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“Hallie,” Luke says with a knock. “Are you asleep already?” Rio’s attention whips back in my direction and his panic is so evident. He throws himself off me, frantically grabbing his shirt from the floor and slipping it over his head. I’m trying my hardest not to laugh as he attempts to shove his feet back into his shoes, tripping himself up and nearly falling over. Luke knocks again and Rio bolts to the window.
“A little bit, but I’m not scared for us. I’m scared of how much I’m going to miss you, and I’m scared about trying to focus on hockey when I know I’m going to be thinking of home. But you and me, Hal? There’s nothing to be scared about when it comes to us.”
“I wish you could see inside my head, Hal. You’d see the picture I’ve got painted of our future, and every part of it revolves around you, okay?” With his knuckle, he urges my chin up so I look at him. “It’s you and me. I promise.”
I may cringe a bit when we listen to it together later and he realizes that every single song is from a moment with him, but that’s okay. He was a part of all my best memories this year, just like he is most years. Any memories I wish I could rewind and relive are all the ones he and I have had over the years, growing up together. Learning each other. Falling for each other.
I drop by the design firm to say hi if I’m downtown after practice or before a game because, yeah, I want to see her. I just want to be around her. Everything quiets when she’s around. These past few weeks have served as a reminder that we’re still so good together. That we’re the same two people who were in love once. But no, I haven’t pushed her or asked her to give us another try. I’ve simply been me, allowing her to remember who I am.
And she’s not just watching me like she’s wondering what I’m doing out here, but she’s watching me as if she’s cataloging every new muscle I’ve earned since she last saw me naked. She’s not even trying to be subtle about it and I fucking love that.
I know I shouldn’t want to spend time with him. I want to be petty. I want to hold a grudge the way I so easily did for the past six years. But the more time I spend with him, the more the armor cracks.
The highlights of my days revolve around him lately. Him popping into my work or leaving a coffee for me on my doorstep. Little moments that tell me he’s thinking of me.
I’m frozen in place. Entirely fucking cemented right outside of his bathroom, listening to him get himself off while saying my name.
“Hallie.” His voice is muffled from the water still, but it’s projected for me to hear. “If you’re going to stand out there and listen, you may as well come in and watch. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”
“It is. I’m not fucking you. I’m just fucking my fist thinking of you.”
“Fuck, Hallie, keep looking at me like that.” I step fully into the bathroom, leaving the doorway. “Like what?” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Like you wish it was your mouth getting me off and not my hand.”
“I’m so fucking close, baby. Please keep talking. Please keep looking at me.” His strokes are short and quick, and his eyes never leave me. I step closer to the glass enclosure. “I really want you to come.” “Yeah?”
“Are you still thinking about me?” “I’m always thinking about you, Hallie.”
It’s nice to know that after all these years, I still have that effect on him. I can still make him come, and I didn’t even touch him myself.
“Did you get turned on watching me?” “You know I did.” There’s that sly smile again. “Like you said, I owe you one. Give me a call later if you need me to walk you through it.”
The box is filled with every mixtape and CD I made for him over the years, each given to him on my birthday. All of them, from ages eleven to nineteen, which include the two I gave him before we started meeting up on the roof, they’re all in here. And it’s evident they’ve been played endlessly over the years. They’re each in their individual cases, which are all cracked in one place or another. Some of the hinges are broken from overuse, from being opened and closed too many times. It suddenly feels impossible to breathe. I cannot believe he kept these.
It’s almost unrecognizable, tattered, discolored, and worn. It takes a moment until it clicks, for me to realize what this is. It’s that old friendship bracelet I made him on my thirteenth birthday. The one he wore on his wrist and never took off until it withered away and fell off on its own sometime after he had left for college.
All my best memories. He kept them. He listens to them still.
I never forgot him. I never forgot us. And apparently, neither did he.
When I think of sex, I think of Hallie. She’s the only name that pops into my mind. Her face, her body, and her voice are the only things I visualize. She was my first. She taught me how to do it. We learned together by learning each other. Six years later, I think it’s safe to assume there will never come a day that I don’t think of Hallie Hart when I think of sex. God, I miss her.
I want her back, and I’m done lying about it. To her. To myself.
I’ve never forgotten this girl, not even for a second, and it’s about time she knows that.
“If I were there, I’d kneel behind you, wrap an arm around your waist and pull your back to my chest. I’d let you feel how hard my cock is when it slides against your ass, then I’d replace your fingers with my own and make you look down between your legs to watch how well I still know your body.”
“You still have feelings for her, don’t you?” I exhale a long breath. “Never stopped.”
“Thank you for being here.” He kisses me one more time. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
“I don’t need to know what’s going on to know that she needs someone here for her.”
