Page 187 of Rewind It Back

“I thought it was another one of those unspoken things.” Reaching up, she wraps her arms around my neck. “But it shouldn’t be. It should be said as much as possible. Because I love you, Rio. I have loved you since we were children, and I will love you until we’re old and gray. But if you didn’t already know that, then I’ve been doing something wrong.”

My smile only expands. “I know you love me, baby, and you know I love you. I haven’tstoppedloving you.”

“Not once,” she agrees.

It’s the most peace I’ve ever felt, Hallie coming back into my life. To know that I’m loved, long before hearing the words again. To feel it in every fiber of my being. To see it in the way she looks at me. To hear it in the way she speaks to and about me.

We are rare. What we have is rare and I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting it.

“I love you, Hallie Hart. Spoken or unspoken, I’ve always loved you.”

Leaning down, I kiss her. Soft and slow, but for a long while. So long, I eventually have to pull back because I know it’s after midnight now. “Happy birthday.”

She smiles against my lips, pressing up to give me one more kiss before we take our seats on the roof.

With my legs spread wide, she sits between them, leaning back against my chest. I wrap the blanket around us, crossing my arms in front of her.

Hallie sighs this content sound, and I fully understand that calm, that peacefulness. It feels like we’ve come full circle, sitting in the same place on the same date where I once sat with the girl next door on her thirteenth birthday.

But there’s one thing that this birthday is missing.

Digging into my pocket, I pull out my wireless earbuds, handing her one and putting the other in my own ear.

“What’s this for?” she asks.

On my phone, I tap on the music app and scroll to the playlist I’ve been putting together since October.

“Every birthday, I used to love listening to you tell me about all your important moments from the year, so I was hoping on this birthday, I could tell you about mine.”

She turns back to look at me. “Really?”

With a nervous smile on my lips, I nod.

“Yes. Please. I’d love that, Rio.” She drops her head back to rest on my shoulder. “I’d really love that.”

“I couldn’t exactly make you a mixtape like you always did for me, so this modern version will have to do.”

I press play on the first song on the playlist.

As it starts filtering into the earbuds, she closes her eyes and listens. “What important thing happened with this song?” she asks.

I rest my head against hers. “This is the song I was listening to in the locker room right before I went out to play the game where I saw you for the first time again.”

She quickly turns, her eyes shooting to mine.

Without letting the whole thing play through, I skip to the next song because I’m not going to be able to wait the entirety of this playlist to tell her what I need to say.

She swallows hard. “And this one?”

“This is the song I played in my house that first day you came over for a design meeting. It was the first time you ever stepped foot inside that house, actually.”

Her brows crease as she begins to catch on to what’s happening.

I skip to the next. “This is the song you fell asleep to in my car the first night I drove you home from work.”

Her hazel eyes begin to gloss over, but then the next song plays, and she laughs, though it’s a bit watery. “Moana?”

“The night you came over to help me babysit,” I explain. “The first night it felt like maybe we could be us again.”

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