Page 106 of Seven Lost Summers
She walks past me, and her scent slams into me. Sweet, warm, something soft I can’t name but want to drown in. My fingers twitch against the bottle in my hand, fighting the pull to reach out and make her stop. But I don’t.
She disappears through the door, and the second she’s gone, a weight settles on my skin.
Nate’s eyes are on me.
I turn and meet Nate’s stare, lifting one shoulder in a half-assed shrug. I don’t say shit. Don’t admit I was staring too long, mind already crossing a fucking line I won’t be able to step back from.
Nate checks the grill first, turning one of the steaks before stepping back. He grabs his beer from the table, eyes still fixed on the door she slipped through.
“Is she alright?”
“Yeah,” I say, scratching the back of my neck. “I think so.”
“She did good with those photos,” he says.
“She did.” I take a drink, forcing my thoughts somewhere safer. “Did she show you the one of me and Ace?”
Nate lets out a low laugh. “Yeah. You look like you’re halfway through saying something that might’ve gotten you killed. She’s got good timing. Caught the whole mood.”
Silence drifts in for a beat. I watch him, the way I always do.
He stands at the grill, steady and focused, turning the steaks with that quiet intensity he brings to everything. Subtle but solid. Every move has weight. Nate’s never been the type to waste movement.
He grabs the empty plate he brought out earlier, the one that held the raw meat, balancing it easily in one hand. On his way to the door, his other hand lands on my shoulder. Just a quick touch. Barely there. Easy. Thoughtless.
But it wrecks me.
He doesn’t know what that touch does.
Doesn’t know I hold onto it longer than I should.
Has no idea how it steadies me in ways nothing else ever has.
I welcome it.
I live for it.
I fucking crave it.
Because I love him.
Not the watered-down version people throw around to make themselves feel better. This is the kind of love that lives in your bones. The kind that aches with every breath. The kind that never lets you forget.
He’s been my anchor ever since that afternoon he found me sitting on the side of the road, bleeding out in places no one could see. From that moment, he became my safety. My constant. My gravity in a world that never made any fucking sense.
And I could never risk losing him with the truth.
Not with a confession that might turn everything we have into ash.
I’ve told him I love him, but never the way it’s meant. Tossed it out casually, the way guys do between beers and bruises. “Love ya, man.” Covered it with a smirk, a punch to the shoulder, a laugh that made it sound harmless.
But it’s not harmless or nothing.
He doesn’t know that it eats me alive.
He doesn’t know that every time the words leave my mouth, I mean them with every fucked-up part of me. He doesn’t know how raw my throat feels afterward, how it burns to swallow it back down, how it nearly kills me to keep it buried.
There was a night I can’t forget. A few years back, when I almost told him.
