Page 3 of Kellan & Emmett (Gomillion High Reunion #1)

Kellan

Noise hit me before the door even swung shut—laughter, voices pitched high with beer and old memories.

Inside, Timbers & Tallboys looked exactly like the kind of bar small towns clung to: heavy beams overhead, low ceilings stained with years of smoke, wood so dark it almost gleamed.

The smell hit next.

Grease and salt, fried pickles and onion rings competing with the sour tang of beer.

My stomach turned, though I hadn’t eaten much since the mini canapés back at the school.

A man stood behind the bar, beard thick enough to hide most of his expression, sleeves rolled up like he’d just come from chopping wood instead of pouring drinks.

He polished a glass with a kind of grim focus, expression daring anyone to ask for something complicated.

“Don’t even try to order a martini,”

a woman passing by whispered, grinning as she noticed my look.

“That’s Moses Morey—everyone calls him Mose. He’s the guy who tore down the Paul Bunyan statue ten years ago. People still haven’t forgiven him.”

Small-town grudges. They aged like whiskey.

I ordered nothing.

Didn’t look at the beer list written in chalk.

Didn’t care about the wings or fried whatever coming out of the kitchen.

My focus was already spoken for, though I hadn’t let myself admit it until my gaze drifted across the room.

The object of my focus, my attention, stood across the room, head bent toward someone I didn’t recognize, laugh slipping free, easy and unguarded.

Older now.

Broader through the shoulders, chest filling out his shirt in a way the lean boy I remembered never had.

His hair was longer than it had been in high school, sun-streaked and brushing his collar, the kind of messy that took effort.

A beard covered his jaw, not too wild, just enough to sharpen him into something more rugged, more grown.

Emmett was Charlie Hunnam kind of handsome—though I doubted he knew it.

My throat went tight.

Twenty years ago, he’d been all wiry limbs and restless energy.

Now he looked… anchored.

Strong.

Solid. And damn if it didn’t hit me harder than I wanted. Where the hell had he gotten that body?

I’d blocked him on social media twenty years back.

Blocked everyone, really.

A clean break, I’d told myself.

Easier than watching lives unfold without me in them.

I didn’t want glimpses of Emmett smiling with friends, living the kind of life I couldn’t live, couldn’t face. It was easier to pretend none of it existed.

And yet here he was, twenty feet away, real as the scuffed floor under my shoes.

I’d thought I wanted distance. Thought leaving Gomillion behind would erase him, erase us. But the second my eyes landed on him tonight, every mile I’d put between us collapsed.

I barely had time to catch my breath, to drag my eyes off him, before a voice boomed my name.

Derrick Barnes cornered me near the bar, a hand clap to my shoulder like we were old friends. He’d filled out since high school—sharper jaw, more confident in the way he carried himself—but the grin was the same.

“Man, it’s been forever,”

he said.

“I heard you were in California? I’ve been in Atlanta. Real estate. It’s crazy out there—condos going for half a million and folks are fighting to outbid each other. Nuts.”

“California’s its own kind of crazy,”

I said, managing a half-smile.

“Traffic and rent’ll bleed you dry.”

The words came easy, automatic, while my eyes kept flicking past his shoulder, to the only person in the room who mattered.

Another guy drifted over, tall with a close-cropped fade and a quick laugh I recognized a beat too late. Jamal Jackson. We’d had history class together junior year. He leaned in, clinking Derrick’s glass with his own.

“Don’t let him fool you, Kellan,”

he said, handing me a beer.

“He’s famous in Atlanta. Billboard ads and everything.”

Derrick rolled his eyes at Jamal’s brag and turned back to me.

“Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, you’re over here looking like your mind’s three tables away. You even listening?”

Jamal grinned.

“Don’t sweat it, Kell. Reunions do that. Half the room’s catching up, the other half’s chasing ghosts.”

They bantered, filling the space between us with stories of clients and cities I knew nothing about. I offered polite answers, a nod here, a chuckle there. My body stood with them, but my focus was across the room.

Emmett.

Leaning against a high-top, head bent toward someone else.

Laugh sliding out easily, shoulders relaxed in a way I couldn’t remember ever seeing when we were teenagers.

His hand brushed his glass, his other shoved into his pocket, and it shouldn’t have been magnetic.

But it was.

“Market’s all about location, location, location,”

Derrick was saying, raising his glass.

