He let out a breath, raking a hand through his hair. “You—” he started, then paused. Something flickered across his face. Regret? Surprise? Both? I couldn’t tell. He swallowed hard, then shifted, sidestepping the question entirely. “You’re working here?”

Nodding, I looked up at him. “Uh-huh.”

Then it hit me. My gaze dropped to his left hand, which was gently tugging at my hair. No ring. “Do you…” I couldn’t even finish the question; it felt heavy on my tongue, impossible to ask. “You have a wife?” I finally managed to choke out.

His smile faltered.

For a long moment, Blake just stared at me. Quiet. Watching. Then, voice low and a little cracked, he said, “Come on.”

“What?” I blinked at him.

He exhaled and stepped back, as if the room had become too small for all the things left unsaid. “Let’s get out of here.”

“But… What?”

“Let’s leave. Just for an hour.”

I should’ve said no. I should’ve said we’re at work, or I’m still mad at you, or you have no right to be standing there like no time has passed.

But the words didn’t come.

Blake waited, watching me carefully. He wasn’t demanding. He wasn’t rushing me. Still, every instinct told me to run. To protect whatever fragile foundation I’d built. But another part—quieter, older, bone-deep—whispered go. So I nodded.

He grabbed his wallet, slid past me, and held the door open. Nervous, my heart stumbling over itself, I followed him, each step equal parts defiance and surrender.

And for the first time in two years, we left a room together.

Still no kiss. Just history, and the sound of two hearts trying to find the same rhythm again.

55

BLAKE, 2001

20 years old

Beverly walked ahead of me, her hair bouncing with every step, shorter than I remembered but still unmistakably her.

I’d dreamed of this—of her walking beside me again, like no time had passed. But this wasn’t a dream. She was real. And here. For the first time in two years, I wasn’t staring at her through the rearview of a memory.

We stepped out into the parking lot, the afternoon sun casting long shadows across the pavement. As we approached my car, I swallowed hard, the weight of the past and present colliding in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Beverly stared at it, blinking. “This is yours?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at her, unlocking the door with the old key that always stuck halfway in. “Why?”

She lifted a brow. “A Chevy Impala? It’s from the sixties.”

“It’s a ’66,” I corrected.

She blinked again, eyes narrowed. “Well, I… I just figured, CEO of some shiny new company⁠—”

“—I’d be rolling up in a black Benz with tinted windows?”

“Exactly.”