Still Mine

2

Dallas

The drive to California didn’t feel like a new chapter.

It felt like a punishment

I pressed my forehead against the window and watched my life dissolve miles and miles into the highway—friends she didn’t get to hug goodbye, a boyfriend who deserved more than a rushed kiss in a parking lot, and a city where my father’s shadow still lived in every corner..

I didn't even get to hold Noah long enough to let him know how much I was going to miss him.

My phone buzzed with his message:

Call me when you get there. I love you.

I stared at the words until they blurred, then flipped the phone face-down.

My mother noticed, because of course she did.

“He’ll understand,” she said gently.

“No,” I muttered. “He won’t.”

Her humming filled the silence after that. She hummed a lot in the years after my father died—sometimes through grief, sometimes through guilt. But today, she hummed like a woman who had slipped out of mourning and into something new.

A “fresh start.”

That was what this trip was supposed to be.

For her.

I slept through the last hour. When I opened my eyes, the car was slowing and palm trees were rising like they belonged to someone richer, happier, and better adjusted.

California.

My stomach twisted.

We pulled through a gate that looked expensive enough to have a background check. The driveway curved toward a stone mansion with glass walls and a fountain—an actual fountain—shooting water into the air like it was auditioning for a perfume commercial.

I stepped out of the car and just stared.

My mother looked like she’d already decided to belong here—hair fixed, eyes bright, hand wrapped around her purse like she’d rehearsed for this moment. I stood beside her in ripped jeans and a knot of resentment.

So this was Xavier’s world.

Inside, everything was even worse.

White marble floors.

An open staircase curling like ribbon.

Ceilings so high they could swallow a person whole.

Paintings that definitely cost more than my entire education.

I whispered, “Jesus Christ.”

My mother sent me a warning look, the kind that meant behave, don’t embarrass me.

Before I could process any of it, two uniformed staff members came toward us, offering polite smiles.

“Welcome, ma’am. Welcome, miss,” one said, before taking our luggage like we were royalty—or strangers who needed management.

I didn’t know where to put my hands. I’d never been in a place where someone was paid to carry my life for me. They lifted our bags out of the trunk, efficient and careful, while I stood there feeling like an intruder wearing borrowed skin.

My mother straightened her blouse, smoothed her hair, and transformed into someone who belonged in wealth’s gravity. I stayed on the asphalt a few seconds longer, trying not to choke on resentment.

And then Xavier walked out.

Tall. Confident . Warm in the way only men who always get their way can be. His smile widened the second he saw my mother. She lit up like he was oxygen. They hugged—easy, natural, practiced. Like they had already decided joy was theirs.

He turned to me next.

“Dallas,” he said, using my name like an invitation, “welcome home.”

Home.

The word lodged in my throat. I nodded because there was no polite way to tell a man his house made my skin itch.

He placed a hand on my shoulder, guiding us toward the entrance.

“Henry should be down any moment,” he said.

Right.

Sure.

Then footsteps sounded—slow, descending from inside the marble foyer. Something in me recognized the rhythm before my eyes confirmed it.

I looked up.

Henry stepped into view.

The world did something violent in my chest.

He wasn’t the boy I remembered. He was taller now, shoulders broader, jawline carved by time. His hair still fell in that careless way, dark and infuriatingly perfect. But it was his eyes that hit hardest—steady, deep, familiar in the way a scar is familiar.

He froze when he saw me.

Shock flickered first—real shock, the kind that widens eyes and steals breath. Then surprise softened into something warmer, like recognition… and something dangerously close to longing.

I felt it too.

God, I felt it everywhere.

I thought distance would kill whatever I felt for him but the pull was instant, painful, and humiliating. Years hadn’t dissolved anything. Time had only sharpened it—whatever we were, whatever mistake we made, whatever we never talked about.

His lips parted like he wanted to speak. Mine refused to move.

Because in one suspended moment, I saw everything I’d tried to bury:

the first kiss, too young and too intense;

the promises we never formed;

the way his absence still lived in the quiet parts of me.

Long-lasting love is a dramatic phrase—something I don’t believe in—but looking at him felt like opening a sealed room and finding all the oxygen still intact.

I wasn’t ready for him.

I never would be.

Henry blinked once, twice, disbelief melting into something unbearably gentle.

“Dallas?” he whispered.

And my entire new life lurched off balance.