His arms went slack and the black bag fell to the floor of the trunk while the duffel bag slipped from his shoulder and the paper bag clanked precariously. He bent his elbow at the last minute to keep the duffel strap from clotheslining the paper bag. Violet’s eyes cut to his arms, to the taut, corded, tattooed muscles that bulged as he held the bag off the ground. As he stepped closer to search her face in the dim light, she could almost feel his breath on her skin.

“Violet,” he said softly, his voice suddenly different now, as she reconciled it with her memories. It was deeper and raspier than she remembered, like he’d smoked for years or yelled a lot. “Like the flower.”

“Violet-like-the-flower,” she repeated in a whisper, staring up at him, looking for the Zach Aubrey she used to know in this muscular, tattooed, pierced, shaggy-haired rocker. It seemed impossible to reconcile the two completely different people. Yale Zach had been skinny and pale—an awkward and brooding teenager.

She stepped closer to him and with a sigh of relief, she saw the resemblance. His hair, some of which was held back in a ponytail, was still the dark chestnut color she remembered.

And his eyes. She was close enough to see that his eyes were the same stormy, intense gray.

There you are, her heart whispered.

Her pulse fluttered wildly as she found that small brown mole under his left eye and she licked her lips nervously.

His eyes lingered on her lips for a second before they swept slowly down her body, pausing at her breasts and exhaling in an audibly shaky breath before dipping lower. As though catching himself in an impropriety that was totally incongruous with the Zach who stood before her, his gaze darted back up to her eyes after lingering on her hips, and his cheeks flushed.

“Violet,” he repeated, in an uneven, breathy voice. He didn’t smile at her; he just stared in that searing, searching way she remembered. He’d looked at her that way many times, sitting at the desk across from her in his dorm room, his intense eyes stricken and unsure before he’d force himself to look away.

His face gradually softened, and he gave her an unexpected grin, equal parts wonder and surprise. She sensed he was trying to figure out what to say or do next, and she was at just as much of a loss. Zach Aubrey was standing before her after all these years. Zach Aubrey, whom she’d thought about at least once a day since their fraught farewell nine years ago at Yale. Damn her heart for throbbing and her lungs for burning and her fingers for trembling like she was nineteen again.

He rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb, and the simple, familiar action made her eyes widen as he stared at her in amazement. His lips, still gorgeous, she noted, finally tilted up into a full-blown smile, which grew more confident—and cocky, which was new.

“My God, Violet. Violet Smith. How are you? What are you doing here? Damn.”

Violet laughed lightly—no doubt the result of shock—stepping back from him as he reached back into the trunk for the long black nylon bag he’d dropped. A keyboard, she figured distractedly.

He turned to face her, and she was aware of how big he was, how much more filled out since their college days. Big. Broad. Full-grown. And scorching hot.

“I didn’t recognize you at all, Zach. Not at all. Not . . . at all.”

“What’s it been? Ten years?”

“Nine.” Almost to the day.

“You seemed sort of familiar to me, but you look really different . . . and Greenwich . . .”              “Yeah,” she said. “I live there now.”

“Greenwich, huh? Strange choice for Miss Hippie Bohemian chick who was going to be the next poet laureate and lived on a literary diet of Jack Kerouac.”

She wondered if her face reflected the shock she felt at his detailed description of the girl she used to be. “You remember me.”

He stared at her intently. “I remember everything.”

Oh. She exhaled raggedly, her tingling body swaying involuntarily toward him. She caught herself and forced her spine to straighten, tilting her chin up in defiance. It was embarrassing that Zach—who’d rejected her, after all—rated this big a reaction deep inside her body. She’d be damned if she gave him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words affected her.

“That’s too bad,” she said coolly.

His eyes flashed for a moment with something intense and undefinable, but he didn’t acknowledge her comment. He glanced at her chest before turning quickly and heading to the house again. “Listen, let me get this stuff inside. I’ll get the power on, and then come back and help you with your stuff.”

My stuff? What the—what? Stay here? With Zach Aubrey?

“I can’t stay here with you, Zach,” she called after him, cracking her knuckles against her palm.

“Why not?” he tossed over his shoulder, placing the bags inside the open front door on the floor of the dark foyer. “We’re definitely not strangers.”

She was pretty sure she heard a slight emphasis on the word definitely. It made the hairs on her arm stand up as a wave of something delicious but unwanted flushed her skin. He came back out and stood beside the hood of his car, and although she couldn’t see his expression clearly in the dark, she felt his eyes on her.

“Are you married?” he asked quietly.

She felt herself wince, then looked down at the ground to hide it. “No.”

He exhaled. Audibly.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“If I was married, it would be a problem?”

He shrugged, standing beside her, next to the open trunk. “I could understand a husband not wanting his wife to share a house with some dude from college that she once . . .” His eyes held hers as his voice drifted off, and she could feel the heat in them. She looked away from him, her mind flooded with memories she’d spent almost a decade trying to suppress.