“Right,”

I murmured, though my eyes had already slid back to Emmett. Always knowing where he was, even without looking.

Temptation pressed hard. Twenty feet of scuffed floor between us. All I had to do was cross it. Say something. Anything more than the clipped words from that stupid Find Your Match game. But my feet stayed planted. My throat felt tight.

Jamal chuckled at something Derrick said. I sipped the beer he’d handed me earlier, the flavor muted, nothing that lingered. Easier to swallow than words I didn’t trust myself to say.

Movement near the door caught my eye. A tall guy, broad through the shoulders, beard trimmed sharp. I didn’t remember seeing him at the gym earlier. Took me a second, then it clicked—Leif Lawson. A year ahead of us in high school.

Why the hell was he even here? This was the twenty-year reunion for my class, not his.

Before I could make sense of it, he’d already crossed the room, and Emmett—of course—was the one he went straight for.

They fell into conversation, heads bent close, laughter slipping easy between them. Too easy.

My stomach knotted.

Back in high school, as far as I knew, Emmett had been straight.

At least that’s what I’d told myself.

Until graduation night.

Until one kiss that had haunted me ever since.

I’d spent years wondering if I’d imagined it.

If maybe he hadn’t kissed me back, and I’d just wanted it so badly I convinced myself I’d felt it.

But then there were nights—late, restless—when I could still swear I felt the heat of his mouth on mine. That it had been real.

Now here he was, leaning into Leif like—hell, I didn’t know what.

My throat went dry.

I’d admitted to myself years ago that I was gay.

After denying it for too long.

After trying to prove something with women, marrying one of them, even, and dragging us both through a passionless couple of years before it fell apart.

Divorce papers had been easier than facing the truth back then.

I was so far in the closet I’d practically boarded the door shut.

Coming out never felt like an option. Not for me.

So why did watching Emmett laugh with Leif feel like my ribs were being pried open?

It wasn’t jealousy. Couldn’t be. He could talk to whoever he wanted.

Still, when Leif touched his arm and Emmett didn’t pull away, something sharp bit under my skin.

I stared down at my glass, fingers tightening until the rim pressed into my palm. My pulse wouldn’t slow down.

They moved toward the exit, shoulders brushing, talking in a way that felt private. The door swung open, spilling night air into the bar, and then shut again.

Maybe they went for a smoke.

But did Emmett even smoke? Somehow, I didn’t think so.

“Everything good?”

Derrick asked beside me, raising his brows when I didn’t answer right away.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I wasn’t fine. My gaze stuck to that door like it owed me answers.

Hooking up? The thought lodged deep, unwelcome.

But the longer the door stayed shut, the tighter my chest drew.

It didn't matter. None of it did.

So why couldn’t I stop imagining him with someone else?

The minutes dragged on. I stayed where I was, glass in hand. Derrick and Jamal still carried on with stories about clients and city life, and I still nodded at the right moments, threw in the occasional “yeah”

o.

“sounds good,”

but none of it landed.

My mind was outside, with him.

That door stayed shut.

I told myself maybe they’d just gone out for a smoke. Maybe they were catching up like old friends. Maybe I was an idiot for caring. Didn’t stop my chest from tightening every time laughter rose near the entrance, only to realize it wasn’t theirs.

The crowd thinned as the night wore on. Groups peeled off in twos and threes, voices fading as they called goodbyes and stumbled into the dark. The buzz of conversation dulled, the bar quieter, softer around the edge.

Exhaustion pressed into my bones—travel, jet lag, everything I’d been carrying for twenty years.

I drained the last swallow of beer, set the glass down harder than I meant to, and pushed away from the table. Time to go. Time to stop staring at a door that wasn’t going to open for my peace of mind.

So I walked out, keys in hand, and let the dark swallow me whole.

The road stretched out in front of me, two black lanes swallowed in the beam of the SUV’s headlights. Midnight in Gomillion meant emptiness—just the hum of tires on cracked asphalt, tree lines hemming me in on either side, and the faint glow of a porch light here or there, set way back from the road.

The air outside pressed thick when I cracked the window. Frogs sang[3] their endless chorus, a sound I’d half-forgotten until it wrapped around me again. Pine. Damp earth. A sweetness I couldn’t place—honeysuckle, maybe, drifting through the dark.

My hands gripped the wheel too tight.

I tried not to picture Emmett leaning in close to Leif Lawson, laughter slipping easy between them. Tried not to imagine what they were doing outside while I’d sat in that bar choking down beer I couldn’t taste.

