Ella Claire:
It should’ve felt like home.
I sat on the back steps of the house I grew up in, the sun dipping low behind the old oak trees that lined the yard. Beckett was inside, probably watching the same football highlights he’d watched for years. The porch creaked under my bare feet, and the cicadas hummed like they were trying to fill the silence I didn’t know I was holding inside.
And then I heard it—leather boots on gravel.
I didn’t have to look up to know who it was. That walk used to make my heart race. Now, it just made my stomach tighten with something I hadn’t named yet.
“Thought I’d find you out here,” Colt said, his voice dipped in confidence and smooth as aged whiskey.
I looked up slowly. Same jawline. Same reckless glint in those hazel eyes. Same cocky tilt of his mout
