Page 10 of Find Me Again

"Likewise," he said instead.

He kept his gaze at the snow-covered trees, but he was more aware of the man a few feet away from him than of anything he was staring at.

"God, I forgot how beautiful this view is," Neil said in the same quiet voice. "I haven't been here since… our senior year."

A pang of pain shot through Ryan, but he didn't want to stop and wonder why.

"How's this not the most popular spot in the area, I still don't know," he offered, voicing his earlier thoughts as he scrambled for something to say.

"Well, there's that—"

"—damn patch of gravel right after the turn," Ryan recited with Neil, the reason they'd heard Ryan's grandfather once use when he'd heard them talking about it. They repeated it later on, over and over, until it became another one oftheir things.

They smiled at each other now and it helped, a bit—not with Ryan's heartbeat, which actually became worse, but with the lingering traces of resentment that had been there, hovering, ready to attack at the slightest provocation.

"Their loss, our gain," Neil said, facing the forest again.

Yes, it was, Ryan agreed silently, not ready to say it out loud.

This place had truly been their gain in so many ways he'd forgotten for a while, burying it under the layers of hurt and loneliness. It had seen several important moments in their lives, but also much more of the silly, lazy, funny moments, these everyday snapshots of teenage life.

"Are you here for the holiday break?" Neil asked, disrupting the silence they'd fallen into.

Ryan glanced at him but found him still staring ahead, so he did the same.

"Yeah, I've managed to get a few weeks off. And you?"

He heard about the healing injury, but it was still polite to ask. Besides, he found himself wanting to prolong the moment—why, he wasn't sure, but he would question himself another time.

"A minor injury took me out of the game for the time being anyway, so I decided to make the most of it. It's been way too long since I've come here for Christmas."

"Is it healing okay?"

Ryan didn't see anything visibly wrong, but he knew better. There was a difference between feeling fine to walk around and being able to perform at work, especially in a physically demanding job like Neil's—or Ryan's.

"Yeah, it's fine." Neil waved towards his left knee. "I should be completely healed by the end of the year."

"Good. That's good."

Small talk wasn't usually an issue for him, which came in handy in various situations, on and off the clock, but this, right here, actually felt a bit painful. Not bad, exactly, but a far cry from what their never-ending conversations had been, when they would finish each other's sentences and never run out of things to say to each other.

Until their last conversation, at least.

Clenching his teeth against the sudden tightness in his chest, Ryan exhaled slowly.

There was nothing left for him here. There hadn't been for years, and he knew that.

Which meant he should just get up and go—be the one who didn't look back this time.

Could he, though?

CHAPTER FIVE

Neil couldn't let Ryan leave. Not yet, not now.

"What are you doing, these days?" he asked and,God, the awkwardness of it almost made him choke.

Ryan watched him as if wondering whether to offer him any answer at all, and Neil couldn't even blame him. He could hope, sure, but he couldn't—

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