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EMMETT

“ S o you’ve dealt with all of these feelings by not dealing with them?” Heidi asks, looking up at the deep purple sky.

I look over at her, hyper-aware of her fingers nearly touching mine in the sand. “How have you dealt with them?”

She fights back a smile, the corner of her eye wrinkling. “The same way you have.”

“That’s what I thought.” I laugh, and for the first time in a long while, it’s a real one. A true, happy laugh.

Heidi’s head whips to mine, her smile growing. “That’s a nice sound, Gardner.”

“What was your favorite thing about growing up?” I ask suddenly. I’m not sure what my sudden desperate need to know is.

She thinks for a second. “I think it was the trouble Isla and I would get into as kids.” She smiles up at the sky. “We’ve been best friends for a really long time. When we were kids, we would build forts out of sticks in the back of her parent’s house. The second Leo would walk by we would jump out and tackle him.”

I chuckle. “That makes sense.”

“And then as we got older, we made a real fort back there. We stole her dad’s liquor at one point. It was my first drink.” Heidi sighs before letting out a small chuckle. “Leo busted us that night. Told us that he would tell her parents unless we were nicer to him.”

“You guys bullied the poor guy?”

She shoots me a crazed look. “Oh yeah. And he deserved it, trust me.”

I smile as a gust of wind blows across us, her hair instantly in her face. “As someone who spends quite a bit of time with him as an adult, trust me, I don’t blame you at all.”

“What’s your favorite moment, Big Guy?”

“I’m not sure. I think it was laying in the back of my truck with McKenna at the drive ins.”

“I haven’t been to one of those,” she muses.

I smile, and she looks at me, her smile mirroring mine. “You have to. Some of my favorite memories were there.”

“Like what?” She rolls over onto her stomach, picking at the cool sand underneath her as she watches me.

“My first kiss,” I shrug. “My first time.”

Heidi rears back. “At a movie theater?”

I laugh, turning over onto my side. “At a drive-in.”

“That’s still pretty public, Big Guy.”

“It felt like we were the only two in the world.”

Heidi’s smile falters and she lowers her head, her hair falling over her face. “She’s a lucky girl.”

“Was.”

“She was your first?”

I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. “Yeah.”

“I wish I could have met her. She sounds amazing.” Heidi’s eyes hold mine, and the forlorn sparkle makes me think she’s not just saying that.

For whatever reason I believe her.

No matter how much she’s flirted with me today, there’s no jealousy. No competition or fight in her.

I used to go on dates just to see if I could get over her. I’d try as hard as I could. But whenever it was time to tell the person about my past, about my loss, I always knew what came after. The grilling. The questions.

I hated every second of it.

“I think she would like you too.”