Page 29 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

Nate

M

y

head’s

fucking

pounding,

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.

His eyes flick around the room as if searching for something to hold onto. His shoulders are tense, his stance tight in a way I haven’t seen in years.

It drags me straight back to those first weeks after he came to live with us. The way he lingered in doorways, never sure if he was allowed in, never sure if the food on the table was meant for him.

That’s what I see now. The same hesitation. And I fucking hate myself for making him feel that way again.

I need to talk to him. I need to get out what’s been sitting heavy on my chest since we left Quinn’s, but the words won’t move yet.

“Hey,” I say.

That one word is enough.

His shoulders ease, the tension slipping from his frame, and his face softens just enough to breathe again.

He crosses the room and lies down beside me, eyes on the ceiling.

The silence stretches between us, heavy with everything we’re not saying.

Then he turns onto his side, facing me. His eyes lock on mine, deep brown and steady, carrying a worry he doesn’t bother to hide. It shows in the crease of his brow, in the way he waits for me to be okay without knowing if I ever will be.

Without a thought, I wrap my fingers around his, holding on. Just enough pressure to tell him I’m still trying. I lift our hands between us, elbows bent, and stare at them.

“I need to tell you something,” I say, my grip tightening as I pull in a steadying breath. My heart’s pounding, and for a second I almost don’t let it out. But the words break free. “I felt something when I was with Quinn the other day, and it’s been fucking with my head ever since.”

I turn toward him. He’s already watching.

Theo exhales. “I thought you were gonna say something worse.”

“Like?”

“That you couldn’t even look at me without thinking of everything we lost.”

The words hit harder than I expect. I manage a dry laugh and nudge his arm.

“Never,” I say. “You don’t get rid of me that easy.”

Silence settles between us again until Theo says, “I felt something too.”

I turn to face him, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He keeps his gaze on the ceiling, as if the words come easier when he doesn’t have to look at me.

“Last week… when we saw her again,” he says, voice low.

“There were these moments. Little things. She’s still beautiful.

Fuck, she’s more than that now. It’s not just her looks—it’s the way her nose scrunches when she’s concentrating.

That tiny scar near her eyebrow. I forgot how she got it, but it caught my eye and I couldn’t look away.

She still bites her bottom lip when she’s thinking too hard.

Still rolls her eyes at me like I’m a fucking idiot.

” He exhales, slow. “I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t seen her in years, or if it’s something else.

Something new. But there was comfort there…

like my chest stopped hurting for a minute. ”

I say nothing.

I just let it hang between us.

“She’s still her,” he goes on. “Tough as hell. Smarter than all of us. And somehow she made everything seem okay, even if only for a little while.” He finally glances over at me. “I don’t know what it means. But I noticed. And it stuck.”

“Have you spoken to her since we left?” I ask.

“I texted her,” Theo says. “Thanked her for the box. Told her I’d get someone to put together a collage, or whatever the fuck it’s called, to hang on the wall.”

Theo goes quiet again before adding, “You should call her.”

I shake my head, exhaling. “I wouldn’t know what the fuck to say.”

Theo smirks. “Well, don’t lead with one of your lame-ass one-liners, hotshot. She’ll shut you down in two seconds flat.”

I laugh. “Yeah, she used to do that, didn’t she?”

Theo chuckles, grin wide. “Remember when you told her her ass should come with a warning label? She shot back, ‘This ass has higher standards than a guy who can’t even find a clit with Google Maps.’”

I can’t help but grin. “God, she never let me get away with that shit.”

Theo practically wheezes. “Bro. She said it loud enough the lunch tables went silent. You just stood there holding your Gatorade like your dick shriveled on command. Even Coach nearly choked on his sandwich.”

I groan, dragging a hand over my face. “She didn’t even blink. Just nailed me with that stare, dropped the line, and kept walking like she hadn’t straight-up murdered me in front of half the school. I swear my balls actually retracted.”

“She was a menace. And you loved every second of it.”

I grin. “Yeah. I really fucking did.”

We stay quiet for a second, letting the memory sit.

Theo claps his hands and springs to his feet.

“Let’s go. If we’re late, Ace’ll act like someone pissed in his coffee, and Xander’ll pull out the whiteboard.”

I blink. “He has a whiteboard now?”

“Had it couriered to the studio. Swear on my life. Came with color-coded markers and an actual fucking pointer.”

It won’t be Ace with his grumpy-ass glare, or Xander barking orders like we’re in some Boyband bootcamp and he’s one meltdown away from shaving his head. No, it’ll be Kit. And that’s worse.

She won’t scream or slam doors. She’ll just stare at us with that unimpressed look that could vaporize egos, all five feet of fury dressed in black and platform boots.

We’ll crumble faster than Theo pretending he didn’t eat the last slice of pizza.

One sarcastic clap. One perfectly timed eyebrow raise. And suddenly I’m volunteering to sweep the tour bus and write a formal apology for existing.

We’re at Ace’s place, guitars out and ready, working on the new songs. Surprisingly, Kit’s not here yet, which is rare.

We love her. Fuck, we respect the hell out of her. She’s the one who keeps us grounded, who stops the chaos from swallowing us whole. That’s the reason she’s still with us, the reason we asked her to come when we started our own label.

Without her, we’d be five missed flights deep, buried under unread emails, and fighting over who left their socks on the amp. She’s our compass in all this madness. Smallest one in the room, but somehow she holds the whole damn thing together.

The music pounds through the walls, and it feels so fucking good.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Theo grinning, that wide, reckless one he only wears when he’s finally breathing again or plotting new ways to piss off Ace.

Xander’s running through a few lyrics while Ace leans over, showing Theo the bass line he wrote. It’s tight, clean, solid as fuck, and for a second I let it take me under.

“After a few chords from Theo, Nate, you come in with the beat,” Ace says, sharp focus in his voice.

I lean back, watching Ace and Xander work, and fuck, they get it. The way they build songs from the ground up, like it’s instinct, like it’s in their blood.

Before Ace showed up at our door, I had options.

A few bands were interested, mostly in me and Theo knew it. He told me I’d be an idiot to pass it up, said it might be my only shot. But there was no fucking way I was doing this without him.

So I waited.

Held out for the right thing. And damn, I’m glad I did. Because if I hadn’t—if I’d jumped into some half-assed setup with people who didn’t get us. Who the fuck knows where Theo and I would be now?

That first night, when Theo and Xander sat on the couch jamming, it clicked. Not only the sound, but the way Xander treated Theo. He didn’t talk over him or try to one-up him.

He listened. Nodded when Theo landed something sick on the strings. Smiled in a way that said he saw him, not just the music, but the person behind it. And for someone who’d spent most of his life being told he wasn’t enough, that kind of respect meant everything.

That’s when I knew we’d found the right fit. Not only for the music, but for us.

Ace counts us in.