Page 2 of Kellan & Emmett
I’d lost the right to call him that twenty years ago. I’d been the only one he let use the name.
As fate would have it, the exact second my eyes found him, he froze too. Glass halted halfway to his mouth, his gaze locking on mine like the rest of the room had vanished.
Daily To-Do
Patch the screen door on the porch
Check the plumbing in Room Three
Pick up peaches from Granny Mae’s Peach Farm
Don’t go to the reunionGo to the reunion
AvoidKellyKellan
Chapter 2
Emmett
Glass halfway to my mouth, I froze.
Across the room, Kellan Miller stood with a fork in hand, cheesecake halfway gone, eyes locked on mine like the last twenty years hadn’t happened.
My chest pulled tight. One second, I was surrounded by chatter and clinking glasses. The next, the noise fell away. All I saw was him. Taller than memory. Broader. His hair a little shorter, his jaw sharper, but the same mouth I’d once known better than I should’ve. My stomach twisted.
Don’t look. Don’t you dare look.
I looked anyway.
Someone bumped into me and wine sloshed over the rim of my glass.
“Emmett James!” Brittany “Britt” St. Clair’s voice snapped me back, warm and bright as she slipped an arm through mine. Cheerleader. Same big laugh she’d had since sophomore year, same star-shaped earrings she’d worn to half the dances. “You made it! I was beginning to think you were ghosting the whole thing.”
Her smile tugged me toward the present, but Kellan was still in my line of sight. Still watching.
“Had some guests to settle in,” I said, shifting the glass before it spilled again. My voice sounded normal. Too normal. “Didn’t want to leave them hanging.”
“Always the responsible one.” Britt shook her head like it was both admirable and boring. She leaned in, lowering her voice. “You see who’s here?”
I knew who she meant before she tilted her chin toward him.
“Yeah,” I muttered. The word tasted bitter.
Britt grinned. “Wild, right? Feels like no time’s passed at all.”
For her maybe. For me, twenty years stretched like a canyon I couldn’t cross.
Britt squeezed my arm, dragging me closer to the dessert table. “Come on, you’ve got to say hi. Half these folks only roll back into town for reunions.”
The words barely landed. My gaze snagged on Kellan again. He hadn’t moved. Fork still resting in his hand, eyes still locked on me like he wasn’t sure I was real.
Heat climbed the back of my neck. Don’t react. Don’t give him that.
