Page 2 of Kellan & Emmett (Gomillion High Reunion #1)

Emmett

Glass halfway to my mouth, I froze.

Across the room, Kellan Miller stood with a fork in hand, cheesecake halfway gone, eyes locked on mine like the last twenty years hadn’t happened.

My chest pulled tight. One second, I was surrounded by chatter and clinking glasses. The next, the noise fell away. All I saw was him. Taller than memory. Broader.

His hair a little shorter, his jaw sharper, but the same mouth I’d once known better than I should’ve. My stomach twisted.

Don’t look. Don’t you dare look.

I looked anyway.

Someone bumped into me and wine sloshed over the rim of my glass.

“Emmett James!”

Brittan.

“Britt” St. Clair’s voice snapped me back, warm and bright as she slipped an arm through mine. Cheerleader.

Same big laugh she’d had since sophomore year, same star-shaped earrings she’d worn to half the dances.

“You made it! I was beginning to think you were ghosting the whole thing.”

Her smile tugged me toward the present, but Kellan was still in my line of sight. Still watching.

“Had some guests to settle in,”

I said, shifting the glass before it spilled again. My voice sounded normal. Too normal.

“Didn’t want to leave them hanging.”

“Always the responsible one.”

Britt shook her head like it was both admirable and boring. She leaned in, lowering her voice.

“You see who’s here?”

I knew who she meant before she tilted her chin toward him.

“Yeah,”

I muttered. The word tasted bitter.

Britt grinned.

“Wild, right? Feels like no time’s passed at all.”

For her maybe. For me, twenty years stretched like a canyon I couldn’t cross.

Britt squeezed my arm, dragging me closer to the dessert table.

“Come on, you’ve got to say hi. Half these folks only roll back into town for reunions.”

The words barely landed. My gaze snagged on Kellan again. He hadn’t moved. Fork still resting in his hand, eyes still locked on me like he wasn’t sure I was real.

Heat climbed the back of my neck. Don’t react. Don’t give him that.

I pasted on a smile for one of our classmates as she chattered about her twins, her husband’s landscaping business, the fact she’d never left Gomillion. The words flowed around me while I nodded, threw in the occasiona.

“that’s great,”

and tried to keep my pulse from hammering out of my chest.

Other classmates joined in—names I remembered, others I didn’t. Jeff Duncan, still with that booming laugh. Clarissa, who apparently moved to Texas with her husband who plays for the Dallas Stars.

They asked questions about the inn, about whether I’d ever thought of expanding. I answered, automatic. The truth was, I could barely hear them.

Every time I looked up, Kellan was still there.

Smile polite. Eyes too damn intent.

My chest tightened again, sharp and unwelcome. Twenty years hadn’t dulled the pain. Twenty years, and one look from him still knocked the ground out from under me.

“Emmett, you doing the Find Your Match game?”

Jeff asked, shaking a card in front of my face.

“What?”

“Cards,”

he said.

“They hand you one when you come in. Famous duos. You gotta find your match before the music stops. Winner gets a gift card to The Roll.”

I glanced down. A card had been shoved into my hand when I signed in, but I hadn’t even looked at it. Lock.

“I’ll sit this one out,”

I said, sliding it into my pocket.

“Suit yourself.”

Jeff grinned and wandered off.

The gym buzzed louder as people milled around, cards raised, voices carrying as they searched for their pairings. Britt drifted off too, caught in the swell of chatter, leaving me a moment to breathe.

I pulled the card back out, thumb tracing the black letters. Lock. Childish game. But if I stood here while everyone else played, I’d just look like the killjoy I apparently was.

And if there was one thing I’d learned running an inn, it was that you never wanted to be the killjoy in a room full of people having fun.

So I held it up. Circulated. People came by—smiling, comparing cards, shaking their heads when they didn’t match. I did the same, all surface, no spark.

All the while, I knew exactly where he was.

Across the room, he did the same slow loop. Every time I glanced up, his card stayed down by his side. Like he wasn’t even trying. Like he already knew where he’d end up.

My throat went dry when he finally cut across the crowd.

“Key,”

his card read, bold and simple.

Of course.

He stopped just a foot away, expression somewhere between a smirk and something I couldn’t name. His voice came low, aimed only for me.

“Looks like it’s still us.”

The sound of it hit harder than it should’ve. Same cadence. Same warmth underneath, though I told myself I imagined it. My grip tightened around my glass.

“Don’t read into it.”

My tone came out clipped, colder than I meant, but maybe that was good. Better cold than the truth—that my heart was slamming like I’d just sprinted drills.

He tilted his head, studying me. Up close, the changes were sharper—broader shoulders filling out his button-down, lines bracketing his mouth, earned from years I hadn’t been there to see. But the eyes—God, those hazel eyes. Same as always.

“I’m not reading,”

he said, slipping the card between his fingers like it was nothing.

“Just stating facts. Lock. Key.”

