.
I wish he had kissed me.
I shouldn’t be thinking like that. But I can’t help it. Things are not the same as they were in high school. Isn’t adulthood full of unwritten rules, like thou shalt not hold a grudge longer than ten years? Don’t hold mistakes over the heads of teenagers with raging hormones?
The thing is, I can forgive a guy for not feeling the same thing I did a million years ago. That’s on me, not him.
He broke my heart, yes, but we’re different people now at different places in life. Surely that means I shouldn’t look to the past as an indicator of what might be the result of renewing our relationship in the present. Right?
Besides, have you seen how much he’s changed? Physically, he’s barely the same. Lots of other stuff might have changed as well.
I owe it to myself to have an open mind.
But I’m also the only one who can prevent Byron from breaking my heart a second time. Caution might be my best friend at the moment.
I’m still sitting in the library going through old photos, pretending to focus while actually reliving our dance, when Tabitha appears in the doorway. My actual best friend.
“Are you here with news about the inn?” I ask, but her expression tells me everything I need to know. “That bad?”
“I’m so sorry.” She sinks into the chair across from me. “Mom tried everything. The Heritage Trust can’t help. The inn doesn’t meet enough criteria for historical designation.”
The finality of it hits me as if she socked me in the jaw with her fist.
This is terrible news.
I was counting on this. It was supposed to be my ace in the hole, a sure-fire way of ensuring the inn can’t change hands. I’d even planned out the whole speech to my father where I gleefully informed him that Byron took the inn off the market because it’s protected.
“What’s the criteria?” My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears. “There has to be something we missed. This inn has been here since the beginning.”
“Since your great-great-grandfather built it. I know.” She reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “But there have been too many updates over the years. And none of the original interior remains except—”
“The stained glass.” I drop my head into my hands.
When I was a kid, I called them the windows that let in rainbows on sunny days.
The memory hits hard, of afternoons spent chasing those rainbow patches, Gran’s laughter warming the room more than any sunbeam. I used to think this place was enchanted. Now I’m not sure magic is enough.
A sound in the hallway catches our attention. Byron stands in the doorway holding takeout bags, his expression making it clear he heard every word. The concern in his gaze unfurls something inside.
He used to look at me like that all the time. As if my feelings mattered.
That’s why I struggled with our relationship ending until…well, this morning, honestly. How could I have mistaken whether he returned my feelings to the point where I thought things were going in a completely opposite direction?
How can I trust my own feelings if I’m that bad at gauging the situation?
I touch the pendant. A late graduation gift my behind. He kept it for reasons he has yet to share and I refuse to believe otherwise.
“We’ll find another way,” Tabitha says softly, standing. She gives Byron a pointed stare as she passes him. “Fix this.”
I almost laugh. Byron doesn’t fix things. At least he never did before.
Wasn’t I just schooling myself on the fact that things could be different this time? He’s helping me with the party. Maybe this is his chance to redeem himself and all I have to do is let him.
He holds up the bags. “I come bearing gifts. And before you say you’re not hungry, I got your favorite from The Golden Dragon.”
“You drove all the way to Breckenridge for sesame chicken?” The smile sneaks out despite everything. “That’s like a thirty-minute round trip.”
“Some things are worth the trouble.” His intensity is off the charts, as if everything has meaning, and the air between us shivers with possibility. “Besides, you always said no other place makes it right.”
The fact that he remembers such a small detail makes my chest ache. We used to grab takeout after his shifts at the café and spread it out on one of these same library tables. Sometimes Gran would join us, telling stories about the inn’s history while we picked through the container of crab Rangoon she always ordered extra of, just for us.
But the food came from one of the local Douglas restaurants, not Golden Dragon, and I always commented on it. Today I’m getting the real deal, courtesy of Byron.
Those are some serious inroads toward redemption, I tell you.
He sets the food on the table, careful not to disturb my piles of useless research. The familiar scent of ginger and soy hits me, and my stomach growls.
“It’s not the end,” he says, pulling containers from the bag. “The historical designation was just one avenue.”
I accept the box he hands me, noting how his fingers brush mine. On purpose. “It was my best shot.”
“No, your best shot is the Valentine’s Day party.” He settles into the chair next to me, closer than strictly necessary, his knee grazing mine in a way that tells me it’s not accidental. “The cards are already working their magic. Did you see Mrs. Henderson’s face when we delivered hers?”
“You cried too,” I point out, stabbing a piece of chicken. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
His laugh is soft. “Pretending is the last thing I want to do.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a moment, but I can feel him watching me. The pendant feels warm against my skin, a reminder that whatever is happening between us now started long before tonight.
I want to trust that, trust him . But there are a lot of things unsaid between us.
“Why did you keep it?” I ask finally. “The necklace?”
He sets down his chopsticks. “Why did you keep the photo?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Isn’t it?” His eyes meet mine. “Some things are worth holding onto. Even when you think you’ll never get another chance.”
My heart does this weird floppy thing. “Is that what this is? What you want?”
“I’m not sure it’s up to me. Or I have the right to want anything.”
He’s saying the ball is in my court and that it should be. I sit with that for a minute. Do I have the power here?
He’s still watching me carefully. “If you want it to be a second chance, there’s a lot we’d have to talk about.”
The pendant.
The past.
This is what I was angling for. The real reason he kept the pendant. Suddenly I’m not so sure this is a conversational path I want to go down.
Because what is there to talk about? Unless I don’t know everything there is to know.
