Gabe tasted the same as he had that stolen night I’d been trying to forget since I started working for the Kings.

The jolt of surprise memory was enough to silence the stream of panic. His hands on my face were strong enough to hold me together long enough for me to catch my breath and gasp in surprise.

So much adrenaline pumped through my veins that I rose up on my toes and flung myself against his chest, desperate to hold on to something. I was ready to fall. I gasped again when he caught me.

He groaned in response to my gasp and suddenly his tongue was sliding against mine and goddamn, yes, I did remember this. The way he kissed. The way he didn’t hold back. Usually I was the one to hold back, but I had no strength left to keep up my defenses. 

He was the one to draw back. Jerked back, more like. “Did I hurt you?” I wanted to ask, mindful of his injuries even with my clouded brain. 

“Oh my god, you’re her,” he said.

I exhaled sharply. My heart stalled in my chest. 

“It was you!” he exclaimed, gripping my shoulders and giving me a little shake. 

I jerked. Stiffened in his arms and drew back, staring at his opened mouth. He looked at me like I was a stranger, and in that moment I understood that he didn’t know me, because I didn’t even know myself. I’d been convinced he didn’t remember. I’d been certain that that night was one both of us had let slip through our fingers. 

His eyes widened. “It was you,” he repeated, his voice harsher now. An accusation. “You never…how?”

I swallowed and closed my eyes, partly to escape the way his soft hazel eyes had gone intense green with emotion. And partly to remember.

I still remembered every single detail of that night in December. And even though I was in Gabe’s arms, I was right back there on the barstool, sitting close to the door. Watching the party but not taking part in it. 

I was humming. 

It was a bad habit. Left over from when I was a bespectacled nobody at Crown Creek Primary and the laughter and chatter went on around me like I wasn’t there. I’d hum to be part of the noise. To be included. 

That night I’d hummed into my rum and coke as I drank it way too quickly. The sugar made my lips sticky so I kept licking them as I glanced at the door again and again. The caffeine in the coke made my head buzz and my hands were starting to shake on their own. 

I wasn’t supposed to be out. I was scared about the unit test the next week, a unit test that ended up being cancelled because of a huge snow storm that hit the area, dumping thirty-three inches in thirty-six hours. That night I hadn’t known that. I only knew that being in the bar felt like a major transgression. 

But when I’d seen the flyer on campus, my heart had stalled in my chest. I stared at it, even brushed my fingers over it to make sure it was real. 

Jonah was playing. Right here in his hometown. I’d always been a fan, but I’d never been able to see him play, not solo, not even with his brothers. Now that he was this huge, massive star, the likelihood of me being able to see him, being able to afford the tickets to get close enough, was slim to none. Except he was back in town and playing a show at the Crown Tavern. The flyer said so. 

I’d promised myself that I’d study early the next morning. Then I’d shown up super early and claimed a bar stool, determined not to miss the chance to have Jonah King finally notice me. 

I was there so early that I noticed every single person who walked in after me.  People I recognized from around town and people I didn’t, even though I knew I should. 

I was there when the rest of the King Brothers showed up, three of the four of them. I ducked into my rum and coke and felt them file past rather than watch them waving to the crowd like the local heroes they were. Scowling Finn, solemn Beau...

And smiling Gabe. 

I remembered the smile, and more than that, I remembered the smile making me angry. Back when the brothers played together, there was a rivalry that was implied if never actually spoken. If you were a Jonah fan, you did not trust Gabe, and the feeling was mutual. There were message board clashes and I’d heard of fights breaking out at shows. Of course I’d grown up enough to see that was silly, but some deeply ingrained part of me, the obsessive fan that would never fully die, still held on to that anger. His smiling face, his deep laugh, his easy way with the townspeople who asked for autographs—they weren’t plusses in my book. They were all reasons to sneer.

Even as I felt those feelings, I was horrified by them. That the fangirl hive-mind was still controlling me was shocking. I’d always considered myself a rational girl who had her feet firmly on the ground. I had no actual reason to hate Gabe King, but I also knew I wasn’t there to see him. I was there for his brother. 

I looked at the door again. 

No Jonah.

Where was he?

