He blinks, and for a hot second, I wonder if he’s actually considering it. Throwing himself, that is. Literally. Pressing until the railing gives beneath his weight. Crushing me all in the name of shutting me up. Sure, he’s a bit leaner than me, and probably wouldn’t do any permanent damage. Probably. But it would hurt. A lot.

My mom always did say my mouth should come with a warning label. And now that we’re finally alone for the first time in over ten years, I might as well be a stick of dynamite ready to pop.

Boom, baby.

He huffs, but fortunately eases back.

Lifting his hands to his head, I watch quietly as he roughly digs his fingers into his thick black hair, before sliding his palms around to cup the back of his skull. He stares up at the night sky as if searching for some divine guidance to intervene. Moonlight glances off his neck, bright enough for me to make out the rapid flutter of his pulse, even from here. The taut line of a tendon.

I sigh. “Look—”

“You made your point, okay?” he says thickly. His throat bobs with a swallow. His hands drop, followed by his chin. “I’ve been an ass to you.”

I run my tongue over my teeth and nod. “Yeah. You have been.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“I didn’t come back here for...” You. I wave my hand. “This. Okay?”

A line forms between his eyes as our gazes clash together once more. He doesn’t say anything, so I force myself to continue.

“I didn’t even know you or Mason would still be here. I just—” I shrug helplessly. “I didn’t plan this. I didn’t plan any of this.”

I mean, sure, somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew running into him was a possibility. It was a risk I was reluctant but ultimately willing to take when I made the last-minute decision to revisit Shiloh for ol’ time’s sake.

But if there was anyone I truly had expected to have moved away from this town, it was Waylon McAllister. I thought he would’ve been long gone, since the second he turned eighteen.

Because from what I remember, he hated this place. He never said why, but I had a feeling it had to do with his dad, despite what he assured me all those years ago.

The two weren’t close, not like my dad and I were. Not by a long shot. He was a cop—chief of police, if I remember correctly—so he worked a lot of crazy hours.

Waylon didn’t talk about him much. If he did, it was usually because he was angry his dad forgot something important. Like signing a permission slip, or buying him Valentine’s Day cards to give to his friends, or buying him new shoes when his were practically falling apart.