Page 71 of Seven Lost Summers
I smirk. “You? Please. You’ve got the rhythm of a drunk giraffe on roller skates. We’d go viral for all the wrong reasons.”
Poppy snorts into her drink.
Scarlet laughs so hard she nearly drops her fork.
Xander grins, biting back a comment, while Ace flips me off across the table.
I take a slow sip of beer. Someone laughs. Cutlery scrapes against a plate. Ace leans back in his chair, balancing on two legs like a kid asking for trouble, while Xander murmurs something into Poppy’s ear that makes her smile without even looking at him.
No one’s in a rush. No one’s checking the time.
It’s the last calm before the storm.
Tomorrow brings early mornings, long hours, and Xander in our ears, pushing harder. Chasing something that doesn’t exist until we bleed for it. We’ll lock ourselves in that recording studio and build it piece by piece.
But not yet.
Today, the air is light, the voices steady, and for a little while we let ourselves breathe in the quiet.
Chapter 13
Nate
Myhead’sfuckingpounding,throat dry like I’ve been swallowing glass.
I drank myself into the void last night, chasing numbness, trying to shut my brain the fuck off.
For years, every time Theo mentioned Bianca, I killed the conversation. Closed the door. Pretended I didn’t hear. As if ignoring it long enough would make the pain give up and leave me alone. Burying her was easier than letting her rip me apart all over again.
But seeing Quinn...
The trip to her place didn’t mess me up the way Theo believes.
Hell, it was the first time in years I could actually breathe. Being with her was like waking into a life I’d forgotten I ever lived. Same smile, same voice—only older now. Softer in some ways, sharper in others. She’s grown into a woman I can’t stop fucking thinking about. And none of this is new.
There’s always been something about her.
The way she moved. The way she took everything in without needing to be the loudest in the room. She’d sit back, watching, seeing more than she ever said. She was the first one who ever really caught my attention.
Bianca tore through everything. Loud, magnetic, impossible to ignore. She didn’t walk into a room, she stormed in and flipped it on its head. All energy, all chaos, all color.
And now… Quinn’s still here. Still breathing. And Bianca isn’t.
I don’t know what the fuck that makes me. Feeling something again isn’t supposed to happen. It feels wrong. Disloyal.
As if even after all this time, letting someone else in means erasing what I had with Bianca.
But seeing Quinn after all these years stirred something I thought was gone. Something I hadn’t let myself touch in years.
And now it’s fucking with my head.
There’s something between us. There always has been.
I hear the soft creak of my bedroom door and crack one eye open in time to catch Theo’s head in the doorway. He doesn’t say a word, just grips the frame, fingers tight, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed in.
Most mornings, though, he’s already here, buried under the blanket, breathing steady beside me, like this room is the only place his nightmares can’t reach. He never knocks, never pauses. He comes in, climbs into my bed, and waits for the panic to pass.
But this morning he’s different.
