I wouldn’t say the ice has been broken between Colt and me, but there’s a little bit of thawing as he turns on the radio to a local indie station, then sits back in his seat and drapes his hand over the wheel. I lay my head back too, watching him. Everything inside of me melts as my mind wanders to the good days.

To the first time he kissed me.

I’d just come home after my junior year of college, on the edge of giving up on Colt, assuming my love would be just as unrequited as always. He was my brother’s best friend, the bad boy of the county. When I returned, Jack and Colt had already stopped hanging out after Colt had gotten into one too many fights and ended up in jail again, and I was walking the short distance to a party in the neighborhood when Colt pulled up alongside me in his battered pickup.

Need a ride? he’d asked with that daredevil smile I could never resist.

I hopped into the truck, but before he started to drive, he teased me about the dangers of hitchhiking.

That’s not what I was doing, I’d said. And, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m too old to be lectured like a kid anymore.

His eyes had gone hazy, as if a sudden truth had snuck up and jumped him, and that’s when it happened.

Out of nowhere, he’d slid his hand to the back of my head and brought me in for the most head-spinning kiss in existence. It’d been heavenly, dizzy, wonderful, everything I’d been hoping for. And I never made it to that party because Colt ended up driving me to the lake and kissing me all night. We couldn’t get enough of each other, and in the following days and nights, he surprised me again by taking things slowly, whether it was unbuttoning my shirt, bringing me against him so I could see how hard I made him, or slipping his fingers into my panties and feeling how wet I was for him right before working me to my very first orgasm.

That summer, we met secretly, intensely, dating without telling anyone, especially my family.

The problem wasn’t just that Colt was like a son to my parents and a brother to Jack—being close to my family meant that they knew about all of his baggage, and they would have freaked out if they knew I was with a guy who didn’t have much of a future. Besides, I didn’t know if we truly were a real couple, because we never talked about what our relationship meant. It was just the two of us meeting every night and spending that enchanted time together.

What I would do to have that Colt with me again…

The blue dashboard lights bathe him as I gaze at those lips, thinking of how soft they used to be against mine, then more demanding whenever I would pull him to me, leading his hand to my pussy to stop the ache…

Oh…

After I sigh, Colt pulls over to the side of the lonely road, then leaves the engine humming. He looks at me, and I think he heard me make that soft sound of need. A thrill travels through me, happy that he heard it, nervous that he’s going to laugh and then tell me to go to hell. I’m already damp between my thighs, and I wonder if he’s had so many women that he can sense when one is in heat for him.

As I stare through the windshield, I realize that he’s brought us to the high school with its brick walls and green lawn, and I frown.

He laughs, low and gravelly. “This would be the second step in getting my shit together.”

“Visiting the high school in the dead of night?” Am I here to take a walk down memory lane with him so he can purge every memory and move on with his new life?

“Sure, why not come here?” He jerks his chin at the two-story building. “This is where I really learned to be a total fuck up. Haverill High was basically the start of my tabloid tragedy.”

“You might want to talk to your middle school teachers to make sure you didn’t start even earlier.”

Silence hangs between us because… Did I just crack a joke to the guy who looked like he was ready to rampage through that bar in Portland just a short time ago?

I used to be able to joke a lot with Colt, and when he laughs a little now, I start wondering if he’s not as angry at me as I first thought.

It might be a good idea for me to test the theory that we can have a normal conversation, so I go for it. “I still remember the day you got kicked out of school for mouthing off to Mr. Tolby in Civics. I think that was the day you became a legend in the hallways.”

“Tolby was a bully. Besides, that incident was just the last straw in a long line of deep shit I plowed for myself here.”

Tell me about it. Bad grades, bad attendance, and an even worse attitude got him expelled when he was just sixteen. My brother, who’d become a decent student and a respected athlete, got extremely pissed at Colt for the expulsion, saying he was too lazy to study anyway and confronting Mr. Tolby was his solution for getting the hell out of school early. But in my eyes, Colt was just misunderstood, a James Dean who drove fast cars and seduced women with a tilted smile. There was so much more to him than this; there was a deeper, more contemplative side that I truly saw after we got together.

But there was always that chip on Colt’s shoulder too. I can even see it weighing him down now as he watches me. The delinquent with a dad who left. The fuck up who always tried to make good but who always ended up fucking up more.

