Chapter 1 #2
Jude looked between us with that protective big brother expression I knew so well. The one that said he wasn’t stupid, he knew exactly what was happening here, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“Will—”
“I’m twenty-two, Jude.” I lifted my chin, trying to look more confident than I felt. “I think I can handle a walk across campus.”
I wasn’t trying to be rude, but this was probably the first time I truly wanted to be alone with Kieran.
Jude studied me for a long moment. Then he exhaled slowly, nodded once, and reached for his keys. “Text me when you’re home,” he said, already backing toward his beat-up sedan.
The engine turned over a second later, headlights sweeping across the pavement as he pulled out of the parking lot.
I watched until his taillights disappeared down the street, aware that this was his version of letting go, not because he wasn’t worried, but because he trusted me enough to step aside.
Kieran’s jaw worked like he was chewing on words he couldn’t say. But after a long moment, he nodded once, sharp and final.
“Come on then.”
The walk started in silence, our footsteps echoing between quiet buildings as we moved farther from the restaurant and the noise of the night.
I was hyperaware of every breath, every accidental brush of our shoulders when the sidewalk narrowed.
The honeysuckle was blooming somewhere nearby, sweet and heady in the warm evening air, and everything felt charged with possibility.
“Are you nervous about applying for work next week?” Kieran asked as we passed the library where I spent countless late nights.
“Terrified,” I repeated, because it was true. “What if everyone rejects me?”
He stopped walking then, right there in the middle of the brick pathway, and turned to face me. The moon was full that night, casting everything in silver light, and it caught the sharp angles of his face, making his dark eyes look almost black.
“You’re going to be incredible, Willa.” His voice was soft, certain. “You’re smart and determined, and you fight for the things you care about. Any company would be lucky to have you.”
I stepped closer without meaning to, drawn by the gravitational pull that built between us for months. Years, maybe.
“Kieran,” I whispered, and I saw his pupils dilate, saw the way his hands clenched at his sides like he was fighting not to reach for me.
“We can’t,” he said, but his voice was rough, strained. “You know we can’t.”
“Why?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. “Because of Jude?”
“Because of everything.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered there for a heartbeat too long. “Because you’re his baby sister, and I’m—”
“You’re what?”
“Not good enough for you.”
I froze, not knowing how to respond. Not good enough? Kieran, who remembered that I liked extra foam in my coffee and drove me to job interviews and made me feel safe and challenged and seen all at once?
“That’s not your decision to make,” I said, and before I could lose my nerve, I rose on my toes and pressed my lips to his.
For a moment, he went perfectly still. Then his hands came up to frame my face, and he kissed me back like he’d been drowning and I was air.
His mouth was warm and desperate, his thumbs stroking across my cheekbones as he angled my head to deepen the kiss.
I tasted coffee and mint and something that was purely him, and it felt like coming home and running away at the same time.
This was what I waited for. This moment, this connection, this feeling like the entire universe narrowed down to the space between us. His fingers threaded through my hair, and I felt his heart hammering against his chest where our bodies were pressed together.
When we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard, I saw everything I ever wanted reflected in his dark eyes. But I also saw fear.
“Willa,” he started, but I shook my head.
“Don’t you dare apologize.”
“I have to. This is—we can’t do this to him.”
“Do what to him?” The frustration bubbled up in my chest, hot and desperate. “Be happy? Fall in—”
“Don’t.” The word came out sharp, cutting. “Don’t say it.”
But it was too late. The word hung in the air between us, unspoken but undeniable.
Love.
I was falling in love with my brother’s best friend, and from the look on Kieran’s face, the feeling wasn’t entirely one-sided.
"You should go home," he said finally, taking a step back. The distance felt like miles.
Before I could respond, Kieran stepped to the curb and raised his hand. A cab appeared almost immediately, because of course it did—the universe bending to his will even now.
He opened the door for me.
I wanted to argue. I wanted to grab his face and kiss him again until he stopped being so goddamn noble. But the set of his jaw told me everything I needed to know. Whatever door had cracked open between us, he was already boarding it shut.
So I slid into the cab.
Kieran held the door, one hand braced on the frame. For a moment, he just looked at me, and I saw it all there. The want. The war. The decision he'd already made.
"Good night, Willa." His throat moved. "Congratulations."
The next morning, I woke up expecting everything to be different. Expecting him to call or show up at the apartment with coffee and an explanation, or at least acknowledge what happened between us.
Instead, he acted like nothing had changed. Like he hadn't kissed me until I forgot how to breathe, then put me in a cab like a gentleman and walked away like a coward.
I called him Tuesday. No answer.
Wednesday, I promised myself one more call. Just one. But one turned into two, then five, then too many to count. By eleven p.m., I was staring at my phone like I could will it to ring.
It didn't.
Thursday, I almost went to his apartment. I stood in my hallway with my keys in my hand for a full hour, rehearsing what I would say. That I couldn't stop thinking about him. That I needed to know I didn't imagine it. That I needed him to tell me he felt it too.
But I couldn't make my feet move. I couldn't stomach the possibility that he would open the door and look at me the way he had been looking at me all week—like I was just his best friend's little sister again.
By Friday, I was a wreck. I walked home from orientation for my new job, barely seeing the streets I'd known my whole life, and realized I was one bad moment away from crying on a public sidewalk.
I forced myself to think about Monday instead.
First day. Fresh start. A version of myself that wasn't pathetic over a man who clearly didn't want me.
It almost worked.
Then Jude mentioned, casual as anything, that Kieran was seeing someone. Sophia Blake. Art gallery curator. Legs for days, the kind of effortless polish that made me feel like a kid playing dress-up.
"That's great," I said. "Good for him."
I smiled when I met her at a dinner party. I smiled when she touched his arm like she had every right to, and he let her. I kept smiling until my face ached and my chest burned with something sharp and jagged that would not go down.
I missed him. Not in waves, but constantly. It was a low, steady ache I carried everywhere. Part of me still lived in that kiss, replaying it like proof of something real. But the rest of me knew better. I had to let go.
Maybe it was never meant to be. I told myself that often enough. But knowing something and believing it are two different things.
So I carried him quietly. Loved him from a distance. I tried to move forward even when it felt like leaving something essential behind.
The world moved on. At least for him.
Sophia was followed by Olga, a model with a master’s degree and a wardrobe that screamed old money. Then came Natalie, a paralegal with perfect highlights and the ability to discuss wine pairings without sounding pretentious.
All beautiful and accomplished.
The pattern became clear quickly: Kieran Cross dated sophisticated women who moved in professional circles, women who knew how to order at expensive restaurants and didn’t get nervous at cocktail parties.
Women who were nothing like Jude’s little sister, the girl who still ate cereal for dinner sometimes and wore the same three interview outfits on rotation.
So I did what any reasonable person would do. I threw myself into finding someone who would actually choose me first.
Someone who wouldn’t look at me like I was a mistake he almost made.
Someone who wouldn’t make me feel like I was always competing with ghosts of women who were better than me in every way that mattered.
The memory started to fade around the edges, like watercolors bleeding into each other, and I felt myself being pulled back to a much darker present.
But I fought it for a moment longer, clinging to the sweetness of that kiss, the way Kieran’s hands felt in my hair, the possibility that shimmered between us like moonlight on water.
Because once I let go of this memory, I had to face what my life had become instead.
And I wasn’t ready for that yet.