People filled in the spaces around me. After nearly two hours of solitude, my space was overflowing with elbows and “excuse mes.” I held my ground. I was a rock in the middle of a fast-flowing river, clutching my drink possessively. Whether it was my third or my fourth by then, I couldn’t recall. The rum hit my bloodstream hard. I leaned back on the barstool, needing something to prop myself up on. The woodgrain was cool under my fingers. 

A gust of wind sent the front door slamming into the outside wall, and that was what started it all. 

“Holy shit. It’s getting bad out there.” A voice at my side. 

I’d turned, smiling, but the person was talking to someone over my head. There was a shout of laughter. Bodies jostled together. I felt warm and eager and happy and I wanted to be a part of it. I’d looked around, wanting to make eye contact with someone. I searched the room for someone to smile at and my eyes slid right onto Gabriel King’s face.

He was looking at me. Squinting, like he was trying to place me. I’d grown up next door to him, but this was the first time we were face to face in years. In the whole of the bar, he was the first person to look at me and notice I was there. The corner of his mouth turned up in a lazy half-smile.

The corner of my mouth tugged upward as he held my gaze. I wanted to believe it was the rum heating my cheeks like that. He was the wrong brother. That same indignant anger twisted in my belly, but it felt less like a reaction and more like a reflex because I liked smiling at him. And I liked the way he was looking at me, like I was something worth memorizing. I had dolled myself up for Jonah, but I wasn’t so un-girly not to hope that Gabe was noticing my seldom-worn makeup or the careful way I’d curled my hair. Or the way my new bra—not a sports bra, a real bra—made me look in my tank top. I’d barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror before leaving, but it was worth it to see the other side of his mouth turn up. He’d lifted his chin then, a silent invitation. 

But he was the wrong brother. I had to remember that.

With some difficulty I’d turned back to the door as a shout went up. It sounded like a fight was about to break out and I drunkenly mustered my training, wondering if I’d be called upon to nurse any head wounds tonight. 

Gabe’s voice rose above the shouts. “Drinks are on me!” he’d called, and everyone started cheering. 

Another rum and coke appeared and I was drunk enough to lunge at it and guzzle it down. It felt like I was moving even though I was sitting perfectly still. I hummed aloud, not worrying if anyone heard me. I smiled to myself and broke out laughing when someone next to me told a joke. My veins fizzed and my face hurt from smiling. Why didn’t I do this more often? Why wasn’t I a normal girl who went out and drank and laughed and had fun? Why couldn’t I be a person who did these things? Why couldn’t I have the guts to cut loose once in a while?

I wanted desperately to be the kind of girl that this night would come easily to. I’d come out to see Jonah and he still hadn’t shown up. I wanted to not read into that. I wanted to believe there was a simple explanation for why he was late to his one-night-only, special-for-the-town performance, and not that I had somehow fucked up. 

And just like that, I flipped from pleasantly drunk to something much darker. Paranoia licked at the edges of my mind, insisting that this, all of this, this whole night was just an elaborate trick. That the same tormentors who had hounded me growing up had organized this to mock me. That everyone here was pretending, and they’d all start laughing. 

I took a deep sip of my drink. No. That was insane. I wasn’t insane. I was a  regular girl who sometimes got really nervous about silly things. Silly. It was all silly. There was a reason Jonah was over an hour late and it had nothing to do with me. He probably got in an accident and was lying in a ditch somewhere. The roads had gotten super bad since I’d come here hours ago. 

But the idea of Jonah King in an accident was completely foreign to me. He was invincible. Untouchable. That couldn’t be it. No, there was some other reason. Was Gabe worried too? I turned and tried to find him in the ever-thickening crowd. I could see the sandy brown of his hair but I couldn’t see his face because he’d been swallowed up by the revelers. “Jesus, where is he?” came a loud, drunk voice. 

“Probably fucking his girl,” I heard the bartender snarl.

I froze.

Jonah? Was he talking about Jonah? 

More voices joined the conversation. I strained my ears to listen in. I even stopped humming. 

“He’s dating that girl,” someone else explained. “What’s her name? The kindergarten teacher.”

“Ruby Riley?” came the reply. “Oh, I like her. She’s sweet.”

My stomach dropped to my toes. 

Jonah was dating a local girl.

