I hate the power his name alone has over me. A monosyllabic word that should mean little to fucking nothing, but bowls me over like a goddamn freight train.

You’d think after so many years of shoving the thought of him away, I’d be immune to it by now.

I clear my throat. “Oh, yeah? He still around too?” I say, like that man in the store didn’t already tell me as fucking much. Like the answer to this question doesn’t have the power to change everything.

“Never left,” Mason says simply.

Well, fuck.

It shouldn’t matter, the knowledge that Waylon McAllister is still here, the closest he’s been to me in ten and a half years. It shouldn’t be this shocking and world-flipping and borderline nauseating.

But I guess the whole out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing only works so long as the matter at hand isn’t being thrown right in front of your face.

He’s here.

I’m back in Shiloh.

And Waylon.

Is.

Still.

Fucking.

Here.

I could have as easily run into him as I did Mason, not even minutes after crossing into town.

Would he have recognized me?

Would I have recognized him?

“We actually live together in the apartment above O’Leary’s,” Mason goes on, none the wiser to my turbulent thoughts. Thank God. “That’s our bar. We live there with our other friend Shawn.” He must read the question on my face, so he shakes his head. “You never met him. He grew up in Scranton. Only moved out here a few years ago.”

I nod vaguely.

It feels like a horde of bees is buzzing around in my head, blotting out everything but one singular thought:

I shouldn’t be here.

“So, what do you say?”

“I don’t know, man,” I hedge, not meeting his gaze as I fidget with my keys.

“Why the fuck not?” he says, not unkindly.

I open my mouth, but again, nothing comes out. How do I answer that without possibly throwing Waylon under the bus? Sure, I don’t exactly know for certain how much he told Mason, and I sure as hell don’t owe the guy anything. Not after all this time.

But something still holds me back.

I’m no fucking angel—hell, I’ve gotten called out on more than one occasion for being too pushy, too blunt, too...much—but there are just some things I won’t budge on. No matter what.

This is one of those things.

Waylon McAllister might as well be a stranger to me now, but he wasn’t always. And some part of me still feels a sense of loyalty to that boy I’d once move fucking mountains for. The boy I took it upon myself to protect, only for my actions to shoot me point-blank in the ass.