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“I’m sorry!” I say immediately, hands up in a defensive manner. It doesn’t matter how attracted I still am to her, I shouldn’t have objectified her like that. “I didn’t mean to!”

“All you care about is the way a woman looks. And even then, it varies in the moment. What you wanted one day could be the next day’s trash.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I drop my hands, my anger rising. “You know that’s not true!”

“No, I thought that wasn’t true, but then the real you came out and I realized I was tricked.”

“So thisisabout what happened in Omaha!”

She flinches away from me, and I really wish Josie had told me what her tell is because that right there tells me I’m right. “Stop bringing up Omaha! It has nothing to do with Omaha! I don’t want to be around you anymore.” She closes the distance between us, pushing me out of the way. “Why can’t you get—”

What happens next happens so quickly it’ll probably always be a blur in my mind. She hits the edge of the stair wrong and tumbles. I reach out to catch her before she goes down. Then, it’s like we’re in our early twenties again. Mia, in my arms, my gaze locked with the most beautiful hazel eyes I’ve ever seen, and everything shifts.

Those kids had no idea what was about to happen to them. They had no idea how many times their hearts would break and stubbornly come back together. They had no idea they would end up here, hating one another for something only one of them is aware of. Those kids—

The angle is awkward when Mia reaches around my neck and yanks me down into a heated kiss. I freeze for the briefest second, the reality of what’s happening coming into focus.

But then I move my hands on the small of her back. I gently pull her up until we’re both standing. I can feel her start to pull away, but I can’t let that happen. I can’t lose this moment. I pull her closer, taking control of the kiss. I feel her melt against me.

Maybe we stand there for seconds or years, but it’s a connection I don’t want to lose. Having her in my arms makes me feel like I’m standing in the eye of a hurricane as it all crashes around me. Everything outside of us is chaos, but we are beautifully still.

The moment Mia realizes what she’s doing is evident. Every part of her tenses in my arms, and I immediately loosen my grip to make sure she knows she can pull away. She allows herself another second, and in that second, I feel nothing but hope.

That hope shatters when she pushes me back against the railing. Our lips separate and both of us breathe heavily.

Her glare is back. “We are never doing that again. Do you understand me?”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “You kissed me.”

“Neveragain.”

She jogs down the rest of the stairs, swinging the exit door open, and letting it slam shut. In the middle of an empty stairwell, I’m left in stunned silence. I press a finger against my lip, the ghost of her lips still pressed against mine.

I make the decision then and there to do whatever I can to fix this.

Because if I fix it, then there’s a chance it’ll happen again. And again. And again.

“I’m coming!” I call out to whoever is on the other side of my door, knocking away. Lezak is happily trotting along at my heels. I pull the door open to see Bryce standing on the other end. My brow arches. “Hey, man, what are you doing here?”

Bryce holds up a six-pack of beer, looking like a sad puppy. “I’m officially pathetic, man. My girlfriend is hanging out with her best friend, and my best friend is hanging out with his girlfriend.”

I step back, opening the door wider. “Wow, I’m not even the second choice.”

Bryce steps into the house, handing me a beer out of the pack before heading straight for the couch. Lezak has found a new person to shadow. Neither one of us says anything, but I follow him, collapsing onto the couch beside him.

Twisting the cap off his bottle, he raises a brow at the one I set on the table. “Are we not drinking tonight?”

“You can go for it,” I tell him, shifting the placement of my leg. “I took some painkillers earlier; my leg was acting up. I can drink on them, but it never ends well. I can drive you home if you need to drink more than one.”

Bryce shrugs, taking a long pull from the bottle. If this was anyone else, the silence would make me uncomfortable, like something horrible had happened and he was waiting for the right moment to tell me. But this is Bryce, and the two of us grew a lot closer after I got hurt. We spent a lot of time in total silence; he was too stubborn to leave me alone, and I was too stubborn to let him in. I’m not sure what I would have done without him in those early months.

“You’re doing great with Emmie, man,” he finally says. “I haven’t had a chance to tell you that, but I’ve noticed. The extra lessons are helping her catch up, but she’s blended seamlessly into the team, too.”

“Thanks.” I nod. “She’s a hell of an athlete. Just needed someone to recognize it. Plus, I’m always going to love having the opportunity to tell you I told you so.”

He laughs, his gaze locked onto the bottle in his hand. “I’ll gladly hear it as long as you stick around to say it.”

The beer on the table in front of me was starting to look more appealing. “What do you mean by that?”