I knew he’d never end up with me. I’d always known I was too ordinary. Too literally the girl next door. But if he wasn’t going to be with me, I always hoped he’d be with some glamorous Hollywood Amazon. Some kind of otherworldly modelesque creature with high cheekbones and a smile that didn’t show so much gum.  Not Ruby. I’d met Ruby. Though I doubted she’d remember me, I knew her.

She was one of the nice ones. A nice normal girl. Which was something I knew that I would never be. 

I’d stood up with my heart pounding, intent on fleeing, but when I stood the sudden sway of the floor under my feet showed me how drunk I was. There was a burst of laughter when someone cut the sound on the sedate Christmas music that had been playing in the background and plugged in an old King Brothers song. I was suddenly enveloped in a sea of dancing bodies, my own body swaying to its own internal rhythm as I looked around, wide-eyed as Jonah’s recorded voice came on through the loud speaker.

Gabe was watching me again. 

The sound of the right brother’s voice crooning to me as the wrong brother looked me up and down was too much. Something inside of me squeezed tight and fell away. I started moving to him. 

Him.

The wrong brother. 

The crowd parted like the Red Sea and I walked right up to him. “Hey.” It was all my tongue could manage. 

He grinned that grin that started at one side of his mouth and spread across his whole face. I’d seen that grin so many times since then, but that night was the first time he’d let me experience it. It was like getting hugged by a smile. That night, his hazel eyes looked the exact same shade as his brother’s. That’s why I could pretend he was Jonah. 

I told myself that’s why I went to him, because I wanted to pretend he was his brother. I’d repeated that lie to myself many, many times after that night, but now I was finally realizing what I was pretty sure I’d known all along. It was a lie. I’d gone to Gabe believing that I wanted him to be like Jonah. But Jonah had never noticed me.

Gabe had. 

He’d grinned when he looked down at me. Maybe he was amused by how I was swaying to the music, the rum making my limbs floppy and my movements fluid. At some point, he must have put his hand on my waist but when I finally noticed the warmth of his fingers, they’d felt like they’d been there forever. I leaned in to the pressure of it, liking the way he was holding me up. 

We danced. Jonah’s voice filled my ears, but Gabe was filling every one of my other senses. 

“I shouldn’t have come out tonight!” I’d said. I wanted to hate myself now that I knew that there was no chance of catching Jonah’s eye that night, but it was hard to hate anything when I was swaying in Gabe’s arms. I tried to imagine Jonah holding me like this, but that wasn’t real. This was.

“I have to study,” I finished lamely, dredging up another reason to hate myself when I was feeling so damn good. 

He grinned again, and the last bit of hatred fell away. This was how it could happen. This was how I could be a normal girl. Swaying to the music with Gabe’s hands at my waist and his eyes on my face. I realized my eyes were half-slitted and opened them wide to peer up—way up—at him. 

Was his face always that close? I was staring at him, I knew it, but there was no way to stop myself. I’d never been this close to his face before, and even though it was so familiar, there were still things to discover. Like how his eyes actually had way more green in them than Jonah’s did. I liked them. I also liked the way his chest felt under my hands. Warm and real. I liked how he leaned down and rested his forehead against mine. “I feel like I should know your name,” he said. “We’ve met before, right?”

“Yeah.” I tossed my head, laughing. It was the rum that was making this so amusing. “A bunch of times.”

“Really?” He looked distressed. “I would have remembered you.”

This should have bothered me but it didn’t. If he didn’t know me, then I was free to be whoever I wanted. And I wanted to be the girl I was right now, with him. In the whole bar, he’d only danced with me. He was the wrong King Brother, but he felt pretty damn right under my hands. Real, while his brother was a fantasy. I was drunk and I wasn’t going to remember this in the morning. I wasn’t me tonight, so I did what I thought a regular girl would do.

“Kiss me!” I demanded, wrapping my arms around his neck and shouting up to him. 

He looked confused, but not disgusted. “What?” he said, but I could tell by the twinkle in his eye that he had heard me.

I pulled him down and pressed my lips to his. 

Everything went black. 

The music cut out as the lights went dark and everyone started screaming. The power had gone out and everyone went crazy, bumping into each other in the pitch dark, but the only thing I cared about was how Gabe’s lips felt on mine and how good it felt when he kissed me.

I’d been the one to yank him down and press my mouth to his, but he was the one who was kissing me.

And holy hell could he kiss. 

