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CHAPTER ONE
Leighton
Four years later - Present day
Click.
A key turns in the lock of the front door.
Marcus—err, Rylan’s dad—is back home.
The door handle squeaks ever so lightly when he presses it down.
I hold very still on the couch beside my best friend. I probably look uncomfortable as hell. Frozen. Not moving a muscle as I stare straight ahead.
It’s as if I’ve never been in their living room before.
Except I have. Throughout most of my life, I’ve been Rylan’s friend. Best. Meaning, I’ve spent many days and nights here. I should be used to Marcus’s presence.
I had been used to him. Until puberty hit many, many years ago. Ever since, butterflies and excitement freeze me in place whenever he walks into a room. Those first seconds are always the hardest.
I’ve been sneaking to peek at him while he’s in bed, which started sometime after my seventeenth birthday. Since I know what he looks like naked. Since I touch myself when he thinks no one’s around.
My voyeuristic trips have gotten progressively worse over the past two months since we returned home from college. I’ve been sleeping over at the Kingstons’ for the last three years now, ever since my dad got a new job and my parents moved to New York.
I tell myself it’s okay. Remind myself our sleepovers will be over next month when Ry and I move to the other side of the country. New York.
Technically, we should’ve left for Brooklyn by now. Should’ve settled into our new apartment together. The lease term starts this week.
I don’t care about money. I get to stay here for another month, which is perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Soon enough, real life will begin. I’ll work long hours as an intern in a construction engineering company. Ry will hit the ground running as a quant analyst.
We’ll have our new jobs, new friends. Parties to attend, hidden bars to uncover. We’ll explore the good and bad and everything that has to do with adulting. Life will be perfect.
And though I wanted to be away from Marcus—away from the man I’ll always want and could never have—I have to. For my sanity. For the sake of my friendship with Rylan.
I’ll never tell her or anyone how hard I’m crushing on her father.
She hates being far from him as much as I do. Hated going to Texas for four years for this exact reason, except her dad insisted and she lives to please him.
This time around, Marcus didn’t push us in that direction. It was Milo, Rylan’s unrequited love subject. When he announced he’d go to med school in New York, she basically had no other choice but to join us there.
Reluctantly.
I get it. In a different way, but I do.
No more pool water cascading down Marcus’s rippled abs. No more inhaling his cologne. No more sneaking glances at his angular jaw and wishing I could brush the pads of my fingers along his stubble.
No more sliding a hand down my panties in his doorway and—
Shut up, brain!
One footfall. A second one. The door closes.
“Hello,” Dr. Marcus Kingston greets.
My heart skips a beat or two. Probably a thousand. His voice. Gah.