“No, I mean you’re both very lucky. To have found each other again. Don’t throw it away this time.”
“I won’t. I’m trying not to, at least. Hallie’s not ready to forgive me, which I understand. I have no issue being patient and trying to make up for the years we missed.”
“But I’ve always protected you. At least I tried to, and that hasn’t changed.”
“You held your parents’ relationship on a pedestal as this ideal picture of what love should look like, but I didn’t view my parents’ relationship that way.” I take his face in my hands, making sure his attention is on me. “That’s how I viewed ours.”
“You have every right to hate me, Hal. You have every right to believe that I forgot about you, but I didn’t. Not one day went by that I didn’t think of you. You were everywhere. In the music I listened to. In the house I live in. I tried to compare every single person I met to you, but there was no comparison. And I will spend the rest of my life regretting leaving you behind all those years ago.”
“This is why,” he says. “I didn’t have any other way to play the tapes and CDs, and not playing them wasn’t an option for me. For years, I’ve taken this fucking boombox everywhere with me. Held on to it, like if I could keep rewinding and replaying these moments we had, then maybe it wasn’t over.” He pulls a random cassette tape out of the box, running his thumb over the inked heart. “I don’t want it to be over, Hallie.”
“Well, I know that technically, these are your best memories, but they’re mine too. Meeting on that roof, listening to music. Getting the opportunity to fall in love with you is my best memory, and all I can do is hope that one day you’ll let me do it again.”
“I told him. I couldn’t hide it anymore, Hal. This year was fucking miserable without you, and I can’t do another that way. You were on my mind practically every minute of every day. I wanted to fly you out to Michigan so many times. I needed to see you, but I couldn’t because your family didn’t know. I wanted to—”
“You love me?” “Well, yeah.” He softens with a smile. “Isn’t that obvious?” “You don’t think you should’ve told me before you told my brother?” “Shit.” Realization dawns on his handsome but bruised face. “I didn’t think of it like that. I mean, I’ve loved you since I was twelve. I thought that was another one of those unspoken things.”
“I love you, Hallie Hart. I am in love with you, though I hope that doesn’t come as a surprise. Because if so, I’ve been doing something wrong all these years.”
“I’m glad it’s you.” He breathes a small laugh before pressing his smiling lips to mine. “It’s always been you, Hallie.”
“I know you all thought I had literally no game, and that’s why I had never been with anyone the whole time I’ve lived here. But the reality is, I just wasn’t interested. I wanted to be. I really wanted to prove myself right that Hallie wasn’t the one, but every person I met further confirmed that she was.”
“Well, I didn’t tell you a lot of things, but the biggest one is that even though I am mad at myself, I am so proud of you.”
“And those mistakes changed us in certain ways, but in others, we’ve remained the exact same. It wouldn’t be our story if we ignored all the bad parts, so I’m not going to. I’m not going to run away because where could I go? Hallie, you’re in here.” I tap my chest. “Regardless of the years we spent apart, you’re still in here.”
“The other night when I said I hoped that one day you’d let me fall in love with you again, what I meant to say was that I hope to earn the chance to fall in love with you again. And that’s not going to happen if I’m too busy regretting the past. So, yes. I made the biggest mistake of my life, and it’s probably going to take some time to fully forgive myself for it, but I don’t want to waste that time without you.”
“It’s always been you, Hallie, and I think we both know it.”
“So, yeah…” I stumble. “That’s my big speech.” “Are you done?” “I’m done.” “Then you should probably kiss me now. We already lost six years. I don’t feel like wasting any more time.” I quickly agree. “I probably should.” Smiling, I lean down and press my mouth to hers and it feels like the biggest sigh of relief, the way our bodies melt into one another. She wraps her arms around my neck, parting her lips and letting me kiss her deeper, harder, more urgently.
“Rio.” Her eyes bounce between mine. “You should know. It’s always been you too.”
“I know you have a freckle right here.” He softly strokes that same spot. “That I loved to lick before I tasted the rest of you.”
“So yes, baby, I remember everything. Including all my favorite ways to make you come.” He runs his thumb over the lace of my bra. “I was staring because I can’t get over how innocent you look in white when we both know that you’re not.”
I can’t. I’m speechless. Because how am I supposed to speak when my eyes are glued to what is essentially my last name, tattooed as a heart, inked over his actual heart?
“In case you’re still wondering if I ever forgot about you,” he says softly, “I got this three years ago. Three years after I saw you last.”
“Because it’s always been us.” With his knuckle, he tilts my chin up so I look at him. “Even when I thought I didn’t want it to be, I knew it was us. I sat there getting this permanently inked onto my skin, trying to convince myself I was only getting it as a reminder that love existed when the whole fucking time, I knew it only existed with you.”