Everything slowed down. Time was like taffy getting stretched and pulled so that moments stretched out into infinity and I noticed every detail even as the rum made everything distorted. I knew his hands couldn’t really be everywhere at once, but that’s what it felt like. One hand ran through my hair as the other pressed against my back and still there was his hand caressing my face, tilting my head to deepen the kiss. In the darkness I swore I saw sparks but whether they were in the air or behind my eyes I couldn’t tell.

It was the darkness that made this okay. In the darkness I could pretend I was someone else. 

He made a sound in his throat, the kind of sound I’d never heard before but somehow my body knew to respond to. I arched into him, and the way my nipples ached as they pressed into his hard chest made me moan into his mouth. He answered my moan by sliding his fingers into my hair and tugging slightly, messing up my careful curls in a way I welcomed. I wanted to feel him tugging gently as he tilted my head back. I wanted his hand wandering down my side, brushing lightly but firmly against the side of my breast. I pressed into him, sliding my hands down his arms to feel the strength under his skin and he growled something into my neck. In the dark, people were bumping into us, jostling as they shouted for friends and yelled about the lights, but I couldn’t see anyone. The darkness was thick and total, which was why I let his lips wander down my neck. 

Every nerve in my body sang. I dug my toes into the soles of my shoes as his lips brushed up against my earlobe. I moaned and arched again and I heard his murmuring laugh and felt his thigh nudge its way between my legs. I gasped and moaned again as he pressed it upward, and he covered my mouth and swallowed my panting with a kiss as he snaked his hands down to my hips and pulled me firmly against his thigh.

My singing taut nerves frayed and I fell against him, gasping in disbelief at what was happening. A searing heat clawed its way through my core. My breath caught and I knew that I was seconds away from having an orgasm right there in the dark, just from the press of his thigh. It didn’t help that he cursed and murmured into my ear as my breath quickened. I turned my head up to stare at him, even though I couldn’t see him, and with some kind of sixth sense he found my mouth again.

A sudden red glow illuminated everything, like we’d wandered into a bordello. 

“Backup generator’s on!” came the shout, and there they were, everyone around us in the red glow of the exit lights.  

I stepped back and out of Gabe’s hands. His eyes were still closed, like he hadn’t realized I wasn’t kissing him anymore.  A soft smile was on his face. He looked...fucking beautiful, different and brand new to me. Something reached into my chest and squeezed my heart so tight I gasped.

He must’ve heard me, because he half-opened his eyes and the mortification of what I’d done flooded in. I was shocked at what I’d allowed to happen between us—the intimacy, the pleasure—and all because I’d wanted to pretend he was his brother. It was wrong. This was so wrong. 

I wasn’t this kind of girl at all. I couldn’t do this. Not to myself, and not to him. 

Before his eyes had opened fully, I turned and fled. I ran for the door and pushed it open, pushing hard against the whipping wind and driving snow. 

I thought I heard him shout when the door slammed. But how could he call for me if he didn’t know my name? If he had no idea who I was, then it could be like it had never happened at all. 

But it had happened. And now, somehow, it was happening again.

“It was you.” It wasn’t a question he was asking. It was a statement. He wasn’t unsure, he knew.

I let my fingers trail over his good arm and closed my eyes. I licked my lips. “It was me,” I confessed, and it was like the floodgates opened in my chest. A tightness I hadn’t known was there loosened and I gulped in my first full breath since I’d started working as his nurse. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, looking wounded and excited at the same time.

That night I’d wanted to pretend he was his brother, but now all I wanted was him. “I didn’t think you remembered, and I didn’t want things to get...weird.”

“But you remembered.”

I blinked. “Of course.”

He opened his eyes wide. For a moment I thought he might start yelling. I would have deserved it. By not telling him, I’d been lying all this while, and he’d have every right to be pissed about it. 

But then his smile, that slow, lazy smile that split his whole face into a manic grin, spread across his face. “Holy shit.” He brushed his hands up my arms, as if wanting to be sure I was real. “You looked so different that night.” He squinted. “But now I see it. Your eyes…fuck, I should have known you from the eyes, but...”

“But it was dark,” I said with a small laugh. The leftover adrenaline from my panic attack ebbed away, making me sleepy and sated. “It was dark pretty much the whole time.”