I bend down slightly. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
He shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Can I kiss you?” I ask.
His eyes widen, and the cutest smile blooms on his face. He nods.
I smile back at him and leave an imprint of my red lips on his soft cheek.
“I hope you have a wonderful life,” I say softly before I turn, grabbing Milo’s outstretched hand, and we continue to run away from the wedding we crashed.
50
MILO
Sadie is radiant.Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright, her smile the kind that makes a grown man forget everything else—stripping the world down to what’s right in front of him.
And it’s always been her.
As we step outside, we’re met with rain. Sadie lets go of my hand, lifting her palms up toward the sky and then spinning around in it, letting it soak her as she laughs.
I watch her, grinning. Her black dress soon hugs against all her curves, and her mascara runs freely down her face.
Then she lets her arms drop and tilts her face up to the sky, letting the heavens cleanse her. I swear I see all her hesitation rolling down her skin as it puddles around her feet.
When she finally looks over at me, she says, “You didn’t kiss a stranger.”
I close the gap, everything wet and wild between us. “I don’t want to kiss a stranger,” I breathe.
Her eyes slowly drag up toward mine. “You don’t?”
“I’ve only ever wanted to kiss you, Sadie Summers.”
“Ever?” she teases with a tilt of her head.
“Ever.” I give her the truth.
I trace her jaw with my thumb, then tilt her mouth towardmine, lowering my lips slowly until I feel her softness melt into me, the cold rain steaming as she flings her arms around my neck, deepening the kiss.
When she pulls away, her mouth swollen and smeared with lipstick, she says, “I love you, Milo Carter.”
Her words release something in me I’ve been holding on to, and it’s hope.
Hope for us. Hope for our future. Hope that the love we had when we were young hadn’t disappeared—it had just been waiting for us to grow into it.
I rest my forehead against hers, rain tapping softly against my back, her breath warm against my lips. “I love you, Sadie Summers. I always have and always will,” I murmur.
She smiles, the kind that starts small and turns certain. “And because I love you, you have to take the job.”
My mind scrambles while my heart twists. The memory flashes behind my eyelids. A decade later, it’s the same conversation. Sadie telling me to go. Sadie telling me to choose football.
Her hands are soft on my face, forcing me to open my eyes to look into her beautiful brown ones. “I know you didn’t come back to Dusty Hollow to teach. I know you came back for me, and I—” She pauses, placing a quick kiss on my slack lips. “I don’t want my life there, and I can’t be the reason you don’t take this job. I need to figure some things out. On my own.”
“Sadie, I don’t want the job. I want you,” I say honestly, my voice trembling, beginning to break.
She smiles, tears pooling. “I know, but I have to figure out who I am first, without all I’ve been the last ten years. I’m not saying I don’t want you, Milo. I’m just not going to hold you back while I figure it out.”
“You aren’t holding me back,” I argue as the pain in my chest pulses, a stabbing sensation I could choke on. “You can’t tell me to go when I don’t want to.”
