Page 173 of Seven Lost Summers
I hate that they are seeing this. The parts of them I kept.
I clear my throat, grateful for the excuse to move.
“Water? Tea? Coffee? The kind of wine that could strip the paint off the walls?”
“Water,” Nate says.
Theo tilts his head.
“Water,” he repeats, then lets a slow smirk creep in. “If I drink paint-stripper, I’ll end up challenging the fan to a fight. And we both know the fan’s undefeated.”
I bite back a laugh, because that’s Theo, throwing out something ridiculous to cover whatever the hell’s running through his head. But it’s there, in the way his eyes don’t stay on me for long. He’s hiding something under the joke.
I make my way to the fridge, grateful I filled the water shelf yesterday. The cold seeps through the plastic as I grab two bottles. When I turn back, I freeze. Nate is at the table, leaning over my prints. His hands move, lifting one photograph, studying it for longer than I can stand, then setting it aside for the next.
I pass Theo his water on the way by, catching the glint of his rings in the light as he takes it.
My focus drifts back to Nate. He lifts another print, his brow drawn, the edge of his mouth unreadable. I wish for one fleeting second that the stacks scattered across the table were filled with shots of the band. Something I could point to and shrug off as work.
Instead, it is of them.
Theo in profile, his jaw caught in a shaft of light. Nate laughing at something I said off-camera. The three of us in frames I set on timers, moments where they didn’t realize they were mine to keep.
I had printed too many. I was aware of that. But missing them had sunk into my bones, and I needed them in my orbit again. This was the only way I could trap us in these small, frozen seconds and keep them where I could reach them.
I drift towards Nate as he studies another photograph. The fridge hum falls away. The whole room narrows to the table, the prints, his hands. To his fingertips skimming the border, almost reverent. A breath slides out of him. The vein at his temple ticks.
“Those are from the last day,” I say, not sure why but feel the need to say it even though I am sure he already knows.
He sets that print down and reaches for another. This one is of the three of us, timer-shot, my mouth open mid-laugh, Nate’s head tipped, Theo’s eyes on me instead of the lens. Heat crawls up my throat. I should have hidden these. I should have pretended I am less obvious than I am.
He places the print back on the table and straightens.
His gaze shifts to Theo. My eyes follow for a moment, catching the smallest movement of Theo giving him a nod. Subtle, but enough to send something skittering in my chest. The exchange carries a weight I haven’t been invited into, as though some conversation I’m not privy too.
What the fuck is going on?
I turn my head back, tilting my chin up until my eyes meet Nate’s.
Nothing about his look is casual now. The stare pins me in place, a warning that something is about to shift and can’t be undone.
He steps in, close enough that the heat rolling off him grazes my skin. His fingers brush mine as he takes the water bottle, eyes briefly scanning the cluttered table beside him. Not a scrap of bare wood from the weathered table shows beneath the scattered mess of prints. With nowhere to set it down, he turns, tossing the bottle onto the couch. It lands with a dull thud, forgotten.
I flick a nervous glance toward Theo.
He hasn’t moved from his place against the wall, but his eyes are locked on us with the kind of focus that makes the air press heavier. The way he’s watching, it’s almost as if I’ve been pulled into the middle of a moment they started without me.
When Nate faces me again, his focus pins me in place. The noise from the street fades, the air pulls tight until it feels too small to hold the both of us.
Nate’s voice is quiet when he speaks, but an edge cuts through—one I’ve only ever heard when he’s close to breaking.
“I never got a chance to say this before… when I had to. I should have said it before you left, but I was a coward.”
The words hang in the air, heavy, like they’re afraid to move too fast. Then he closes the last of the distance between us. His hand comes up, cupping my jaw. His thumb rests under my cheekbone, holding me as if he’s terrified I’ll disappear if he lets go. His gaze doesn’t waver.
“I love you,” he says. The words aren’t rushed, not thrown out to fill the silence. Every syllable sounds carved from something deep, years in the making. “I love you in a way I never believed I could again. I wake up wanting you. I fall asleep thinking about you. Every fucking day you’re not near me leaves me hollow, like I’m missing my own heart. And that scares the fucking shit out of me, Q. I thought I understood what you meant to me before, but these last two weeks have changed everything. You’ve always been a part of me, but now you’re the one part I can’t live without.”
My pulse is pure chaos. My chest feels too tight to hold everything that’s trying to get out.