“That was a long time ago,” Violet said, reaching into her back pocket for her phone to see if she had a signal yet. This unexpected reunion was way too emotional and intense. She didn’t even want to think about Zach Aubrey, let alone chat with him, let alone share a house with him. Besides, it felt like she was being disloyal to Shep’s memory to even be standing here talking to him. She needed to find out if there was a hotel in town and beg them for a room.

His expression cooled as though he’d read her mind. “You still with that guy?”

“Which g—”

“Shep Smalley.”

He remembered Shep’s name? After all these years? Shep’s face flitted through her mind, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat. She clamped her eyes shut and turned toward her car.

“No.”

She felt his hands on her shoulders, and her first instinct was to pull away—no, to run away from Zach Aubrey and all the painful memories and confusing feelings that were rushing back to her. But she didn’t pull away. She let his hands settle on her shoulders, her breath catching as his fingers gently curled, grasping lightly at the fabric of her hot pink cardigan sweater.

“Hey, Violet-like-the-flower,” he said softly in a voice that sounded so much like the old Zach, unexpected tears pricked her eyes. “It’s nighttime. It’s dark out. Stay here tonight, and if you still feel weirded out in the morning, I’ll find a hotel.”

She turned slowly to face him, keeping her face as neutral as possible, and he withdrew his hands from her shoulders. With the open trunk still affording a soft light, her eyes fell to the shadow of dark scruff at his jawline and it irritated her that she found it so sexy. To distract herself, she raised her gaze to his lips. Big mistake. They were as full as she remembered them, quirked up in a coaxing smile. Frantically she raised her eyes to his nose, then eyebrows, grimacing as she finally found something she didn’t like: the silver stud in his nostril and two thin silver hoops over his left eye.

He stepped back, smile fading as he put his hands on his hips defensively. That’s when she noticed he had rings on two or three of his fingers, as the metal caught the moonlight, pulling her eyes to his waist. Catching herself, she quickly moved her gaze up to his broad chest, checking out the faded T-shirt that read “METALLICA GUNS N’ ROSES,” a garish skull with roses decorating the letters. More memories rushed back but her lips tilted up this time.

“Still listening to the same loud, obnoxious music, I see.”

“Aw, Vile,” he said, sweeping his eyes up and down the shadows of her body, exploring hers as she had his, “this shirt is vintage.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

“Just don’t.” She didn’t want to be Vile to his Z. She didn’t want to be anything to him. She wasn’t anything to him. He’d made sure of that. “You were capable of more. You were capable of something beautiful.”

Write me something beautiful.

She heard her own voice in her head, dreamy and besotted, whispering the words from so long ago. Her pulse fluttered uncomfortably in her neck as she suddenly felt the imprint of his lips pressed against it. She wondered if he remembered too, because he flinched before quickly recovering to smirk at her.

“How’s Joni Mitchell working out for you?”

“I still love her.”

He snorted, then looked away, rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip, like he sometimes did when he was thinking. Or maybe remembering. She couldn’t recall the exact reason why he did it—but it was distracting as hell. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess she’s okay.”

Violet didn’t add that despite her love for Joni Mitchell, she hadn’t been able to listen to her for nine years. Even now, when “The Circle Game” came on the radio, she changed the station before old, unwanted feelings could swirl into her consciousness and hijack her uncomplicated life.

Zach shifted his weight, crossing his arms over his chest, staring at her with narrowed eyes. If she didn’t know him, he’d look casual. But she did, so he looked brooding. “So, what’s it going to be? You staying?”

He was right. It was dark and getting late, and it’s not like he was a stranger. In fact, for one brilliant, intense, way-too-short time in her life, he’d been the person who mattered most, the person she’d fallen in lov—

No. No, Violet. Don’t go there. Back it up.

She rephrased her thoughts: he’d been her friend. A very good friend, even … until she’d said the wrong thing. Until that one, crazy October weekend that never should have happened. They shouldn’t have ended up stranded on a mostly empty campus, in an almost empty sophomore dorm together. The trees in New Haven shouldn’t have been on fire in breathtaking reds and oranges and yellows that made them forget reality and feel invincible. The days shouldn’t have been so warm and perfect, with bright blue skies and nothing to do but write songs and bask in their newfound, unarticulated feelings. And the nights shouldn’t have been so packed with lust, so achingly full of beautiful murmurs that had, ultimately, meant nothing. It had all been a fluke, a mistake, an anomaly. It had left her heart broken in half.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said, walking to her car.

When she snuck a glance at him, he was running his thumb over his bottom lip again, then bit it before calling out to her, a slight edge in his tone. “Time was, Vile, you could make a bad idea work for you.”

