My heart hammers against my ribs hard enough that I can feel it in my throat. I knock once—more out of habit than actual courtesy—then push through the door.
Julian's at the mixing board with a coffee in hand, looking exactly like someone who's been here since before the sun came up. When he sees me, his entire face lights up in that way that makes him look about fifteen instead of twenty-one.
"Well, well, well," he says, grinning wide enough that I can see he's genuinely happy to see me. "Look who decided to come back."
"Is he here?"
The words come out more desperate than I intend, but I'm past the point of trying to play it cool.
"Nate?" Julian shakes his head, and my stomach drops before he continues. "He's at Westbrook Lane. Working on the house."
I stare at him, trying to make sense of the words.
"What house?"
Julian's grin widens in a way that tells me he knows something I don't, and he's enjoying the fact that he gets to be the one to tell me.
"You don't know?"
"Know what?"
He sets down his coffee carefully, like he's buying himself a moment to decide whether this is his story to tell. Then he looks at me with something that might be pity or might just be understanding, and says, "Jesus, he really hasn't told you."
The words don't compute at first. They just sit there between us while my brain tries to catch up with what he's implying.
"Told me what, Julian?"
"For three years now—maybe longer—every spare second he has, he's been working on this house. It's on Westbrook Lane, down past South Eden where the old tobacco fields used to be. He's been building it himself. Well, mostly himself. Nick helps sometimes, and Dom's been around lately, but it's Nate's project."
Julian stands up, grabs his keys from the console, and looks at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"Come on. I'll drive you."
The drive feelsendless and far too short all at once, like time has stopped making sense.
Julian fills the silence with easy chatter about the band, about how Tommy's doing in his recovery program and actually showing up to rehearsals now. He talks about the album they just finished—twelve tracks that he thinks might actually change their lives, that Nate produced in between everything else he's been juggling.
But I barely hear him.
"He loves you, you know," Julian says quietly as we turn onto astreet I don't recognize, lined with old oak trees that create a canopy overhead. "Like, really loves you."
"I know," I whisper, because I do know. I've always known, even when I was pretending I didn't.
"Do you?" He glances at me, and there's something protective in his expression that reminds me he's Nate's family now too. "Because that guy has spent years getting sober, building a business from nothing, helping people who remind him of who he used to be—all while waiting for you to come back."
My throat tightens. My eyes burn with tears I refuse to let fall yet.
"I know," I say again, and this time my voice breaks on the words.
"Good." Julian pulls up in front of a house that makes my breath catch in my chest, and he puts the car in park but doesn't turn off the engine. "Because he deserves to be loved back just as hard. And if you're not here to do that, if you're just here to break his heart again because you're scared or confused or whatever?—"
"I'm here to stay," I interrupt, and saying it out loud makes it real in a way it hasn't been before. "I'm here for him. For us. For however long he'll have me."
Julian's expression softens. He nods once, satisfied with whatever he saw in my face.
"Then go get him."
I look at the house through the windshield, and something in my chest cracks open.
