I roll my eyes.Same old Tessa. “How have you still not figured out Chicago distances?”
She peeks around the doorframe and sticks her tongue out at me.
I shake my head, grabbing my keys from the table. For all her bravado, she’s always been a little helpless with practical stuff. That hasn’t changed.
“Come on, finish getting ready. I’ll give you a ride there and back.”
Her face brightens immediately.
She flutters her eyelashes at me, and I laugh. “What would I do without you, Nate?”
I shake my head, fishing my phone out of my pocket to check the time as I head for the door.
Robyn:I’m starting my shift. Love you!
I miss you.But I only type “love you too!”
The night pulsateswith that particular buzz that only happens when you’re around people who know you completely. My friends from undergrad and I have been sneaking into this bar since we were nineteen. The jokes have changed as much as the playlists, some new additions here and there, but the greatest hits still play on repeat.
For a few hours, we travel back in time to being college kids trying to find our footing, our people, our rhythm. Maybe it’s because we haven’t all been together in years—some moved back home after college, some got swept into even bigger cities—but tonight, time stretches out in front of us again instead of pressing down, giving us the sense that there’s enough of it.
I pull over by Tessa’s apartment complex and turn to lookat my best friend. She sits in the passenger seat, feet tucked up the way she used to do in my mom’s car. Her straight, champagne hair falls over her shoulders, catching bits of streetlight. Those green eyes are bright and wide, streaks of gray and green, almost alternating.
She’s laughing about how she still can’t believe I’ve “gone respectable.” Big-time architect at a big-name firm in the city of daring architecture. There’s nothing self-conscious about the way she chuckles.
I lean against the driver’s door to observe her unguarded expression. “Everyone in our group keeps leaving, I can’t believe you moved back.”
She leans her head against the window, watching the empty street. “Yeah. Guess I missed the city. Missed everyone.” Her gaze lands on me. “Missed you.”
There’s a beat of quiet. A slow, familiar smile—maybe too tender at the corner.
“Don’t get sentimental on me now,” I joke, fidgeting with the buttons on the dashboard.
Her grin deepens. “You always were terrible at reading the room.”
Before I can ask what she means, she leans across the console, wraps her hand around my neck, and pulls me toward her. Our noses brush, breath mingling, goosebumps racing up my spine. Her hair brushes my cheek, and we look at each other for a heartbeat. The green overpowers all other color in her eyes, and they’re darker than I’ve ever seen them.
Then her lips find mine.
It isn’t quick or friendly. There’s a deliberate slowness in the way her mouth moves, the faint press of her tongue against my bottom lip before she slips it in, tasting, teasing, sure of herself. My body reacts before my brain does, and my hand goes around her waist—misguided instinct. She tightens hergrip in my hair, and we’re both in it, mouths moving, tongues clashing.
The wrongness hits then. The pressure of her tongue—too insistent.
The shape of her lips—full but not full enough.
The taste—cherries and beer.
Not Robyn’s coconut lip balm or the dry tang of her favorite white wine.
I jerk back, breath sharp, pulse thudding in my ears. Our foreheads bump, her breath still ghosting my mouth. She giggles, a small, satisfied sound that makes my stomach turn.
“What the hell, Tess?”
She’s smiling, eyes glinting under the dashboard light. Then I notice her phone wedged between us.
“What—Wait, are you recording?”
She blinks, then throws her hands up like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Surprise!” She wiggles, jazz hands flaring, still halfway across the console, thigh pressed against mine. When did she even getthere?