His words made more forgotten memories surface—of his hand in hers as they ran, barefoot and drunk, over the plush grass of the Old Campus green. It made her feel light-headed for a second, and she reached up to rub her forehead. She needed to get away from him.

“Like I said before, long time ago,” she called over her shoulder.

She opened her car door, sitting down and feeling around for her glasses on the center console. She put them on and reached out to shut the door, but her fingers touched denim instead. Zach was suddenly standing beside her, blocking her from the door handle. She jerked her fingers away from his jeans like she’d touched fire. His body took up the entire space between her and her door, and she was eye level with his abdomen, which she had a feeling was as hard and muscular as his arms. She put her hands firmly on the steering wheel just in case they decided to find out, and tilted her chin up to look at him.

With her glasses on, she could finally see subtle nuances like how his gray eyes were harder now than they’d been then, harder and more intense, more unsettled, if that was possible. But also cooler, like he could laugh if he wanted to, even if nothing was funny. She focused on the little brown mole under his eye and found herself wishing desperately—for the first time in years—that things had gone differently between them, then hating herself for such foolishness.

“I’ll be here,” he said, his dark, stormy-sky eyes searching hers, one hand clutching the headrest of her seat, his elongated, graffitied arm tense and hard by her cheek. It threw off heat, and she concealed a shudder by shifting in her seat. “Offer to share the house stands, Vile.”

She hadn’t seen anyone this sexy, this close up, in years. Her mouth went dry, and the muscles between her legs clenched, begging her to reconsider.

“I won’t be back,” she whispered, tearing her gaze from him.

“Whatever you say,” he said. Then he turned away and sauntered into the house. She slammed the door and turned the key, unable to keep her brain from processing the fact that his ass in retreat was a thing of profound beauty in her headlights. She shook her head and looked down at her hands, white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and swallowed the lump in her throat.

I say . . . not again. Never again.

She pulled out of Deep Haven’s driveway and drove back through the black woods toward town.

***

Violet Smith. Vile. Violet-like-the-flower.

The girl. The only girl. Ever.

He clenched his jaw until it ached as her taillights disappeared into the woods.

Damn it, Zach. You’re just going to let her drive away? Idiot! Do something!

He stood motionless on the front steps of the house, like his feet were planted in cement. His brain, which told him to leave her alone and let her go, was at war with his body, which had finally processed the shock of her appearance and amped itself into highly aroused territory, hot and incredibly fucking bothered to be near her again. His heart, just about numb from the shock of being face-to-face with her after almost a decade, was finally calming down enough to recognize that he’d let Violet Smith slip through his fingers. Again.

“Fuck!” he shouted, running his hands through his hair so roughly, the black rubber band in the back snapped and fell to the ground.

He’d barely gotten over the shock of who she was before she was speeding back down the driveway. How was he supposed to recognize her, anyway? Never mind that she sounded like a totally different person, she also looked like a totally different person. She’d probably lost about thirty pounds, and her hair was straight and boring, dyed back to its natural dark brown. He probably should have known her from her eyes, but without her glasses and wearing those expensive, preppy clothes? She didn’t look a thing like the Violet he used to know. She looked like a snobby, high-maintenance, suburban priss—the kind of girl who crossed to the other side of the street when Zach approached, the type of girl who would barely give him a second glance unless she was slumming.

Until he’d looked closer.

Her dark eyes were as luminous as ever, and her long, black lashes still framed them so damn beautifully, it took his breath away. Her lips were as red and bowed as he remembered them, but College Violet wouldn’t have worn the glossy lip gunk Greenwich Violet was wearing. Not that he minded, since it was sexy as hell. He swiped his thumb over his lips thoughtfully, trying to find the imprint of her lips beneath his. But he was too agitated to pull any meaningful memories from the depths of his mind. Not to mention, a whole lot of anonymous lips had touched his since hers.

When the red lights of her car were finally out of sight, he turned and stalked into the house. He felt around in the kitchen drawers until he found a flashlight, then opened the door to the basement and reset the main circuit. One flip and the house was powered up again.             

Back upstairs, he glanced out the front windows, hoping to see her car pulling back into the now-illuminated driveway, but saw only his rented SUV.

Zach pulled out a tumbler, poured himself a glass of Scotch, and headed into the living room to make a fire. One thought kept him from chasing after her: he was pretty sure there was nowhere to stay within a fifteen-mile radius.

If you luck out, you stupid bastard, she’ll be back.

He glanced out the window again at the darkness, taking another sip of Scotch as he remembered the day they met.

It was mid-August, the first day of sophomore pre-orientation for a small group of returning internship students, and Violet was moving into a dorm room down the hall from him. Her dark brown eyes behind glasses had peeked into his dorm room as she rapped lightly on the open door.

“Um . . . Hi. I’m Violet,” she’d said, taking a step forward to lean against the doorway in Birkenstocks, too-tight jeans over wide hips, and a low-cut peasant blouse that showed off the swell of her ample breasts.

