Chapter 1 #2
And learned, in the space of a heartbeat, exactly how wrong a person can be about what someone else is thinking.
The crash of realization—that this wasn't what he wanted, that I'd just made myself the punchline to a joke I didn't understand, that I'd turned something comfortable into something mortifying with one stupid, hopeful movement.
I pulled back, got up, mumbled something about being tired. Then, I went home, left for college earlier than planned, told everyone I wanted to get settled before orientation, and never, ever let myself look straight at that night again.
I reached, got it wrong, and ran. That's the whole story of me, really.
Gram never mentioned Heath would be here this weekend.
She never mentioned a lot of things, actually—like the fact that every guest room would somehow be occupied, or that I'd end up sharing space with the one person who could turn me back into the awkward eighteen-year-old I thought I'd left behind.
I should not be surprised that Heath is sleeping under the same roof as me. I should not be surprised by anything Gram does anymore.
But I am.
The whole walk upstairs feels like I'm on my way to the guillotine, about to be executed for crimes like wrong assumption. God, why couldn't I say no to Gram? All I needed to do was be polite in saying there are things I couldn't back out of. I just needed to stand my ground one time.
But, whatever. What's done is done.
The loft smells like old quilts and maybe a dash or two of Gram's resentments, and there's a coffee maker on the dresser that looks suspiciously older than I am.
Two beds sit on opposite walls, exactly as she said, separated by maybe eight feet of sloped-ceiling space that Heath is going to have to navigate like he's in a funhouse.
Everything in this house was built for Gram's height—five feet and change in her stocking feet—which means everything is going to be a problem for someone who's built like a door.
I drop my bag on the bed nearest the window and sit on the edge, the mattress groaning under what is apparently too much weight for springs that predate the triassic period.
The view through the window is the same one—the lake stretching out toward the far shore, the dock jutting into water that reflects the sky like a mirror, the dock where I learned the difference between wanting something and getting it.
Okay. Fine. This is fine. Three nights. I can do three nights in a glorified attic with a man I haven't spoken to in ten years.
I'm a functioning adult with a job and an apartment and a bed that doesn't require a chiropractor.
I have advanced degrees and a retirement account and the kind of life that should theoretically prepare me for sharing space with someone from my past.
I'd like to pretend I never checked out his socials, but he's practically a household name now, and it's inevitable that I'd hear news about him.
Sports websites. Magazine covers. The occasional tagged photo that shows up in my feed because someone from high school follows someone who follows him.
He looks good in pictures—better than good, really—but pictures lie about size, make everyone manageable and two-dimensional.
A guy like him, who's worth maybe seven digits, could buy the lake house next door for the weekend just to avoid this exact situation.
The fact that he's here, agreeing to sleep on a twin mattress in an attic that wasn't designed for someone his size, means something.
I'm just not sure what. Maybe he doesn't know how to say no to Gram either.
The worst part is, I'm not ready for this.
I'll never be ready, not after that disastrous summer.
Not after the way I left things between us—or the way I didn't leave them, really, because there was nothing to leave.
Just the smoking crater of my own assumption and the years I've spent trying to pretend it never happened.
Every minute that passes is a minute closer to him walking up those stairs, and I can feel my carefully constructed adult composure starting to fray at the edges.
My palms are damp against the quilt, and there's heat pooling low in my belly that I did not authorize and cannot switch off—the kind of physical reaction that has no respect for logic or dignity or the fact that I am supposed to be over this.
I hear his footsteps on the stairs before I see him.
Heavy. Unhurried. Climbing toward me with the inevitability of a natural disaster, and I have approximately four seconds to arrange my face into something that passes for casual. Four seconds is not enough time to prepare for the wall of him that's about to fill the doorway, but it's what I get.
My pulse slams high in my throat. I could fit through that window. I could be gone before he clears the top step, disappearing into the trees like a rabbit with better survival instincts than social skills.
But I don't move. I sit there on the edge of the ancient mattress, watching the doorway, almost with the terror you usually feel when a serial killer is on his way to you next.
Heath has to duck to clear the frame—actually fold himself to fit through a doorway I've walked through my whole life without thinking about it.
The room loses square footage the second he's in it, the sloped ceiling suddenly feeling lower, the space between the beds suddenly feeling like nothing at all.
Dark hair, shorter than it was at eighteen. Apparently, someone took clippers to the boy I remember and carved away everything soft. The jaw is harder now too, more defined, bone structure that photographs well and makes people stop talking when he walks into rooms.
His shoulders stretch his t-shirt, and they don't stop where shoulders are supposed to stop—they keep going, taking up space. Can someone really have shoulders that broad? It feels impossible. It should be impossible. Yet, here he is—the proof.
I'm holding three versions of him at once—the leaner boy from senior, all elbows and that ridiculous confidence that made everything look easy.
Then there's the filtered version I've seen on screens and pretended I haven't.
And finally, this. The actual breathing man who is worse than both because screens shrink people to something manageable and there is nothing manageable about Heath at this range.
The internet lied. My memory lied. Nothing prepared me for the reality of him filling up Gram's tiny loft like he was designed specifically to make me question every life choice that led me to this moment.
My control is fracturing beneath a pressure I do not recognize. Warmth pools low in my belly, and something pulses between my thighs.
I can't trust my own body … not around him.
Then he grins.
It's the same grin from when we were kids—the only part of him that hasn't changed at all, reaching back across decades. The grin that used to turn my coherent thoughts into ashes.
A bolt of heat sears through me.
Something that shouldn't throb throbs.
Something without a pulse pulses.
That grin is going to be the death of me.
And the worst part, the part that makes this bearable and unbearable at once, is that he probably doesn't even remember. That summer rewired my life, and he's standing there grinning like it never happened. Because for him, it didn't. Probably. Most likely.