SUMMER
BANG. BANG. BANG.
We froze.
Three sharp knocks on the studio door, loud enough to rattle the frame, and my eyes flew open. My heart launched itself from somewhere warm and suspended directly into my throat, where it proceeded to beat at approximately twice the speed it had been managing seconds ago.
"Yo!" Maddox's voice cut through the air, cheerful and catastrophically timed, through the closed door. "Mom says it’s dinner time. Are you up there?"
Rhett's hand stayed on my jaw for one more heartbeat — suspended, unwilling — and then he stepped back, and the air between us went from warm to wide in an instant.
My heart was hammering. My lips were tingling with the ghost of something that hadn't happened. I looked at Rhett and he looked at me, and in his pale eyes I could see it