Carefully, I study him. “What would you like to say?”
“I still work for your father.”
AKA not what I was expecting him to lead with. “And dating me again is a conflict of interest?”
“It’s a complexity,” he says after a beat. “What’s going to happen between us if I ultimately end up having to sell the inn?”
“You just said the Valentine’s Party is going to work!”
The sudden seriousness of this conversation weighs down my fork until I have to set it beside my plate.
“I said it’s your best shot,” he corrects gently. “Which is not the same thing as a guarantee.”
I eye him and his double-talk mouth. “You could convince my father not to sell. He’ll listen to you.”
Byron shakes his head. “I already told him my thoughts about this whole situation and he chose to go forward with the sale. I have far less sway than you seem to think.”
That makes two of us. I cross my arms, not caring that it probably looks like I’m pouting. “I’m still not sure what this has to do with whether or not you’re going to kiss me the next time there’s an engraved invitation in your hand.”
That puts a hitch in the stride of Mr. Calm Cool and Collected. “You gave me an invitation to kiss you?”
I roll my eyes. “We were dancing. It was romantic. I thought the invitation was implied.”
“Noted.”
His voice sounds a little strangled, as if he’s having trouble getting out the words. Because I affected him?
I did. His gaze burns into mine as he swallows. Twice.
That is lovely. Butterflies swarm through my stomach and fly up into my throat.
“We don’t have to be dancing for me to want you to kiss me,” I prompt.
“Lyra, you’re going down a road that doesn’t have a lot of room for U-turns.”
I wave that off. “You’re thinking like a lawyer again. Haven’t you ever done something reckless, just because you wanted to? Without overthinking it?”
“No. I don’t even know what that looks like.”
He hasn’t moved from his seat and there’s a table between us but I can feel the heat from his intensity burning through the air. “It looks like leaning forward and letting yourself fall into the moment.”
“Is that what we’re doing? Making a conscious choice not to think about consequences?”
I laugh. “If you have to qualify it, you’re already doing it wrong. Who says there will be consequences? Maybe we’re just having some fun. Reconnecting. No one is talking about marriage proposals.”
The world stops as his gaze tangles with mine and what I see there squeezes my lungs tight.
“I’m not sure I can kiss you and not think about wanting to do it again. A lot,” he murmurs. “For the foreseeable future and also the parts I can’t see.”
That might be the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me. “What about what I want?”
“What do you want?”
Caught in the trap of my own making, I stare at him, utterly baffled that I don’t have a ready answer to that question. Other than to be kissed by Byron Hale. That one I know.
But why did a simple question trip me up so much? Because I know he’s asking about more than what I want in this moment, which is the exact opposite of the vibe I’m going for.
He’s asking what I want the future to look like. And how kissing him fits into that.
Honestly, I’ve only just started to see Byron differently. Just started to see that I might be ready to move past our history. I haven’t thought all of this through.
“What if I don’t know?” I challenge him. “What if I’m working on figuring that out but I’m not sure I know what all my choices are?”
“Fair.” His lips curve up. “And some of the choices may be potentially difficult. I’m just trying to make sure you’re aware you have them.”
This sounds suspiciously like the inn vs the resort conversation. Byron is not wrong about the difficulty, but I’m still not sure why he’s bringing that up again in the same breath as second chances and kisses.
I study his face in the lamplight. The boy I loved has grown into a man I barely know, and yet my soul recognizes him. Remembers exactly how it feels to fall, that dizzying spiral into bliss.
He’s so close. Close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, count every one of his impossibly long eyelashes. I’m pretty sure he’s leaning into the moment after all.
“I know what I want right this moment.” I reach out and thread my fingers through his, the shock lighting me up inside. “I, Lyra MacLellan, being of sound mind and body, choose to kiss you, Byron Hale, for the next five-ten minutes, no future dates defined but definitely not off the table. If there are any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Byron laughs and that’s when I lean into it, pressing my lips to his. Capturing that delicious sound inside me.
His lips are soft, hesitant for a fraction and I can feel him working up to the commit.
Then he does. He slants his mouth over mine, wresting control of the kiss away from me instantly. Effortlessly.
The world explodes into a thousand tiny stars that rival the ones at my throat. My fingers thread into his hair, years of buried feelings surging to the surface. He tastes like ginger and possibilities, and I want to drown in him.
Everything is familiar and yet not. As if we’ve done this a million times but never like this .
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine, and I can feel his heart racing under my palm.
“That was...” I start, but words fail me.
“A really good choice?” His smile curves against my cheek where he’s currently nuzzling me.
“I’m pretty happy with it so far.” His thumb traces my jaw. “Maybe we can just have a choice moratorium for tonight. The kind where we don’t worry about the things and the forces outside of this room until tomorrow.”
He nods and I lean into his touch, sliding my lips to his thumb. Tonight, I just want to exist in this space where anything feels possible.
Where it feels like Byron and I never stopped loving each other.
Tomorrow I’ll worry about the inn and the Valentine’s Day party and all of the ways what’s coming could tear Byron and me apart again.
Tonight, I’m choosing this. Choosing him. Choosing myself.
I pull him in for another kiss, pushing the table aside with my foot, and this time there’s no hesitation. No space between us at all as he gathers me into his arms. His hands tangle in my hair as mine nip into his waist, and the world narrows to just this—his lips on mine, his heart under my palm, the way he whispers my name like a prayer.