Page 31 of Hometown Touchdown
Outside, the cold bites, sharp and clear. We slide into the back of the car, our legs brushing again. Neither of us moves away.
The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable. Justfull. Like we’re both trying not to remember how well we used to fit. How easy it would be to lean in. To let it happen.
She keeps sneaking glances. I can feel them—like heat on my jaw, on my lips. And I know if I look at her, I’ll kiss her. And if I kiss her, I won’t want to stop.
We pull into the driveway. The garage light flicks on, revealing too much in its clean white glow. We step out slowly, neither in a hurry to break the moment.
She turns to me, her breath visible in the air between us. “Thanks,” she says softly. “For tonight.”
I nod. “Thanks for not bailing when you saw me.”
Her lips tilt up. Not quite a smile. But not a rejection either.
We stand there, both holding keys, both frozen in the space between memory and hesitation. One step closer, and I could kiss her right here. Like we’re nineteen again. Like nothing ever broke between us.
But we’re not nineteen anymore. And I know exactly how this story ends.
“Goodnight, Knox.”
“Night, Bunny.”
She turns and walks to her door, hips swaying with the kind of quiet confidence that guarantees I won’t sleep tonight. The lock clicks shut behind her, and I’m left standing in the cold, wrapped in the kind of silence that settles deep. One set up, one lingering glance, and suddenly I’m right back where I swore I wouldn’t be. Remembering exactly how much I wanted her, and realizingI never really stopped. And the worst part is, I don’t think I remember how to stay away.
Chapter fifteen
Brynn
BythetimeIcrawled into bed, I was shivering from more than just the crisp fall air outside. The chill that had settled in me wasn’t something a space heater could fix. It was deeper—rooted under my skin, coiled around the confusion I’d been pretending not to feel. I don’t know what we’re doing—me and Knox. I don’t know what our evening meant, or if it had meant anything at all to him. But I knew what itfeltlike. That look in his eyes when our hands brushed. The breathless, aching pause before we both stepped back, like one more second might’ve set the whole bar on fire.
There was a tug inside me, subtle and sharp, like a thread pulled too tight. Hope. Uninvited and terrifying. The kind of hope that makes you believe in second chances, even after you’ve convinced yourself you’re done believing in anything at all.
I fell asleep chasing logic and woke up with my heart pounding like I was seventeen again—like I’d never left this town or him behind. My skin was warm where I dreamed his hand had slid across my back, steady and sure. In that dream, I let him in. There was no past between us, no unfinished conversations, no scar tissue. Just the unmistakable feeling of coming home to something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing.
Now, in the quiet morning light, I don’t know what scares me more—that I still want him…or that there’s a part of me that never really stopped. And what kind of woman does that make me? Feeling this way when I was about to walk down the aisle to another man only a few weeks ago.
If this world was fair, there would be a support group for people who almost-kissed their ex while standing in their shared driveway after being stood up by fictional dates orchestrated by scheming mothers.
Hi, I’m Brynn. It’s been zero hours since my last Knox Dalton-induced emotional spiral.
I stare at my coffee mug like it personally betrayed me. Which, honestly, it might have. It’s got “Good Vibes Only” printed in pink cursive, which feels a little too smug for a morning like this.
Last night was supposed to be harmless. One drink. Meet a cat dad. Be polite. Fake a work emergency and go home to watch old rom-coms in pajamas. That was theplan.
Knox Dalton wrecked that plan.
The boy I loved. The man I left. The one whose smile still ruins me and who—if that garage light hadn’t turned on—might’ve made me forget every reason we ever ended.
I take a scalding sip and pace the living room, one socked foot dragging slightly on the hardwood where the floorboards dip. I’m jittery and annoyed and, worst of all,giddy.
That’s the worst part. Not the awkwardness or the unresolved tension or even the way my whole body leaned toward him in that car like it remembered every single inch of him.
No. It’s the stupid fluttery, high school-girl giddiness I felt walking up those steps to my door like we weren’t exes with six years of silence and heartbreak between us.
I groan and flop onto the couch.
My phone rings. I sit up when I see the name: Mom.
Oh, we’re doing this.
