Page 18 of Rewind It Back

Everything clicks. The roommate. The designer. Hallie always wanted to be an interior designer. She was going to school for it the last time we saw one another.

“Are you the one who renovated Wren’s house?” I ask, accusatorily.

Her face balls in confusion and I watch as the realization dawns on her the same way it did me. Head falling back, exposing that pretty throat, she squeezes her eyes closed. “And you’re the neighbor.”

Fuck.

“Well, that’s not going to work,” she decides.

“Yeah. No shit, that’s not going to work.”

She jolts back slightly, as if my words hurt her. We were always careful with each other until we weren’t. Hallie is a soft soul with a tough shell, and that exterior seems harder than it used to be.

Regardless of our history, I never wanted to see her hurting.

She hurt you.

“You know that wouldn’t work, Hal.”

“Don’t call me that.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “Hallie. We both know it wouldn’t work for you to be at my house every day. I cannot hire you.”

A beat passes between us.

“I know.” Her tone is defeated.

The silence is thick again, every part of this interaction feeling fucking surreal. I never thought I’d be standing in front of her again.

She’s so goddamn beautiful. So hardheaded still. For a moment, I let myself remember how overwhelming it felt to be near her. She used to steal all my thoughts. She used to occupy my entire existence.

I almost forgot what that felt like.

I’ve spent six years subconsciously comparing every date to her. Comparing their laugh to hers. Their kindness to hers. Their confidence to hers. Their taste in music to hers.

I haven’t spoken Hallie’s name in six years, but she has been living rent free in my mind while I try to replicate what we had before everything went to shit.

I need to walk away. Go pack a bag and move in with Ryan and Indy until May.

“Let’s just stay out of each other’s way,” she says, breaking the silence. “You’ll hardly even know I’m here.”

“No chance of that happening,” I mutter under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

My eyes find hers, unspoken words passing between us. There’s too much history between me and the girl next door, and there’s something else that my friends don’t know.

That thing I’ve been looking for since I moved to Chicago? That connection? That one person some search their entire lives to find? I had already found her when I was twelve years old.

At least, I thought I had.

I know what I’m looking for because I had it once, and now the only girl I’ve ever loved is moving into the house next to mine.

Again.

I turn back, headed straight for my place, needing to put a fucking door, wall,anythingbetween us. I’m halfway across my lawn when a visual of her at my game tonight pops into my mind. I didn’t miss that she was there with someone.

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