“Noteveryevent is about you, Sullivan,” she said, but the words didn’t matter.
My heart skittered in a way that couldn’t be healthy, and I jerked my head toward the sound of her voice, like she still had complete and utter control over my body, like my synapses didn’t understand that we weren’tthatanymore.
And then we were face-to-face, and I couldn’t breathe.
I registered Natalie out of the corner of my eye. Which made sense, otherwise I would have slightly suspected I was seeing things. Seeing ghosts.
Well, just one—a beautiful, maddeningly perfect little ghost.
If my sister weren’t here, I’d assume her best friend was a figment of my imagination because Lord knows I’d imagined her for years on end.
I imagined her voice, quipping back at something I’d said. My skin constantly tickled, as though I could still feel her soft black hair threaded through my fingers. The image of her pale skin contrasting with the red of my bedsheets and the stain of her blush remained unmoving in a corner of my mind. Her smile haunted me, the way it quirked to one side, like we were sharing an inside joke.
Because we were—we always were, ever since we were kids who didn’t know how monumental it was to be able to read another person’s mind, who didn’t realize connections like ours didn’t justhappen.
But we did.
We happened.
And then we pretended that we didn’t.
She breezed past me without a second glance, a wave of her cherry blossom perfume hitting me square in the chest, so strong and familiar and unchanged it might be lethal.
I’d officially been gutted and left for dead.
I stared at her retreating form, her slight figure, her familiar gait. I watched her walk away, wearing a dress that I’d taken off her before. It was a deep red color that matched the blush on her cheeks, with little straps that, once upon a time, I’d pulled down over her shoulders. One and then the other, until it pooled at her feet. And then she’d stared up at me with those soulful brown eyes, naked and trembling with want.
That was how I felt.
Stripped naked.
Trembling with want for something I couldn’t have while standing in my brother’s backyard, surrounded by it.
I hated every second that passed.
How was it possible? That she could wear the same dresses and blush the same way and smell intoxicatingly the same, and yet be someone I almost didn’t recognize?
And more importantly, how the hell was I supposed to celebrate my brother’s engagement while reeling from the appearance of the one and only woman I’d ever thought I’d marry?
I hadn’t known she was going to be here, not consciously. But now I was wondering if maybe my body had, deep in its fibers. That was where Ellie existed, anyway—somewhere deep inside me. And I was starting to suspect that the anxiety of hurtling across the sky in a metal tube had likely just been a cover-up for the real cause of the deep-seated disquiet.
Theo was worried he couldn’t even mention Ellie Summers’ name without mortally wounding me, but tonight, I had to survive hours of breathing the same air as her, pretending it wasn’t poisoning all the progress I’d made since she left me.
It had been five years—five years of trying to get over her.
And a single glimpse of Eleanor Summers had me falling back to square one.
CHAPTER TWO
ellie
MY HEART HADN’T STOPPED racing since I’d walked into Noah London’s backyard.
I’d known this was a bad idea, but for some reason, I came anyway.
And now he was all around me again, sending my circulatory system into overdrive. I tried not to look at him for too long, but all it took was a glance, and I had a fresh picture in my brain—of the crinkle in the corner of his eyes, the deep cerulean of his gaze, the sandy blond of his hair, which was longer than I was used to.
I could hear his hollow laughter as I walked around and pretended I wasn’t affected by the sound, so familiar and yet so foreign.
