Page 3 of Kellan & Emmett
I pasted on a smile for one of our classmates as she chattered about her twins, her husband’s landscaping business, the fact she’d never left Gomillion. The words flowed around me while I nodded, threw in the occasional “that’s great,” and tried to keep my pulse from hammering out of my chest.
Other classmates joined in—names I remembered, others I didn’t. Jeff Duncan, still with that booming laugh. Clarissa, who apparently moved to Texas with her husband who plays for the Dallas Stars. They asked questions about the inn, about whether I’d ever thought of expanding. I answered, automatic. The truth was, I could barely hear them.
Every time I looked up, Kellan was still there.
Smile polite. Eyes too damn intent.
My chest tightened again, sharp and unwelcome. Twenty years hadn’t dulled the pain. Twenty years, and one look from him still knocked the ground out from under me.
“Emmett, you doing the Find Your Match game?” Jeff asked, shaking a card in front of my face.
“What?”
“Cards,” he said. “They hand you one when you come in. Famous duos. You gotta find your match before the music stops. Winner gets a gift card to The Roll.”
I glanced down. A card had been shoved into my hand when I signed in, but I hadn’t even looked at it. Lock.
“I’ll sit this one out,” I said, sliding it into my pocket.
“Suit yourself.” Jeff grinned and wandered off.
The gym buzzed louder as people milled around, cards raised, voices carrying as they searched for their pairings. Britt drifted off too, caught in the swell of chatter, leaving me a moment to breathe.
I pulled the card back out, thumb tracing the black letters. Lock. Childish game. But if I stood here while everyone else played, I’d just look like the killjoy I apparently was. And if there was one thing I’d learned running an inn, it was that you never wanted to be the killjoy in a room full of people having fun.
So I held it up. Circulated. People came by—smiling, comparing cards, shaking their heads when they didn’t match. I did the same, all surface, no spark.
All the while, I knew exactly where he was.
Across the room, he did the same slow loop. Every time I glanced up, his card stayed down by his side. Like he wasn’t even trying. Like he already knew where he’d end up.
My throat went dry when he finally cut across the crowd.
“Key,” his card read, bold and simple.
Of course.
He stopped just a foot away, expression somewhere between a smirk and something I couldn’t name. His voice came low, aimed only for me. “Looks like it’s still us.”
The sound of it hit harder than it should’ve. Same cadence. Same warmth underneath, though I told myself I imagined it. My grip tightened around my glass.
“Don’t read into it.” My tone came out clipped, colder than I meant, but maybe that was good. Better cold than the truth—that my heart was slamming like I’d just sprinted drills.
He tilted his head, studying me. Up close, the changes were sharper—broader shoulders filling out his button-down, lines bracketing his mouth, earned from years I hadn’t been there to see. But the eyes—God, those hazel eyes. Same as always.
“I’m not reading,” he said, slipping the card between his fingers like it was nothing. “Just stating facts. Lock. Key.”
The words pulled at something deep, some muscle memory of long afternoons when everything had been that simple—him and me, always paired off, always a set.
I forced a laugh, humorless. “Yeah, well, some locks shouldn’t be opened.”
His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a frown. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but the announcer’scheer went up across the mic. “Have we got our first five pairs? Gift cards up here, folks. Don’t be shy.”
People clapped, whooped. The noise swallowed us, but the air between me and Kellan stayed taut.
“You should go claim your prize,” I said, nodding at the table, using motion as a shield.
“I’m good.” His voice brushed low, too calm.
