Page 172 of Seven Lost Summers
I had the words sitting on my screen—some funny joke or ridiculous meme for Theo, a quick check-in with Nate asking how things were going. My thumb would hover over send before I backspaced everything into nothing. No way was I going to make a fool of myself, acting like some clingy girl desperate to hold onto a fortnight of fun with old friends. Or worse, chasing after rockstars who have the world at their feet while I’m just someone they entertained for a while before going back to lives that barely have room for me.
Still, seeing them here now, so close I could reach out and touch them through the wood, twists something deep in my chest.
I open the door, pulling it wider with a smile.
“What are you guys doing here?”
Nate steps forward without answering. His hands cradle my face with the kind of certainty that makes my knees want to give way. He studies me for a beat, eyes running over every inch, as if he is checking I am still the same. Then his mouth is on mine.
His lips move in slow, measured strokes, coaxing rather than taking. He breathes into it, and my body betrays me, leaning closer, letting the kiss catch me completely. His thumbs stroke over my cheeks, gentle enough to make me want to close my eyes and stay here forever.
It is too much and not enough all at once. That kiss holds things I do not dare name, but the truth burns in the heat between us, in the way he drags the moment out until my pulse is a drumbeat in my ears.
When he finally pulls back, his lips curve into that sexy, dangerous grin.
“Missed you,” he says, the words carrying a heavy weight.
I try to breathe, but the sound slips out as a whisper. “Missed you too.”
Then my eyes shift to Theo.
He moves closer, every line of his body wound tight. His mouth twitches as if he has a smart-ass remark loaded, but nothing comes out.
And for one ridiculous second, I wonder if they came here for something else entirely.
A quick fuck.
A warm body between them.
A way to work out the tension they carry everywhere. Because I am not some booty call. I am not someone they can show up on the doorstep after three days of silence expecting me to spread my legs.
Although, if they gave me those looks that make my knees weak, I’d probably think about it.
Fuck, who am I kidding of course I would.
Theo finally steps in, closing the gap. His hug is quick and tight, his chest solid against me, his breath warm against my hair. But there’s a care to it, almost cautious, as if one wrong move might splinter whatever fragile, unspoken thing is holding us together.
I stay in his arms, letting the weight of him settle over me. Whatever brought them here, I still have no answer. The question burns hotter than the kiss Nate left behind, but I bite it back. The longer he holds me, the less I care about anything except the steady press of him against me and the strange, fragile thread binding us together.
He pulls back. “Hey, sunshine.”
The smile he gives me isn’t the one I remember. It stops short, hanging in place without the heat he usually carries.
“Still haven’t torched this place, huh?”
“Tempting,” I tell him, lips curving even while I’m studying him too closely. “You two planning to come in or stand out here acting like emotionally unstable door-to-door salesmen?”
Nate crosses the threshold first.
Theo trails after him, his shoulders drawn tight. His eyes sweep the room in a slow pass, pausing at corners, at the cluttered shelves, at the stack of laundry I didn’t have time to hide.
Theo is closed off, guarded in a way I’ve never seen with him before. Whatever he’s carrying has nothing to do with my apartment. The weight runs deeper than that.
Nate drops onto the couch, settling in without a single flicker of guilt for the mess in his wake.
Theo doesn’t follow. He stays on his feet, arms folded, shoulder leaning against the wall. His eyes shift to the table, lingering on the mess of prints I’ve developed since I got back. Too many. Evidence of hours in the darkroom, of the rabbit hole I disappear into until time stops meaning anything. Where the chemical smell clings to my skin and my fingers prune from the rinse water, and I only come up for air when the real world forces its way back in.
There are candid ones, where they didn’t know I was watching. Shots of them caught mid-smile, unaware of the lens. Others where I set the timer and ran into the frame where Theo would find some way to ruin it, pulling a face or making me laugh so hard my eyes squeezed shut.