“What matters,” I say, “is that you stuck your neck out for your fellow students back then.”

“Yeah, a lot of good it did me. Got myself a job at a gas station and ended up managing it. I really commanded great respect in this town at that point.”

Some of the resentment he always felt about growing up poor hardens his words, and he puts pedal to the metal and peels away from the high school. But he’s not as tense as he was on the ride here. He’s a little looser now, slumping in his seat, sliding me another look that turns me to bubbling liquid.

“Tell me, Cookie,” he says, using the childhood nickname he gave me from back in my Girl Scout cookie selling days. “Didn’t you ever want to stand up in Mr. Tolby’s class and tell him to cram it where the sun don’t shine?”

“No, because even back then I wanted to be a teacher. True, I’m going to be in an elementary classroom and not in a high school, but I still showed respect, no matter what I thought about his teaching style.”

“I still think you could’ve given him the business.”

“Somehow I doubt he would’ve been very intimidated by all five foot four inches of me.”

“I don’t know. You pack a lot of power, kind of like Mighty Mouse.”

We both smile, but with each moment that passes, I get more nervous that he’s going to ask about Sebastian. That has to be the real reason he got me into his car, and he’s just biding his time.

My heartbeat kicks with nerves as he turns onto Main Street, then pulls into Lindy’s Burger.

“If I know you,” he says, heading for the drive thru, “you’re hungry by now. You might be the size of Mighty Mouse, but you sure eat like Bullwinkle.”

“Hey.” I laugh. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that guys who don’t insult women have a lot more charm? And maybe if you used some of it you’d get another million dollars or so for your next movie.”

“I should hire you as my agent.”

As we peruse the lit-up menu, I remember so many nights driving through here, ordering double burgers and loads of fries with chocolate shakes and soda, then driving somewhere private where we could stay out of sight from everyone, existing in our own little world together. After the food was gone, Colt would lay me down on our blanket and do things to me that I can’t imagine any man ever doing for the rest of my life. He was my first time and, as far as I’m concerned, my only time.

We end up ordering what we used to order, and after we get our food, he drives us away. I’m already well into the fries, and I offer him one. When he reaches out to take it, I snatch it from him and bite into it.

“Real slow for a guy who was in an action movie,” I say with my mouth full.

Now I get a genuine smile out of him—God, my Colt—and I sigh into my seat. I’m not only as turned on as hell, but I’m relieved that he seems to have forgiven me in some way. Still, I can tell he still has that chip on his shoulder. Maybe it’s never going to go away.

“Where to now?” I ask.

“Somewhere you can scarf down all this food without anyone seeing you.”

He turns the car onto Berry Road, and I know exactly where we’re going for the next stop on memory lane: the lake.

He drives around to the far, remote side where the kids never go. You can see their bonfires and a big party across the water, but we’re all alone, and he cuts the car’s engine. There’s a look on his face that tells me he’s affected by being here, at the place where we spent so much time together.

He leaves the music on, grabs most of the food in the cardboard tray, and gets out of the car. I watch him go to the hood where the headlights are still on, washing over his perfect body. I’ve got a beautiful, pussy-throbbing view of those wide shoulders and his muscled back under his tee shirt, as well as his tight ass in those faded jeans. He doesn’t seem to care how expensive this car is, because he sits on the hood. Then, without looking back at me, he nonchalantly gestures for me to join him.

Good idea? Bad? I’m not sure yet as I carry the shakes and soda, then lean back against the hood too. I set the cardboard tray behind us, then we eat our burgers and fries.

He laughs out of the blue. “You wouldn’t ever catch any of those Hollywood people out here eating burgers like this.”

“Hollywood people?” I lift an eyebrow. “Aren’t you one of them now?”

“Fuck no. Do you know how silly and pretentious they are? The actors I’ve worked with get manicures and enemas at day spas. And everyone eats little bitty portions of food at real expensive restaurants, so I don’t know how they have enough in their systems to even need all those fancy cleanses. The first time I went to a five-star restaurant, I had to go out for burgers just like this afterward.”

“Who took you to that first fancy dinner?” I ask softly. “Was it the big film producer who ‘discovered’ you?”

“You say that like he dug me up instead of seeing me walking down a street in Portland. And, yeah, Charles was the one who initiated me into the decadent world of gourmet dining.”

