Page 63 of From Now On

“Yeah. Just my mom.”

Hart nods.

I catch the look he gives Aidan a few seconds later. I haven’t talked about my family very much. It’s always felt strange to exclude Sean and hard to include him. And neither Conor nor Aidan talked about theirs, so it felt less noticeable. But that’s shifted, a little, in the past few months.

After Harlow’s parents passed away, the close family friends she moved in with also happen to be Conor’s father, stepmother, and half brother. Harlow and Conor’s relationship seems to have been a tentative bridge to Conor communicating with family he was totally estranged from. His dad came to a few of our final games.

And Aidan’s relationship with Rylan seems to have allowed him to move past the fucked-up dynamic with his brother—who’s engaged to Aidan’s ex. His parents were there to watch us win the championship, which I know meant a lot to Phillips.

So I’m the only one still hiding skeletons.

“We good to go?” Conor asks, turning on the engine.

“One sec,” Rylan replies. “I can’t find my seat belt.”

“Pretty sure I’m sitting on it,” Aidan tells her.

Some muttered curses follow as they rearrange in the back.

I glance in the rearview mirror.

Eve’s on the far side, behind Conor. The yellow sketchpad she was drawing in on the drive here is clutched to her chest, a pencil poking through the spiral. Her hair is pulled back in two braids, which I find fucking adorable. And there’s more color in her face than there was at breakfast this morning.

Her gaze flickers from the back seat window to meet mine—like she can feel my eyes on her.

She smiles.

I smile back.

And when I glance out the windshield, it seems like the sunshine peeking through the clouds just got a little brighter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EVE

I’m snuggled into the couch cushions, listening to the logs in the fireplace crackle and sketching the beach we visited this morning, when I hear a low “Hey.”

Still not immune. The sound of Hunter’s deep voice has my steady heart rate immediately quickening.

I clear my throat before replying, “Hey.”

“Cool if I chill in here?” Hunter asks.

He’s standing at the opposite end of the couch, looming over me like the rocky cliffs I was admiring earlier. Beautiful and rugged and untouchable.

I fake a cough to…I don’t know why. Act casual, I guess? “Yeah, of course.”

Technically, I’m in his bedroom. I should be the one asking permission to enter.

Hunter nods once, then takes a seat a couple of feet away. Not as far away as hecouldsit, but not right next to me either. A polite distance, in a huge room, and it still feels like he’s stealing more than his fair share of oxygen. I’m breathing fast, yet I can’t seem to pull enough air in.

Air that smells like him. The same scent as his car, except a more concentrated form. My brain isn’t working fast enough to identify a single component, distracted by the giddiness that appears whenever we’re in close proximity.

Ben always used the same cologne—a vanilla-and-tobacco scent that I secretly hated. I bought him different brands as gifts, but he never strayed from his favorite. It became a joke, almost, the unopened bottles sitting unused on his dresser. The final bottle I gave Ben, I told him, “I thought this would look good with the rest of the set.”

Looking back, it’s not funny. It’s another example of a time I hid my true feelings, like with my dad last night. And a premonition of how my relationship with Ben would end. There were always limits to what we’d do for each other. He never changed his cologne. I feigned interest in the films he enjoyed. I don’t know if we ever compromised. If our interests overlapped, great. If they didn’t, we’d each do our own thing. And there’s a very thin line between healthy boundaries and creating distance.

I glance at Hunter’s profile. He’s interlocked his hands behind his head as he stares at the muted television. Hockey is on. I thought the game the guys were watching before dinner ended. But either it’s still going on or another team is playing now.

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