Page 55 of Falling For Us Again

“My God.” Her hands clench in her lap. “Have you told her yet?”

I shake my head. “Not yet. I didn’t... I didn’t know how to tell her. Maggie and I saw them outside the bar. I pulled Lola back inside before she could see. She was drunk.”

Jenna exhales, her shoulders slumping slightly as she takes it in. “That’s going to crush her. She’s back to planning their wedding, thinking everything’s fine now. That he was truly sorry this time. That useless cheat, Ugh!”

“Yeah,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair. “Cheaters are truly the worst kind of people.”

Our gazes meet before she blinks away, letting the obvious jab slide.

“I’ll talk to her.” She sighs. “She needs to know.”

Her phone rings cutting through the silence. It’s coming from another room, and Jenna stands up to answer it.

Left alone in her living room, I walk to the coffee table and pick up an old book, flipping through the pages absently.

I can hear Jenna speaking in low tones; it seems like she's talking to her aunt. She returns to the living room after a few minutes.

I turn another page, and a photo slips out from between the yellowed paper. It flutters to the floor, landing face-up.

I crouch down and pick it up, my fingers brushing over the worn edges of the image. It’s a picture of us. From high school.

We’re sitting on the hood of my old truck, both of us grinning like idiots. Jenna’s leaning into me, her arm slung over my shoulders, my hand resting on her knee.

The sunlight is glaring in the background, the world bathed in that warm, golden glow that makes everything look perfect.

“What’s that?” she asks, walking towards me.

“Wow,” I murmur, holding the photo out to her. “I can’t believe this still exists.”

“Oh goodness.” Jenna smiles softly, taking it from me. Her fingers linger on the image, tracing the lines of our younger selves. “We were so young.”

“I miss my old truck.”

“It was iconic.” She laughs. “Sneaking out for late-night drives while fearing your mother would seize your truck and my father would ground me.”

“The way we did this countless times even though we told each other that we’d get caught. We never got caught.”

“Geez. what crazy times.”

I nod, the memories of those days flooding back in a rush. Late-night drives, sneaking out to the lake—the way everything felt so intense and alive back then. Like we could take on the world, and nothing could ever touch us.

I stare at her. “What happened to us, Jenna?”

She looks up at me, her eyes shadowed with something I can’t quite place. Regret? Sadness? Guilt? Maybe all of it. “Life happened,” she says simply, her voice tinged with a kind of resignation that makes my chest tighten.

I reach out and brush a strand of hair away from her face. Her breath catches, and for a second, everything around us stand still.

“We were good together, weren’t we?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

She meets my gaze, her eyes locking with mine in a way that makes the room feel smaller and more intimate. “Yes,” she whispers back. “We were.”

Something shifts in the air between us. It’s subtle, but it’s enough to make my pulse quicken, enough to make me step closer. Her eyes flicker to my mouth, and I can see the same thought crossing her mind.

The pull between us is undeniable, magnetic—the kind that makes it impossible to think straight.

Without another word, I close the distance between us. My hand slides to the back of her neck, pulling her toward me, and then I’m kissing her. It’s not gentle or slow—it’s hungry, desperate like I can’t get close enough.

She kisses me back just as fiercely, her hands gripping my shirt, pulling me closer, her body pressing into mine. The heat between us is raw and electric, something that’s always been there. Something that never burned out, not even for a second.

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