Silence steals over us once again, but it’s deeper this time. The laugher has faded, and so has the easygoing groove we’d found.

As we go back to eating, the music from the car isn’t enough to erase the awkwardness that’s returned yet again. I know what Colt is thinking about—how him being “discovered” was the beginning of the end. It happened after I went back to school after that wonderful summer, and I can’t count how many times I’ve wondered what our lives would be like if Colt hadn’t been walking down that street and if Charles Hoffman, that big-budget Hollywood executive, hadn’t seen Colt and thought that he had “it.”

Our entire history changed when Charles Hoffman gave Colt his business card and said to call because he had the perfect part for Colt in a new movie set to begin filming in just a few weeks. The actor originally booked for the role had just fallen through, and Hoffman said he could “feel” that Colt would be a perfect replacement.

I was excited, because Colt had always wanted more than just his dead-end job, so I encouraged him to do it, and within days, he was booked for an audition and flown out to LA to meet the director. After reading and screen testing, he got the part, shooting alongside two of the biggest stars of the decade on location in Europe for three weeks.

He was getting paid real money, and this was his shot at something new and meaningful, so I was behind him the whole way. I knew that this movie would take him away from me. Sure, I was back in school anyway, but still— I would be here when he returned.

Little did I know that the film shoot would go so well that Colt would catch J.Page’s eye and she would introduce him to her agent and management, who would offer him representation. They became the “hot new thing” and she introduced him to the “in crowd” and Colt became one of them, partying together in Europe and then back in LA. After that, he started getting offers to model, act…everything, and he wanted me to come to Hollywood.

Me—his small-town girlfriend.

This was the life he wanted, and he was finally happy. I can still remember how excited he was on the phone as he said, The only thing missing is you, Serena. We haven’t ever gone public, so we have no idea how it could feel to really be together. Let’s tell everyone, even your brother, we’re a couple. Come to LA with me.

And I said no.

God, I wasn’t only knee deep in my final year of college, but unbeknownst to him, I was pregnant.

After I put him off, it only got worse, with him flying back and showing up unannounced at my door. When he saw my baby bump, I saw the look in his eyes—the shock, the realization that his life was about to change, and I’m not sure it was in a good way.

So I had to do what I did.

I lied. For him and for me. But mostly for him.

Even after he told me that he wanted to be together to take care of the child and I could still come to LA with him and raise a family together, I just couldn’t do that to him; a new wife and baby would ruin whatever he had with Jennifer Page, and all these new, amazing, life-altering offers would probably dry up. He was the new fantasy boyfriend for a clamoring, blossoming fan base, and I couldn’t kill the fantasy. I couldn’t take away the charmed life he had now, especially after I’d also seen something painful in Colt’s eyes—the memory of a father who had left him. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay with this baby because he wanted to show everyone that he wasn’t like his dad at all or if he really wanted us.

So I lied to him about the baby’s father and sent him away thinking that I’d cheated on him. After he went back to LA and his career started to explode, I thought I’d made the right decision too. But here’s Colt now, right next to me, smelling so clean and masculine and sending waves of heat through me until I feel like I might wither. Something is ticking inside my belly, building, expanding until I’m biting my lip to keep back a low moan of need.

Colt isn’t eating anymore. He throws the rest of his chocolate shake away from him, and I go completely still. When he looks at me, his gaze is dead serious.

“How’s the baby, Serena?”

The moment I dreaded is here. This is why he got back into my good graces tonight after all—to ask this one question.

“Don’t, Colt.”

“You never post pictures of your child on Instagram. I thought you would.”

“I keep Sebastian far away from social media.”

“Sebastian,” he whispers, and there’s pain in his gaze now.

My stomach is churning as I put what’s left of my burger in the cardboard tray. “I think it’s time for you to take me home.”

“How is he?” he asks in that tortured whisper.

Tears rip at my throat, and I can hardly swallow, much less talk. “I don’t think we should go there right now.”

“All right.” His gaze is intense in the glow of the headlights. “Fine.”

Just as I’m relaxing because he’s backed off of asking, Colt’s gaze flares, and before I know what’s happening, he digs his fingers into my hair and pulls me against him, stealing my breath away with a bruising kiss.