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I don’t realize I’m going to push the stop button until I do.
The elevator jerks and shudders to a halt, making us both stumble forward. I catch Parker by the shoulders and she bumps into me with a softoof.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice breathy.
She smells like cinnamon and cookies and something familiar that hits me hard. The word that comes to mind is home. She smells likehome.
It shocks me.
Honestly, nowhere everfeltlike home, so it shouldn’t have a scent. But it does, and it’s somehow attached to Parker.
“Logan?” she says. “What are you doing?”
“I …”
I don’t know. Honestly. I don’t.
And being this close to Parker, seeing her big brown eyes blinking up at me, feeling her muscles tense under my grip is only making it harder to locate words. My reaction to her should feel wrong when I think about who Parker was to me—Brandon’s little sister. Was she even in high school when I left Harvest Hollow at eighteen?
Before I can scrape up some kind of answer or why things feel completely different now, Parker wiggles out of my grasp and pushes the button to start the elevator again. I watch as she regains control, feature by feature like she’s following a checklist or something.
Loosen grip on tablet: check.
Shake out neck and shoulders: check.
Take a deep breath in through the nose, out through the mouth: check.
Reset expression to professional: triple check.
It’s kind of impressive, really. And disappointing. Because I happen to like the less professional version of Parker I just saw—the one with her head thrown back while laughing or breathlessly staring up at me with her big doe eyes.
The elevator doors slide open a moment later.
“Walk with me,” Professional Parker says, waving for me to follow her without so much as glancing back. “We have things to discuss.”
My stomach falls. I can guess what things she means. Like why I left without saying goodbye to the two people closest to me in the world—her and Brandon.
When I heard that Charlotte was putting me on loan, I never would have expected to be sent to my hometown. The place I left at eighteen for good—so I thought. The second I got word I was coming back to Harvest Hollow, I thought of Brandon and Parker. I knew at some point, I might run into them. Without being on social media and having no connections to where I grew up, I honestly had no clue if either of them still lived here.
But if they did … I knew I might have to answer for my stupid teenage actions. To explain or attempt an apology.
I just didn’t expect it … today.
“I guess you’re only fast on the ice,” Parker calls back, shooting me a look over her shoulder.
Iamlagging behind, lost in thought. Parker is a good twenty feet ahead of me. I jog to catch up, then put an arm around her shoulders to slow her speed. She ducks out of my hold and picks up the pace.
“Have you traded in your figure skates for speed walking shoes?” I ask.
“Maybe you’re just slow, Barnes.”
I’d forgotten how Parker always called me by my last name whenever she gave me grief. Wolverine for fun. Barnes when she was pointing out mistakes after one of Brandon’s and my games. It makes me grin now.
I slide my hands into my pockets as I follow her through a doorway. Parker’s office is hardly bigger than a closet with no window and outdated … everything. It also looks like a sticky-note store exploded.
No motivational posters or framed pictures here—just every available wall surface covered in the small, colorful squares.
“Whoa.”
