The airport was crowded, dozens of families waiting to greet their loved ones as they came through the security gate. It was easy to pick the Stones out of the crowd, though. Mr. and Mrs. Stone made beautiful children—tall, dark, and everything cliché romance novels describe as the perfect leading man—so they tended to stick out in a crowd. I stayed back against the far wall, careful to keep out of sight. I could have gone and joined them. Aiden had even invited me too after he realized I’d moved back to town. We ran into each other at the movie theater a week or so ago and he’d called when they had a definite time for Gentry’s return to the states. It was nice of him, but hanging around the Stone brothers was not something I was particularly excited to do right now. There was just too much water under that particular bridge.

I shouldn’t even be here. But I wanted to see him. A part of me thought that maybe if I saw him, if I could look him in the eye, it would be easier to put the past behind us. Maybe he’d finally grown up; maybe he’d become the man I needed him to be ten years ago. Or maybe he hadn’t and I’d finally have the proof. Maybe then I could move on with my life.

Gentry Stone. He’d been such a big part of my life for so long, it was crazy to be standing here, to realize it had been ten years. Ten years I’d been alone, struggling, unable to turn to him or to anyone else who should have been there, who should have been a part of what I was going through. We should have done it together, but he had to go and…

I didn’t even want to think about it. I’d wasted too much brain power on it over the past years. What was the point now?

We knew each other all our lives, it seems like. We were in all the same classes, sat near each other in most of them because our last names were fairly close together in the alphabet—Stone and Wilde—and our parents went to the same church, attended most of the same charity events, so we saw each other most weekends, too. But it wasn’t until junior high that he took notice of me. We started hanging out at parties, talking on the phone when we weren’t together. It was an off-and-on thing until I was fifteen. Then it got serious, as serious as a couple of teenagers could be. We went on actual dates, necked in the back of his dad’s car, and talked about college like it was the next logical step for the two of us to apply to all the same schools.

Looking back, I can see how juvenile it was. But it seemed so serious then, like the world turning on its axis depended on whether or not Gentry Stone loved me. Getting him to say the words was impossible, but he knew how to show it. I never doubted it all through high school and college—we did end up going to the same school. We even rented an apartment together our senior year, though neither of our parents ever knew that little tidbit.

After college, we came back to Memphis and things changed, subtly at first. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for us to announce our engagement, always checking out my left ring finger before greeting us at get togethers. And I could understand why, I supposed. We both had good jobs. Gentry worked for a financial broker making more money than most of our college classmates were making straight out of school and I worked for my dad at his real estate company. I had a comfortable apartment, he had a condo downtown and a nice car. We spent most of our free time together, still laughed together, still looked at each other like we’d only just discovered one another. Things were good.

I was just as shocked as everyone else when it fell apart, when Gentry announced his intention to join the Air Force and disappear for what turned out to be the next ten years. The only other person more shocked than I was, I think, was Remy Stone, because Bo, Gentry’s best friend, up and enlisted with him. No, I take that back. I was definitely more shocked than Remy. She didn’t have a commitment from Bo at the time. And she was barely out of high school. Me? I was more than committed.

I was wearing his grandmother’s engagement ring before I threw it at him the night he shattered everything.

He destroyed me. I left Memphis, unable to face the life we were supposed to have together without him. I worked in Jacksonville for a while, then moved up to Nashville. I was an executive assistant—a glorified secretary—to the owner of a small recording label there. It was a good experience and I met a lot of interesting people. I actually loved my job, loved the small circle of friends I was able to develop up there. I was even thinking about investing in a business of my own there toward the end. But then I came home for a visit and realized my dad’s Alzheimer’s had progressed faster than predicted. He could no longer run the business. Hell, he couldn’t even remember how to get to the office, couldn’t cook his own meals, couldn’t get dressed most of the time without making some colossal mistake.

It was time to come home.

I’ve been back for four months and he picks now to come back. I’d known we might run into each other at some point, but a part of me was kind of hoping he’d chosen the Air Force as a career. I’d heard, of course, about his parents passing and the business Jack had convinced all his siblings to go into with him. But there was still that little bit of hope that this day would never come—or that it would come quickly.

I still wasn’t sure which I preferred: dealing with the past or continuing to keep it buried. But, again, I was in Memphis now. Despite the fact that it was a fairly large city, my part of it was pretty small. People would start putting two and two together. Some secrets you just can’t keep.

And there he was, coming through the security doors, that familiar grin on his handsome face.

The Stone brothers all look alike. All of them are tall, over six feet, all of them with deep, dark blue eyes. All of them have the same dark hair, most wearing it short and neat. They all have broad shoulders, strong jaws, and the same narrow, patrician nose. But I always thought Gentry wore all that better than the others. Gentry had a sort of easy grace and southern charm that made everyone around him feel at ease no matter what was happening. And that just seemed to make him so much more handsome, so much more perfect in a masculine sort of way.

It was there now, that charm in his smile, that grace in the way he was strolling toward his waiting family. The sound of his laughter was so intensely familiar that it sent shivers down my spine. He was clearly so happy to be home, happy to see Jack and Brent and Bo and Aiden. Even Remy, the little sister who’d been such a pest when we were younger. Something about that pleased me just as strongly as it gave birth to this deep jealousy that took me by surprise with its sudden barbed attack.

They stood there a long time, Gentry moving from one person to another, laughter and words exchanged as others, the families around them, slowly began to disperse. I pushed away from the wall, my feet pointed toward him even as my head was telling me to get the hell out of there. I’d seen him and I could see he was different, but still so much the same. My chest hurt just looking at him, at the lines on his face that were new, the lines that were so much the same that I could still feel them under my fingertips.

Here was the love of my life and I’d lost him so long ago that it shouldn’t be a thing anymore. He should have transformed into a sweet memory, a touch of nostalgia from a childhood quickly fading in my thoughts. But he wasn’t. Seeing him now delivered the same punch that seeing him every evening all those years ago had.

I wanted to jump into his arms, wanted to feel his hands on my body, taste his kiss on my lips. But he wasn’t mine anymore.

As if to punctuate that fact, a slight woman with thin blond hair stepped away from the wall where she’d blended into the wallpaper until this moment. She touched Gentry’s arm and he immediately turned to her, his charming grin turning into something else, something filled with deeply-felt affection. He drew her close to his side and turned to his brothers.

I didn’t hear the words, but I didn’t need to. All I needed was to see him hold up her left hand to display a simple diamond solitaire that rested on her ring finger.

At least it wasn’t his grandmother’s ring.

I turned away. What more proof did I need? Gentry had moved on. It was time I did the same.