Page 4 of The Family Friend

My control is fracturing beneath a pressure I do not recognize. Warmth pools low in my belly, and something pulses between my thighs.

I can't trust my own body … not around him.

Then he grins.

It's the same grin from when we were kids—the only part of him that hasn't changed at all, reaching back across decades. The grin that used to turn my coherent thoughts into ashes.

A bolt of heat sears through me.

Something that shouldn't throb throbs.

Something without a pulse pulses.

That grin is going to be the death of me.

And the worst part, the part that makes this bearable and unbearable at once, is that he probably doesn't even remember. That summer rewired my life, and he's standing there grinning like it never happened. Because for him, it didn't. Probably. Most likely.

2

HEATH

The last summer plays on a loop in my head. I could tell you what she wore, what the dock smelled like, the exact second I decided I was going to kiss her and the exact second I lost my nerve and my entire self-esteem disintegrated into dust.

Harriet. I thought I was ready for this. I had a plan.

Be cool, be normal, don't stare.

I am not cool, I don't feel normal, and I'm definitely staring.

Harriet's on the edge of that ancient twin bed, and every version of her I've been carrying around got deleted on contact, because not one of them comes close. No glasses, no braces. Not that it ever mattered. I thought she was the prettiest girl I have ever laid eyes on back when she had both.

This is just the same problem wearing a new face, and the problem is I've never once been able to look at her and think about anything else. If I'm the superstitious type, I would have thought she put me under a spell because that's the only way to explain things.

Her chocolate brown hair is longer now, wavy in a way that makes my hands want to reach for it and maybe wrap it around my knuckles. Those brown eyes—the ones I used to get lost in during Sunday dinners when we were kids—watch me carefully, almost politely.

There's something guarded behind that politeness that needles at me. I don't like it. That's how she used to look at my friends, and I don't want her to look at me like that.

The loft shrinks around us. The ceiling presses down, making the space smaller, tighter, charged with something I can't name but feel in my chest.

Gram's not fooling anyone with this "surprise" arrangement. The old woman knows exactly what she's doing, sticking the two of us up here.

Hell, she's probably downstairs right now cackling about how much of a clever fox she is. Can't say I'm mad about it, though. Not when it gets me Harriet alone.

Fuck, I'm pathetic. I knew that back in high school. I know that now.

I'm going to confess this weekend. I came here with my mind already made up. Whatever happened that last summer, whatever made her run, I'm not walking away from it again. Not this time. If she says no, then at least I won't need to spend all my nights playing the game of what-ifs.

The old insecurity tries to claw its way up. Back then, I was sure a girl that smart, going where she was going, saw me as a jock with good hands and nothing upstairs. She laughed at my jokes, yes, but I felt like she didn't deem me worthy to date.

I'm not that kid now. I know what I bring to the table beyond the ball. Some part of me wants her to see it, wants her to know I'm more than she might have thought.

"Hey, stranger," I say, and my voice sounds weird. I've always been a confident guy, but around Harriet, I'm desperate to impress her.

"Hey yourself." The corner of her mouth lifts, and she tucks a piece of hair behind her ear.

"Did Gram get you with the surprise sleeping arrangement too?"

"Yeah. And when I tried to ask if I could sleep in her room instead⁠—"