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We first met twelve years ago, but for the last six we’d been distant. Was Everett still my best friend? Could you really say that about someone who had barely spoken to you for six long years? Or did a friendship that strong last through thick and thin?

His frown deepened as he examined the sign on the side of the road. Everett was handsome. His dark hair was longer than usual, a little wild in the off-season. So was his beard.

That beard was part of why I couldn’t stop staring. He never had a beard in college. Mostly because he couldn’t grow one. His facial hair was too patchy so he kept his chin clean-shaven. It was almost as if the man standing in front of me was an entirely different person. This Everett was a little quieter. Calmer. He took more time to ponder as he stroked his long beard. During the baseball season he kept it perfectly trimmed. Everett considered it his signature look. He’d landed endorsements and sponsorship deals because of it.

“Maybe we should have gone back with Seth and Annalise,” he mused, still studying the sign. “It’s getting late.”

Taking a trip to the British Isles in January may seem counterintuitive, but when your best friends were all professional athletes—Seth and Everett both played for the Mantas and Annalise played for the Tangerines—and January was the only month everyone had off, you took your vacation in January.

Sure we could have gone to Australia or at least a country near the equator, but we didn’t get to experience a lot of winter in Florida, or Southern California, where I’d spent the better part of my last eight years. So the whiskey-themed vacation won out and here we were. We started in Ireland, made our way to Edinburgh, and now we were in the Cotswolds before heading into London for our final stop.

After breakfast all four of us—Seth Butler, his fiancée Annalise Ryan, Everett, and me—took a walk to the village to do some wandering and shopping. We all ate lunch at a pub together, after which Seth and Annalise went back to our adorable hotel while Everett and I kept wandering.

It had taken Everett a few days to acclimatize to colder weather but he’d dialed in a long-sleeved Henley, flannel, scarf, and coat combination that kept him warm enough.

Not to mention it suited him.

But he had a point—separating from Seth and Annalise may have been a miscalculation on our part. Everett and I had a knack for getting lost when we were on our own.

I jerked my camera back towards the sky. “We’ll be fine.” I snapped a few photos then glanced down at my screen, scrolling through images of Everett.

He was the same but different. Older. The youth had disappeared from his face. The crinkles around his eyes only made him more handsome. The lankiness of his body had disappeared as well. Before he barely seemed to have control over his long limbs. He was always just a little bit out of proportion.

Not anymore. Everett Anson was all muscle and brawn. He fit inside this new body and seemed far more at ease than he ever did before. And for some reason that made me feel nervous. Like butterflies were constantly rioting in my belly.

“Take all the photos you want, Willa,” he slid his strong arm over my shoulders as he steered me down the road, “but let’s move a little too.”

I ignored the way my heart beat faster when he touched me. This new development was strange and unwelcome. Why was I nervous around Everett? Was it simply because of our time apart? Six years was a long time. Too long.

“What’s wrong?” He frowned down at me when I didn’t move.

“Nothing,” I stammered.

“No, there’s something wrong. Has been for a long time. We keep pretending everything is normal, like I wasn’t gone for years, but I was Willa. I was gone. And things are different. We need to stop pretending everything is the same.”

Well, there was some of the old Everett in there after all. He always did say the quiet part out loud. So I stopped and turned to face him, which was much easier since he was no longer touching me. “I’m not sure I know you anymore,” I confessed.

His broad shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I had a feeling.”

How was it possible for someone to be so familiar and so foreign at the same time? For four and a half years we were inseparable. Just me, Everett, and Seth. The Three Amigos. They played baseball and I tagged along as their sidekick.

I was always more comfortable with boys than girls. It had just been me and Dad growing up, grilling, watching sports, and hanging with his friends.

The person who was supposed to teach me about being a girl had walked away, leaving a gaping void in our lives. Dad coped by being the most involved dad on the planet. He barely even dated until I left for college. I coped by avoiding female relationships—okay most relationships—until Seth and Everett came along. The three of us just clicked. Instant friendship. So easy and comfortable even I couldn’t deny it. I loved them like brothers. There had never been anything romantic between us.

Except there were times, with Everett, usually when one of us was having a hard time, when things got a little electric, but it always passed. We preserved our friendship above all else.

Then we graduated. Everett and Seth went to the minor leagues and I went to Hollywood thanks to an internship that had set me up with a job right out of school. After four years of being together nonstop, we were apart. It was hard, but we didn’t let the distance come between us.

Then Everett got the yips.

His signature pitches fell apart. Most pitchers worked through the problem, but Everett didn’t. He quit baseball and moved home, going to work at the family marina on the little island of Calusa Key.

Until a Friends & Family Game at Sunshine Stadium two years ago. Everett had no idea how hard he’d been throwing to the high school kids back home. But after striking out the first three batters he faced—all Mantas—the bullpen coach went and got the radar gun.

Everett’s career was back.

He and Seth were teammates again. And slowly, he’d let me back in, too. It wasn’t the reason I accepted the job that brought me to Tampa, but it was the biggest perk. Our friendship slowly rekindled but it was still so fragile and new. It felt like one good gust of wind might sweep him away again.