Page 12 of Kellan & Emmett (Gomillion High Reunion #1)

Kellan

Emmett’s keys glinted on the nightstand, catching the thin slice of morning light that slipped through the curtains. I should’ve dropped them at the front desk. Should’ve knocked on his door and shoved them back into his hand. Instead, they sat there, a reminder that last night hadn’t been some fever dream.

I scrubbed both hands over my face, but it didn’t shift the heaviness lodged in my chest. I’d walked into the reunion telling myself I could handle it—one weekend, a few polite conversations, then I’d vanish again. Clean break. But Emmett’s voice kept looping in my head: You kissed me.

The words split me in half. Not because they weren’t true, but because of what I heard under them. The hurt. The kind that clung twenty years later, no matter what I said now.

Restless, I pushed to my feet and paced the room. Four walls, clean lines, neutral décor—his touch in everything, even if he might not have picked the paint swatches himself. The inn was his world. Solid. Built. Permanent. And me? I’d never felt more temporary.

At the window, I stared down at the courtyard where a couple of guests lingered over coffee. Their laughter carried up, light and easy.

My gaze slid back to the keys. They weren’t just metal. They were his parting shot, his line in the sand. You want back in my life? Prove it. Work for it.

And God, I wanted back in his life. I didn’t know if I could prove anything to him after twenty years, but I could damn well work for it.

The thought settled heavy in my chest as I left the room, the keys burning in my pocket. By the time I hit the stairs, the smell of coffee and butter had already reached me, tugging me toward the inn’s small dining space.

Cozy but unpretentious, the room hummed with the low murmur of goodbyes. A few reunion stragglers lingered, faces I recognized from the weekend, shadows under their eyes as they nursed coffee and loaded plates one last time. Suitcases leaned against chairs, ready for the road. They offered me sleepy good mornings, the kind that carried both fondness and fatigue.

At the buffet, a girl in her early twenties—staff, probably college-aged—hovered with a carafe. She caught my eye as I reached for a plate. “Sophia,”

she said with a quick smile, tapping her name stitched into the apron. “Coffee?”

“Yeah, thanks,”

I said, letting her pour.

I moved down the line, picking through what was left—scrambled eggs, crisp bacon, a biscuit still warm from the tray the older woman had just carried out of the kitchen. She had that brisk, maternal air of someone who could run the whole place without raising her voice.

And then—him.

Emmett.

He stood at the far end of the sideboard, sleeves rolled, restocking a pan of grits. He didn’t flinch when our eyes met. Didn’t soften, either. Just a polite nod, the kind you’d give any guest. Professional. Efficient. Then he was moving again, laughing low with someone else at the next table like the night before had never happened.

I carried my plate to an empty table. The food smelled good, solid, but my stomach didn’t care. I picked at the biscuit, tearing it into pieces more than eating it.

I’d barely settled into my seat when the chair across from me scraped back.

“Guess it’s just us stragglers now,”

Megan said, sliding her coffee onto the table before I could answer.

I smiled faintly.

“Derrick and Britt already hit the road?”

“An hour ago. Jamal too. Early flights, real life waiting.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled.

“Feels weird, doesn’t it? After all the noise and laughter, just…poof. Gone.”

“Yeah.”

I toyed with my mug, watching steam curl.

“Like it never happened.”

“But it did.”

She leaned back, surveying the room. A couple of classmates hunched over plates, eyes bleary, movements slow.

“And I’m glad it did. Feels good to remember we weren’t just names in a yearbook.”

I nodded, something tight loosening in my chest.

“Yeah. Gomillion will always feel like…second home, I guess.”

“For Emmett it’s always been first,”

she said softly, not unkind.

That name in her mouth did something to me. I didn’t bite, not right away. I just sipped the bitter coffee and let her fill the quiet.

“You and Emmett,”

she went on after a beat.

“you were close. Always were. But senior year, it changed. He was…different. I used to wonder if something happened.”

I kept my gaze steady on the rim of my mug, though my pulse betrayed me.

“We drifted.”

“Maybe.”

She studied me, eyes too sharp for comfort.

“But I wondered, even back then, if you two were more than just best friends. Not that it’s any of my business. I just…saw things.”

I forced a laugh, hollow in my own ears.

“What, like me and Emmett were joined at the hip? Everyone saw that.”

“Mm,”

she said, not letting me off the hook so easily.

“Sure. But it wasn’t just that. You two had your own language. A look, a shrug, and suddenly the rest of us didn’t exist. That’s rare, you know. Even back then, I wondered if it was more than friendship.”

The words landed heavy, but I forced my mouth into a smile.

“You wondered wrong.”

She smiled at that, but it faded quick.

“When you left, it hit him hard. First time I came back from college, he was still…off. Took years before I saw the old Emmett again. Even now, I’m not sure he’s the same.”

Her words scraped something raw. I didn’t trust myself to answer.

She pushed her chair back, grabbing her bag.

“I’ve got a flight to catch.“You’re still leaving Friday, right?”

she asked, adjusting the strap on her shoulder.

“Five more days.”

I nodded.

She leaned in as we hugged, her voice dropping to a whisper at my ear.

“Make them count, Kellan. Make them count with him. You may not get another chance.”

The words lodged deep.

She pulled back with a small smile.

“Take care of yourself.”

Then she crossed the room, heading toward where Emmett stood, refilling the coffee urn.

