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Trent slaps me on my back. “Now I get it. Why you’ve always had a smile on your face, no matter what the world threw at us. Your parents are remarkable, and you have a best friend thirty yards away. You are one lucky man.”
My scoff hides my truth. What I’m feeling deep in my chest is much more than a friendship. I’ve spent five years searching for something that has always lived next door.
It’s time I told her.
3
A foreign rhythm runs through my veins, a mix of excitement, concern, anticipation, and disaster. I reread the text from Lucas sent ten minutes ago.
BND (boy next door): Just pulled up in the parking lot next to your bug. I can’t believe how great it is to see it again. I may have given it an enormous hug. Can’t wait to do the same to its owner.
Lucas knows how much I love my car, a customized orange Volkswagen bug I’ve named Buttercup. The fact that he loves it too has always warmed my heart, but today his words hit me differently.
I’m sitting on a set of blankets in the middle of the large Costco tent we picked out together back when we were barely teens and told each other we’d always have a place of our own to share. I had hoped Lucas would arrive in time to catch the sunset, the two of us sitting on our favorite boulder, spitting sunflower seeds at the dry earth, telling inappropriate jokes we don’t share with anyone else.
I must remind myself that I don’t need to compress five years of missed opportunities into one night. Lucas is home. To stay. Finally.
I twist the adjustable battery-powered lantern, illuminating the interior of a tent we once thought was big enough to fit our entire middle school class and now realize it’s more a fit for a family of two.
Just Two.
I push away the frightful thought and change the setting of the lantern from intimate to corporate fluorescent—harsh—that’s more like it. In two minutes, Lucas is going to rip back the flap of the tent and stand there for three heartbeats, his gorgeous eyes raking over me, scanning for any changes from our last reunion. He’ll then make a smart remark, which I will cut off by leaping into his arms.
It’s our bit, just one of a million we share, each of them special, each of them us.
As much as my thoughts continue to swirl, I can’t wait. I move to sit on the top of the blue-and-white cooler stuffed with our favorite snacks. Another reunion tradition.
I take a deep inhale as my skin pebbles in anticipation. No man on this planet causes this reaction in me. For years, I thought it was because we were besties. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown to recognize it for what it is. But I can’t act on it. I won’t jeopardize all that we have. Lucas is everything to me.
Just breathe, I remind myself.
My sister, Catherine, and everyone I know tell me often how much they admire my independence; my I won’t fail approach to life. What they don’t know is I can live life this way because I have Lucas. He’ll always be there for me. I can tell him anything—well, almost anything. He’s my warm shower after a rainstorm, my soft pillow after a long day, the sniper in the nest, shooting down unseen enemies in my path before I even know they exist. With him, I know I can’t fail because he would change the spin of the Earth’s axis if I asked.
I pitched our tent high up a secluded path on one of the dozen trails at the Osprey Mountains. The general manager of the mountain visitor center and I are friends. They are one of my many social media clients, and our families have been coming here forever. No one blinks an eye when we set up the tent and stay long after the mountain has officially closed.
I hear the footsteps come up the path and hop to my feet. My fingers pull on the tattered strings on the bottom of my ripped jeans shorts—the same ones I wore two years ago to a backyard barbeque and caught Lucas’ dark eyes swirling in a way I had never seen before. All afternoon they lingered on me and my shorts, these shorts. Every part of my existence is filled with memories of Lucas Hobbs. I only now realize how much he’s ruined every other man for me. My realization came too late, so I’ll hold on to our friendship. One that is unlike any other I know. One that will keep me sated. It must.
“Where is the best thing to happen to me?” His voice arrives before he does. The familiar refrain is filled with humor, love, and a million memories. His words hit me in waves.
First, unabashed joy. An I can’t believe he’s home warmth that forces a grin to spread across my face wider than when my IG hit its first thousand followers. The next wave hits me tight in the chest, his words striking my heart. Lucas is and always will be the center of the one thing I can’t live without. He knows it—we both know it. What we have is one of a kind. You don’t mess with special.
Right?
That I question it causes the next wave to hit.
Fear. I think of Jasmine and her ask. Will I have to courage to do what I know should be done? Can I walk the fine line without tripping and falling flat on my face?
The confusion in my head dissipates the second the flap of the tent flips up. Lucas steps into our small space, hand on the tent flap, dark eyes, chiseled chin, hair longer than ever before, and a confident smile. It is the perfect combination to cause any woman to swoon, present company included.
Lucas has come a long way from the slender, too-cool-for-high-school teen. He’s filled out in all the right places during his college years. Standing six one with lean muscles, skin the color of copper, and with the sexiest eyes I’ve ever stared into, he stops and sops me up for three of the longest heartbeats I’ll ever feel in my life. He stares at me as if I’m a prize that he’s crossed the country to claim, and my heart wishes it was true.
His gaze rakes over me, slower than it’s ever done before. His eyes pop wide for a split second when he takes in my shorts. The warmth of his gaze hovers over my legs so slowly it causes the hairs on my legs to tingle. He tries to hide his reaction by releasing the tent flap and taking a small step forward, but it’s not enough to distract from the shift in temperature in our small space. As his eyes comb over me, I do the same.
We are unapologetic in our actions. Both of us are comfortable with what we’ve built. He’s wearing my favorite shade of orange, a custom T-shirt with the words I miss a Mesa girl. It instantly becomes my new favorite phrase. I’ve missed my Mesa man.
I expect a smart retort, a deflection, but I’m not prepared for what slips out of his mouth. “Wow, Adrienne, you look… breathtaking, better than ever. Better than in my dreams.”
My heart skips a beat, unsure how to process his words. Thankfully, my body remembers its role. My feet move on autopilot, two quick steps toward him before leaping into the air. He catches me. He always does. His hand wraps around the small of my back as I wrap my legs around him, and his other hand lands on my rear.
