Page 8 of Teach Me to Fly

I stagger back, my breath catching in my throat as I instinctively swing my arms out to steady myself just as someone's hand shoots out, gripping my upper arm, every nerve ending exploding from the contact.

"Careful," a low voice murmurs, and goosebumps creep up my arms at the sound so achingly familiar.

I look up and freeze, my eyes landing on Lando's older brother, Reign. He towers over me, and it feels like the world stops for a second, like the champagne buzzing in my blood and the music thumping from the house have both been sucked into a vacuum. Gone. Replaced by the sound of my pulse, deafening in my ears.

He's a few inches taller than I remember, his frame lean and sculpted like the powerful dancer he is but also stronger and more dangerous now than it was when we were younger.

The moon carves his features in silver—sharp cheekbones, an angular jaw, and a mouth that looks like it rarely smiles. His hair is so pale it's almost white, tousled like he's been running his hands through it. And his eyes—God, hiseyes. Icy, electric blue, pin me in place, unreadable but intense enough to make the air around us shift.

The summer before my dad passed away, when I turned seventeen and Reign turned eighteen, we’d explored our unsaid feelings in secret. In front of Lando, he’d tug my ponytail or push me into their pool, just to make it seem like he didn’t like me. But in the afternoons, we’d sneak off into the gardens together and make out next to the peonies, his hands learning the curves of my body, our breaths mingling.

Now he's looking at me as if he doesn't remember who I am. But why would he? We never spoke again after I left.

"Are you lost?" he asks, before pointing over my head. “The party is back that way.”

His voice is deeper than I remember, rougher too. It wraps around me like velvet and smoke, and I jerk my arm out of his grasp without thinking. His touch had ignited something in me that I haven't felt since I left Marlow. A spark of heat tangled together in a single heartbeat with the fear and awareness I now hold.

What a paradox.

"Sorry," I manage, breathless. "I didn't see you there."

"You weren't looking." His tone is distant and cool as he watches me.

"You've changed," I blurt, then immediately curse myself for sounding like an idiot, feeling heat rise to my cheeks under his gaze.

Thank God it’s dark out, because if it wasn’t, this would be ten times more mortifying. Somehow, despite the years, the distance, and everything that’s happened in my life, some part of me still cares far too much about what Reign thinks of me.

His mouth lifts into the ghost of a smile. "So have you,Angel." His eyes burn a path down my body and back up, his electric blues finding my eyes once more.

So, he does remember me.

He’s never called me Angelique, always shortening my name down to Angel, like I’m some saint. We stand in the gardens, silence stretching between us, but the air feels charged. Being this close to Reign feels like standing too close to a fire, feeling the pull of the heat even when you know you might get burned.

“I didn't mean to bump into?—"

He shakes his head before I can finish. “It's fine.”

I take a moment to really look at him and realize he’s wearing standard rehearsal gear—black joggers, fitted shirt, and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder.

“Late-night rehearsal?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest and shifting on the balls of my feet. I feel awkward and stupidly exposed.

He nods but doesn’t elaborate.

Alrighty, time for an exit.

“Well… it was nice seeing you aga?—”

“Are you staying at the guesthouse?”

I pause, surprised. “Yeah,” I say. “Just for a bit.”

“And then back to New York?”

I guess Lando never filled him in on my arrival.

“No, actually,” I say slowly, carefully picking my words. “I’m back in Marlow. For good.”

His brows raise subtly. “Won’t your company need you?”

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