It didn't matter. Shouldn’t matter.

But the image clung like humidity.

A mile marker flashed by, the green sign swallowed in shadow before I finished reading it. For half a second, I remembered a different line—kids bunched together on the edge of the playground pavement, waiting for Coach’s whistle.

That’s when I first saw him. Emmett, small for his age, arms wrapped tight around himself, sneakers scuffing the ground like he wanted to disappear. The red rubber kickball rolled to his feet, and every kid’s eyes turned his way. He froze.

I jogged over, grinned like it was no big deal. “Come on,”

I said.

“We’ll kick it together.”

His eyes flicked to mine, nervous, searching. Then he nodded. And when our sneakers hit the ball at the same time, sending it wobbling down the field, we both broke into grins—wide as the South Carolina sky.

That was the first day. The first time I knew I had a best friend.

I shook my head, jaw tightening, wishing I could drive fast enough to outrun the memory.

The clock on the dash glowed 11:57. Almost midnight. My stomach knotted. I still hadn’t checked in at the bed and breakfast. Just needed a key, a bed, and silence.

Instead, all I could feel was the restless drum of the past beating against the dark.

The rental eased into the drive, headlights sweeping across the porch. Midnight pressed heavy across Gomillion—dark roads, shuttered storefronts, not a soul in sight—

but the inn glowed ahead like a lantern. Fresh paint, white against the dark. Porch light spilling golden across the steps. Flower boxes under the windows, neat and bright even in the low light.

I killed the engine, sat there a moment with my hands still on the wheel.

The booking site had called it The Gardenian Inn. Seeing it in person, I realized it was Miss Cole’s place.

Of course it was. Every kid in town had walked past this house at some point, and Miss Cole had always been there—small, wiry, cardigans no matter the season, hummingbird feeders dangling from the porch beams, yard always neat as a pin.

I remembered thinking the house would be sold after she passed. It hadn't crossed my mind to wonder who bought it.

Made sense, though. Everything changes when you aren’t looking.

I hauled my bag from the backseat and climbed the steps. The wood gave a faint groan, though the paint was new and glossy. My stomach knotted.

The door opened easy, the bell above it chiming once, soft. Inside smelled of lemon polish and cinnamon. A desk stood just past the entry, oak dark with age. Someone leaned over a ledger behind it, pen scratching faintly.

Then he looked up.

My pulse stuttered.

Emmett.

Not wearing the same clothes. Not with a glass in his hand this time. Not surrounded by classmates. Here, in a button-down with sleeves rolled, hair falling into his eyes as he straightened. His face went still the moment he saw me.

I froze too. For a long beat, it was just us and the silence.

“You work here?”

My voice cracked, like it had to scrape its way out.

His jaw shifted, tight.

“I own it.”

The words landed heavy, a stone in my chest.

Of course.

I blinked, trying to piece it together.

“You—own it?”

“Yeah.”

No flourish. Just a fact.

Something in me stumbled. I fumbled for neutral ground, for a scrap of the old ease between us, but nothing came. My grip tightened on the strap of my bag.

“Guess I should… check in then.”

His gaze didn’t waver. For a second, I thought he might refuse. Then his fingers moved across the keyboard with practiced ease.

“Kellan Miller,”

he said, more to the screen than to me.

The sound of it—my name in his voice after twenty years—pulled at something deep I didn’t want to look at.

His attention locked on the glow of the monitor, not on me. Professional. Detached. Like typing me into the system was easier than acknowledging I was standing here.

I cleared my throat.

“So… how’d you end up with this place?”

His hand stilled for half a second.

“Miss Cole left it to me.”

That stunned me quiet.

“She… left it to you?”

“She didn’t have a family.”

His tone stayed clipped, almost flat.

“I helped her out toward the end. The house needed someone. Guess she thought I’d do.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Didn’t know what to say to that.

After a moment, he reached back to the rack, took down a brass key, and set it on the counter between us. His hand didn’t linger.

“Your room’s upstairs. Second on the left.”

I reached for the key. Our eyes clashed again, just for a heartbeat.

“I’ll keep it professional,”

he said, voice even, controlled.

“That’s all you’ll get from me.”

The words hit sharper than I expected.

I slipped the key into my pocket and nodded like it didn’t matter. But my chest felt tight as I turned toward the stairs.