Page 18 of Kellan & Emmett
But the throb didn’t quit. A dull ache crept upward, the kind of reminder that saidenough. My chest rose on a sharp breath as I clapped along, easing myself out of the line before anyone noticed.
That’s when my eyes landed on Emmett.
He’d drifted to the sidelines, drink in hand. And right there beside him—Leif Lawson. They stood close, heads bent together to trade words I couldn’t hear over the music. Comfortable. Familiar. Like they belonged in each other’s orbit.
Heat pricked behind my ribs. I told myself it was just the knee, the sweat, the noise, but the lie tasted bitter.
“Gonna sit one out,” I muttered, though nobody heard me over the thump of the bass. They were too busy howling, spinning, clinking glasses.
I slipped free at the edge of the crowd, careful not to let my gaze snag on the far wall where I knew Emmett stood, shoulder to shoulder with Leif. Didn’t need that image burned deeper.
The doors swung shut behind me, and night air wrapped around me, warm and heavy, touched with the sweetness of honeysuckle and the faint tang of cut grass. I drew in a breath that reached all the way down, sharp and clean compared to the sweat and neon I’d left inside.
The music still chased me, muffled now, bass pulsing through brick like a distant heartbeat. Each step across the lot sent a reminder sparking in my knee—not enough to stop me, but enough to whisperdon’t forget.
The parking lot stretched out, cars lined in neat rows glinting under the security lights. My shoes scuffed gravel as I cut across, past the chain-link fence that always rattled in the wind, toward the field.
Floodlights loomed tall but dark, casting the bleachers in silver shadow under the moon. I slowed without meaning to. For years, this had been my stage—the roar of a crowd, the smell of turf, the crash of helmets. And above it all, always, Emmett. In the stands, hollering my name like I was unstoppable.
The ache in my chest beat harder than the one in my knee.
I climbed the first few steps and sat, elbows braced on my thighs, shoulders caving forward. Not a collapse, not quite—but anyone looking would’ve seen it. The kind of posture that said the weight wasn’t just in the body, but in whatever memory had followed it out here.
Once, these bleachers had held my biggest dreams. Tonight, they just held me.
Chapter 10
Emmett
Laughter rippled through the gym, the kind that came loose after enough drinks and too many years pretending we were still young. Neon strobes pulsed across the floor, catching sequins, sweat, the blur of bodies moving like it was 1989 all over again.
Dancing had never been my thing. I gave it a song or two at the start, enough to satisfy a handful of our classmates, then found my usual refuge: the wall. Safer there, cup in hand, letting the music shake the room while I stayed still.
Didn’t mean my eyes stayed still. Every time the crowd shifted, they found Kellan. First laughing through the Electric Slide, then getting dragged into some freestyle mess with Jamal and Derek. He looked younger, happier.
“You’ll dehydrate if you just watch,” Leif said, his grin easy.
A drink pressed into my hand. I didn’t need to look up to know the voice. Leif Lawson.
“Appreciate it,” I said, taking a sip. The drink was sugary, spiked. “What is this?”
“House specialty,” he said. “Blue Lagoon. They’re pushing it hard tonight.”
“You running deliveries now?”
“Hardly..” His grin was easy as always. “Besides, someone’s got to make sure Gomillion’s only bookstore doesn’t lose its most reliable customer.”
I snorted. “What, all those paperbacks donated to the schools keeping you afloat?”
He shrugged, unbothered. “Somebody has to keep the lights on atBetween the Leifs Bookshop.”
We talked a while—town gossip, books, the impossible task of keeping a small business afloat. About his store, about who’d moved away, about how strange it felt to see so many old faces in one room. Easy talk. Familiar.
When our conversation thinned, I let my gaze drift back to the dance floor.
The crowd surged one way, then another. Sequins, neon, laughter spilling in waves. But—
Where was Kellan?
