"Frank is always around; we gotta find him, baby."
She's quiet for a moment. "I miss your dad."
"Yeah." I swallow. "Me too."
"He was so good to me, Ace. Always. Even after I left, he still sent me a card on my birthday to my parents' house. Every year. Before that, your mom did."
My chest aches. "That's Mom. She never stopped hoping you'd come back."
That’s all my life has been. Everyone I love leaving. My parents, I can never get back. But Harper? I have a real shot here.
"She's not the only one."
I look down at her. She looks up at me. And for a second, the stars aren't the brightest thing in my world.
"Remember the first time we came up here?" she asks.
"You were sixteen. I was seventeen. And you were wearing that yellow sundress that made me forget how to talk."
She laughs. "You couldn't stop staring at my legs."
"I was seventeen, and you had legs. What did you expect?"
"Some gentlemanly restraint?"
"From a Sterling? You knew what you were getting into. You liked me because I was bad, Harper Jones."
She shifts closer. "You told me you were going to be a world champion bull rider. I remember lying right here thinking,this boy is insane. Hot though. Insane nonetheless."
"And now?"
"Now I still think, this man is insane. But he was right. And somehow, he got even hotter."
I grin. "Damn straight I was right. I was first in the world, baby. For a little while anyway."
Before my dad died. I lost it after that.
"Almost first again, though," I say with a grin.
“I know. I keep tabs, Acey,” she whispers.
And my heart hammers. Because it just shows to me she never forgot.
"I'll get there. Just got one asshole to beat. And I will. My good luck charm is back."
She laughs. "You've been saying that since you were nineteen."
She traces circles on my chest with her fingertip. "Remember when you fell off that bull and broke your collarbone and refused to go to the hospital because you wanted to take me to homecoming?"
"I didn't fall. I was dismounted aggressively."
"You fell, Ace. Face-first. In front of three hundred people."
"I got back up."
"You drove to my house with your arm in a sling and a corsage in your teeth."
I chuckle. "And you cried."
