“I remember… pieces. You, in a doorway. Me running to you. You falling out of a damn window—Logan, I remember laughing at you while you panicked.”
A soft, choked laugh escapes me, half-sob, half-relief.
“I remember us dancing. I remember you kissing me in bed and saying something so stupidly beautiful, I think I forgot how to breathe. I remember how I felt.”
His breath catches on the other end. “Mac…”
Tears spill over, fast and unstoppable. “I remember loving you.”
I hear him exhale like he’s been holding it in for months. “Say it again.”
“I remember loving you, Logan.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but I can feel the emotion through the silence.
“I’m coming home,” he says, voice hoarse. “Right now.”
I hang up the call with a breathless laugh, swiping the tears from my cheeks with the sleeve of my sweater. My heart’s still racing, but in a different way now. I feel… lighter. Like something long-lost has finally clicked into place.
I hug the phone to my chest and whisper, “He’s coming home.”
I freeze, startled by a knock on the front door. The echo of it feels sharp against the quiet, like it doesn’t belong here. Frowning, I walk to the door and peek through the glass.
Lola.
I open the door fully as Lola pushes past me, arms spread like she’s been welcomed home.
“Oh—uh, hi,” I say, stepping back as she breezes past me like she owns the place, not even waiting for an invitation.
“Hey, sugar,” she says with that breathy, faraway smile. Her eyes are wide, shimmering with something I can’t place. Nostalgia? Madness? Both?
My stomach twists.
Logan’s warning rings loud in my mind.
Keep your distance from Lola, if you can. Something about her is…off.
He hadn’t gone into detail, but the way his jaw had clenched when he said it... I remember.
Lola turns slowly in the hallway, glancing around like she’s cataloguing every shadow. “God, it’s like stepping back in time,” she murmurs. “Everything still smells like him.”
I ignore her comment, and instead do the polite thing.
“I was just making a coffee,” I say cautiously. “Want one?”
She flashes me a grin. “God, yes. Been craving a proper one all day.”
I nod, swallowing the unease creeping into my chest. She follows me into the kitchen, eyes darting around like she’s ticking off memories on invisible notepads.
“It hasn’t changed much,” she says, sliding into one of the chairs at the table. “Well… you have, of course. You’re softer. Settled. Happy?”
I pause with my hand on the kettle. “Trying to be.”
Lola hums. “You remember the old days? Before the boys got all big and famous?” She laughs, twirling a piece of her hair. “We used to sneak out the back door here like it was some covert mission.”
I blink at her, and she carries on, smiling at some inner movie playing only in her mind.
“We’d call that sketchy pizza place that only answered half the time, and when the delivery guy knocked on the front door—Braden and Logan all puffed up and possessive—we’d vanish straight out the back. God, we pulled that trick at least a dozen times.” She sighs dreamily. “You and me, rebels until the end.”
