Page 168 of Seven Lost Summers
“Quinn changed everything for both of us.”
The words land hard, a clean shot to the ribs that knocks the breath out of me. My lungs seize, desperate for air that refuses to come. I hold his stare.
“But not everything was because of her.”
That one cuts deeper, tearing through something I have been holding together for too long.
My jaw twitches.
My chest locks so tight it’s as if I am holding back a scream that would strip my throat raw. I do not blink.
I do not breathe.
He keeps going.
“I haven’t said this before, Theo, but I think you see it. You fucking feel the same way I do. Quinn’s the one I want. I didn’t know how to say it without tearing everything apart. I haven’t been the same since she left, and she might be the one I see a future with…”
He stops.
The pause stretches, until his next words hit like a wrecking ball.
“But you…” His voice splinters. “You’ve always been mine. Even before I knew what that fucking meant and I didn’t have the guts to admit it.”
I exhale hard, as if he has torn open something I have been holding together with duct tape and silence for years. The kind of break that lets the cold rush in.
“I didn’t plan this,” he says, his voice steady. “But the second I kissed you, everything shifted. And fuck, I felt it. That thing I have been burying so deep I thought it would rot before I ever touched it. I was scared, Theo. I thought if I said anything, if I let myself go there with you, I’d destroy what we had. So I stayed silent. But that kiss… it ripped the fucking silence to pieces.”
My eyes close for a heartbeat. He is not wrong. That same fear has been living in me, coiled, waiting for the moment it could break us.
“This is new ground,” he continues, his voice softer now. “It’s not about the band anymore. It’s us. You and me. We’ve been moving around this for so fucking long without naming it.”
The words I want to say reach my throat but die there.
He steps in, his palm pressing flat to my chest, heat searing through the fabric of my shirt. My heart pounds hard against his hand.
“I want whatever the fuck this is,” he says. “I want you. But I also need the softness of a woman between us. I need Quinn too. I’m done standing on the sidelines while life belongs to everyone else. Xander and Poppy have something real. Ace and Scarlet are heading toward it too. I fucking want that. I want what they have. And I’m done pretending my life is enough when it isn’t. You have been the one constant in my fucked-up world.”
I swallow hard. The burn catches in my throat, refusing to let go.
“I’m not doing this halfway anymore, Theo.” His voice drops. “No more hiding. I want you. I fucking love you. And I love Quinn too.”
My vision stings, my eyes turning glassy with something I have no chance of hiding.
“I’m scared, Nate,” I admit, my voice breaking low. “What if I break what we have?”
“You won’t.”
“What if I can’t be what you need?”
“You already fucking are.”
My mouth trembles.
His forehead comes to rest against mine, anchoring me to something solid when the ground beneath me threatens to give way. He has always done this. Always known when the tide in my chest is about to pull me under.
“I think I have always loved you, Theo.” His voice carries no hesitation, only truth. “You are carved into my world. You will never lose me. Because I would not fucking survive if I had to breathe in a world without you in it. You think you need me, but I fucking need you too.”
The words land heavy, filling every hollow place I have kept hidden. His breath brushes my lips, and the space between us hums with something dangerous and alive. My hand curls into his shirt, not to pull him closer, but because I am afraid of what will happen if I let go.