The words pulled at something deep, some muscle memory of long afternoons when everything had been that simple—him and me, always paired off, always a set.

I forced a laugh, humorless.

“Yeah, well, some locks shouldn’t be opened.”

His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the announcer’s cheer went up across the mic.

“Have we got our first five pairs? Gift cards up here, folks. Don’t be shy.”

People clapped, whooped. The noise swallowed us, but the air between me and Kellan stayed taut.

“You should go claim your prize,”

I said, nodding at the table, using motion as a shield.

“I’m good.”

His voice brushed low, too calm.

Silence stretched, broken only by the buzz of the crowd. My skin prickled under the weight of him standing there, close enough that I could smell a faint trace of aftershave—something clean, nothing fancy, but achingly familiar.

The announcer’s voice boomed again, declaring the winners and waving the gift cards in the air like he was hosting a game show. Laughter rippled through the gym as pairs headed up to claim their prizes. Someone bumped my shoulder on the way past, and just like that the crowd shifted, pulling me away from Kellan.

Good.

I let it happen. Let the tide of voices, the scrape of chairs, the shuffle of bodies carry me to the edges of the room. Safer there, surrounded by noise instead of silence that left too much space for old ghosts.

The next half hour blurred—conversations layered on top of each other, names tossed at me like I was supposed to remember every single face. Someone shoved a refill into my hand. Someone else asked if the inn was booked solid all summer. I smiled, nodded, gave short answers that made them move on. My eyes never stopped tracking where he was.

When the announcer cued up the next activity, the room tilted back toward him.

“Alright, y’all, time for a little trip down memory lane. Name That Tune: Reunion Edition!”

Groans and cheers rose in equal measure. Groups clustered at tables, teams forming with fast, familiar energy. I got swept into a group with Meghan, Britt, and a guy I only half-remembered from senior year math.

The first few notes blasted through the speakers, tinny and sharp. It took two seconds for Meghan to slap the table.

“Backstreet Boys. ‘I Want It That Way.’ Don’t even argue.”

Our team scribbled answers, laughing too loud when we were right, grumbling when we were wrong. By the time the announcer declared winners—some group on the far side of the gym whooping over their prize—it felt like the whole room had loosened.

All except me.

Because even with music pounding, even with Meghan singing off-key in my ear, I could still feel him.

Kellan, somewhere across the gym, close enough to tilt the air.

About half an hour later, laughter bounced around the gym, too loud, too bright, as people crowded toward the Memory Wall.

Sharpie squeaks filled the air, comments scrawled across grainy yearbook copies and candid photos.

I lingered at the edge, but my gaze kept tugging sideways.

Kellan stood a few yards down, a knot of classmates around him.

He wasn’t laughing, not really, but he was listening, nodding along while Justin slapped him on the back and someone else handed him a fresh drink.

Every so often, he glanced away, like the noise pressed too close. And once—just once—his eyes skimmed over the room and landed on me again. Quick. Fleeting. But enough to make heat climb my neck.

I turned back to the wall before it showed.

The wall stretched the length of the gym, plastered with faces frozen in time.

Prom photos, pep rallies, cafeteria shots that captured trays of rubbery pizza and spilled chocolate milk.

Sharpie captions sprawled across the paper already—“When perms attack.”

“Senior prank champions.”

People howled, pointing at crooked grins and fashion choices they swore weren’t theirs.

I should’ve laughed too. Should’ve leaned into the easy nostalgia. But my gaze snagged dead center.

Kellan.

Everywhere.

Helmet tucked under his arm, smile cocky enough to light the field.

Mid-throw, body straining with the kind of power that used to make the crowd roar.

On senior night, jersey in his hands, his father’s hand clamped on his shoulder like a badge of honor.

My throat closed.

I remembered every single game.

Every Friday night I’d sat in the stands, shouting myself hoarse, pretending the hollow in my chest was just school spirit. Pretending it wasn’t about him.

And there, tucked between all those football clippings, a smaller photo I’d forgotten existed.

Kellan still in his jersey, hair damp with sweat, grin wide enough to split his face.

Me beside him, plain clothes, pulled into the frame by the sheer force of his arm around my shoulders. And grinning just as wide. Best friends. Untouchable.

I’d had no business being in that photo.

I hadn’t made a single play, hadn’t scored a point.

But Kellan had dragged me into the shot anyway, like I was part of the win. Seeing it now hurt worse than I wanted to admit.

The Sharpie felt too heavy in my hand.

Ink bled across the glossy paper as I forced words I didn’t mean but needed anyway: Some things don’t last.

I capped the marker, jaw clenched, and stepped back.

And there he was.

Not in the photo this time, but across the room. Watching me. His expression unreadable, jaw set like he wanted to say something but didn’t.

The sight of it stole the air from my lungs.

Twenty years ago, I’d promised myself he’d never get the chance to hurt me again.

So why did one look already feel like he had?