Zach knew exactly who she was, and his hormonal, adolescent body had trembled lightly to see her so close, suddenly standing at the threshold of his room like a present. He’d sought her out at a poetry reading last year after he’d read her poems in The Yale Literary Magazine. Wait, read them? Nah. He’d memorized them. They were like nothing he’d ever read before, pieces of lyric truth, unstyled and wrenching. One had even inspired a song, not that he’d ever played it for anyone—not that he had anyone to play it to.

“Hey. I’m Zach,” he answered, looking up from the keyboard he was trying to plug in behind the built-in desk.

“Zach, my, um, my trunk is stuck and I don’t think there’s an RA here yet. Do you have pliers by any chance? Or, um, scissors?”

While she spoke, his hands sweated and he lost the battle of keeping his eyes focused on her face. They dropped to the shadow of cleavage between her breasts, visible just above her low-cut blouse.

When he looked up, she grinned at him playfully, looking down at her breasts, then back up at him. “See any scissors in there?”

He’d flushed, fumbling in his pocket for his Swiss Army knife, and gestured for her to lead the way. He cracked open the lock, and she insisted he share half of the pizza she’d just ordered. Mostly she did the talking as they ate, telling Zach about her summer and asking about his. He’d spent most of his cooped up in student housing at Juilliard or playing guitar or piano in one of the many windowless practice rooms and studios. She’d spent hers running barefoot on the beaches of Maine where she lived with her mother, reading Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and embracing her hippie soul. They talked until dawn, until Violet, who had curled up on his floor with a borrowed blanket, nodded off midsentence.

It turned out they’d both returned to Yale two weeks early for special programs: she, for a poetry seminar, and he, for an orchestral internship. Further, they were the only students living in the massive Gothic Revival dorm, which Violet declared was creepy, and the next night, without asking, she slept on his floor again. When he woke up, she was there, the shape of her body, under her sleeping bag, curled toward his bed. When she showed up with her sleeping bag the following night, too, he was surprised to realize how glad he was to see her, and a pattern started.

Violet more or less lived with him in his single dorm room throughout August and September, into October. They ate every meal together, met up before every campus event, found each other after classes, went to parties, got drunk, watched movies, shared their work, and inspired each other. She’d lie on his bed writing poetry as he sat at his desk writing music in companionable silence every night until dawn. Sometimes she’d let him write music for one of her poems, and those nights, surrounded by his music and her words, were the most ground-shifting of his life. Suddenly all those hours spent practically chained to the piano in his parents’ home and in solitary confinement at Juilliard meant something: he had every musical tool he needed to make her words come to life. Not that they needed his help.

It wasn’t like he had anything emotionally meaningful to offer anyone at that point in his life. From a young age, he’d been treated like musical veal, forced to practice, compose, or perform every available minute, his parents eschewing affection for expectations, encouragement for demands, support for a single-minded insistence on success. If he veered from the course, he was met with the heel of his father’s shoe on the side of his head, so he didn’t veer. He knuckled down and worked. For most of his life, his feelings were trapped and buried so deep down, he’d barely ever considered them.

So it made a certain amount of sense that he was drawn to Violet. He’d never known anyone like her. Raised by a loving, if busy, single mother, she was his polar opposite. She had her arms wide open to the world, her heart practically beating outside of her chest. Her emotions were so remarkably unbottled, she could zero in on a feeling with startling precision, translating it into a visceral, throbbing, breathing string of words that felt alive. And deep inside him, where his feelings had been ignored for so long, he felt a stirring. More and more every day.

Many times, Zach had looked over at her lying on his bed, as she chewed the hell out of a pen top, and imagined what it would be like to kiss her. Would her red lips be soft or firm? What would her mouth taste like? Would she push her chest into his or push him away? His body would harden eagerly, but he’d turn back to his composition notebook, adjusting his headphones and forcing himself to move beyond his aroused curiosity for two reasons.

First, even Zach, who was relatively inexperienced, knew that getting physical could make things dicey between them, and dicey wasn’t an option. Violet was his best friend. She made music exciting and fun for the first time in years. She made Yale home for him. Being around her made him feel alive and aware—awake—for the first time in his life. Like he belonged somewhere, with someone.

Second, he feared his feelings for Violet. Their full force and depth, were he to examine them, were so uncharted, so intense, so absolute and enormous, that acknowledging them would be fucking terrifying.

***

Still standing by the window, Zach threw back the rest of the Scotch, an ice cube biting his upper lip as the amber liquid funneled down his throat like lava. He wasn’t that overwhelmed nineteen-year-old kid anymore and losing Violet once had been enough. If he ever got another chance with her, he’d never hurt her again. Damn if his heart didn’t drum painfully, hoping for a chance to prove it.