He smiled and bent to hug her. I couldn’t hear what she murmured to him, but I saw his mouth twitch with something that wasn’t quite a smile. When he straightened, his gaze lifted and caught mine—just for a second. Then he turned back to his work.

A shadow slid across the table, blotting out the slice of sunlight on my plate.

“Thought that was you,”

the voice drawled—half gravel, half thunder.

My fork stalled midair. I didn’t have to look up to know. That voice had barked morning announcements into tinny intercom speakers for most of my teenage years.

“Principal Bushman,”

I said, softer than I meant.

He grinned like I’d handed him a gift.

“Ain’t ‘principal’ anymore. Retired’s the word. Call me Josiah or Jo, if you can stomach it.”

He set his mug down on my table like the seat across from me had been waiting for him, and lowered himself in with the same bulk that used to loom over detention desks.

For a second, all I could do was take him in. Hair white now, face deeper in the lines I half-remembered, shoulders still broad but less certain under his button-down. Time had worked him over, but the eyes were the same—sharp, missing nothing.

“You’ve been slippery,”

he said, leaning back.

“Saw you all weekend, but there’s always some crowd around. Hard to get a word in when everybody wants a piece of you.”

I huffed a breath.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“You surprised some folks,”

he said, voice dropping into something gentler.

“Surprised me too. Never thought I’d see you back in Gomillion.”

My biscuit had gone cold, but I broke it open anyway, fingers itching for something to do.

“I didn’t think I’d be back either.”

He chuckled, big and booming.

“The Welcome Back awardThat’s what they gave you, right? Fitting, I’d say.”

I shook my head, half-smile tugging but not landing.

“Not sure it was meant kindly.”

“Doesn’t matter. Folks remembered you. That’s worth somethin’.”

He let that hang for a beat, the weight of it heavier than his tone.

Bushman tilted his head.

“Tell me somethin’, son. You still in football?”

The question snagged, sharp in my throat.

“Football?”

He nodded.

“Back then, you lived and breathed it. Wide receiver with hands like glue. Hell, half our plays were built around you and Brad running that field. Figured you’d end up passin’ it down somewhere—coachin’, maybe.”

Heat crawled up the back of my neck. For him, it was memory. For me, it was a wound.

“I played in college,”

I said finally, voice rougher than I liked. My chest tightened again, but this time it was different—old bone-deep ache.

“Then I didn’t. Injury took care of that in my junior year.”

His brows knit, but he didn’t press. Just waited.

I forced myself to keep going, because silence would’ve been worse.

“I stayed in LA. Ended up teaching. Lit classes. And yeah…coached for a while.”

Bushman nodded, slow, like it fit the picture he’d always carried.

“Makes sense. You had the patience. The head for it. Better than me, anyhow.”

His mouth hitched in a self-deprecating smile.

“Boys at the rec field could use somebody like that now. Summer program’s always scramblin’ for help.”

My pulse jumped, unsteady.

“I’m leaving on Friday.”

He lifted his mug, eyes never leaving mine.

“Just think on it. Go down to the field one afternoon. See if the grass still feels the same under your cleats.”

He pushed up from the chair with a grunt, nodding at me like the matter was settled.

“Good to see you, Kellan.”

Then he was gone, weaving toward the buffet, leaving me sitting in the wake of his words.

Boys at the rec field could use somebody like that now.

Football had been everything once. Breath in, breath out. Friday nights under the lights, sweat slicking down my back, the whole town on its feet chanting our names. I’d thought it was the beginning of something bigger—scholarship, college ball, maybe even the draft if the stars lined up.

Then one bad hit and it was over. Junior year of college, doctors muttering words that meant done. And I was. Done.

I hadn’t let myself think about it in years, not really. Teaching had filled the gap. Coaching high schoolers on a dusty LA field gave me just enough of the rush to pretend it didn’t hurt anymore. Until it did, until even that wasn’t enough.

Now here was Principal Bushman, dropping a casual line over coffee like it was nothing. Like stepping back on a field—any field—wouldn’t rip the scab clean off.

Stay in Gomillion for the summer? Help at a rec league? The thought made me want to laugh. Except I didn’t. Because buried under the ache was something else. Something I didn’t want to name.

Want.

Not for football—not really. For a reason. For a place. For something that didn’t vanish the second someone walked away.

Bushman’s words clung like burrs. See if the grass still feels the same under your cleats.

I hated how much I wanted to.

Across the room, Emmett moved between tables with that quiet efficiency of his. A nod here, a refill there, his hand steady as he tipped the pot into a guest’s mug. He didn’t glance my way. Not once.

My throat tightened.

Twenty years ago, he was the one I couldn’t wait to tell everything to—the first person I looked for in a crowd. Now I could’ve been wallpaper for all the notice he gave me. Maybe that was worse than anger.

I pushed my chair back, the scrape loud enough to make a couple of heads turn. Emmett’s gaze flicked up from across the room, brief as a blink, then slid away.

That was it. That was all he was giving me.

My hand tightened around the keys in my pocket, metal biting into my palm.

When he passed close, coffee pot balanced in one hand, I held out the keys anyway, palm open between us.

“Yours,” I said.

He stopped, eyes dropping to the glint of metal before lifting back to mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he might refuse. That he’d leave me standing there, arm outstretched like an idiot.

But then his fingers brushed mine as he took them back. Warm, rough, gone too quick.

“Thanks,”

he said, flat, but his gaze lingered half a second longer than it needed to before he turned.