Rewind It Back (Windy City #5)

by Liz Tomforde

Here’s to the 10 characters, 5 couples, 3 teams, 2 sets of siblings, and 1 amazing friend group that changed my life. This one is dedicated to you, the readers. Thank you for hanging out in Chicago with me.

“Where did you take her?” “Sullivan’s on Eighth.” Ryan stiffens in his seat and a playful smile tilts on Indy’s mouth. “Oh, I love that place. I’ve been there on a da—” “Watch it, Blue,” he says gruffly, pulling her onto his lap.

I let them believe that I’m some hopeless idiot with absolutely no game because that seems easier to explain than the fact that I’m twenty-seven years old and have never once hooked up with someone that I didn’t have a deep connection with.

I’m a slow burner. Always have been. Shit, I didn’t lose my virginity until I was nineteen and even then, it was to a girl who I had known since I was twelve.

Wren has been my neighbor for years. Her brother bought the house directly next to mine so she had a place to live while in school, and we’ve been good friends since.

Wren’s older brother, Cruz Wilder, is a big-name basketball player who bought the place next to mine so his sister could live rent-free during school.

Don’t get me wrong, Wren is great, but I’ve never looked at her as more than a friend, and I know she feels the same way about me. I have a lot of friends who are women and she’s one of them.

“Are you married?” He does that annoying thing again where he doesn’t answer me, and now I realize that shy, nervous energy from earlier was because he was out here going on a date with someone who isn’t his wife.

The player slumps to the ice, giving me a perfect view of the man who delivered the blow, only to find him. Rio DeLuca. Number thirty-eight glares down at his opponent as the crowd bangs their fists against the barrier, shaking the glass to celebrate the big hit. He moves to skate away, but as he shifts his weight on his blades, his eyes flit upward. To me. He freezes in place, and I watch as both recognition and disbelief dawn on him. His lips slightly part, those green eyes tracking every inch of my face, and I try to look away, but I can’t. I’m too locked in, too focused on the man in front of me who is hardly recognizable from the boy I once knew.

My heart flutters like it used to before I remember everything that happened. Because I may have loved Rio DeLuca once, but I don’t anymore.

“Hi.” She grins at me. “I’m Hallie Hart.” Luke groans. “You don’t have to tell everyone your first and last name.” She simply shrugs, completely unbothered. “I like it.” Luke rolls his eyes at his sister. “I’m Rio DeLuca,” I say, giving her my last name too. She smiles bigger.

“I’m eleven. Today.” “It’s your birthday?” “Yep. March eighth. When is your birthday?” “August third.”

I point to the window on my house that faces hers and shares a roof. “That one is my room.”

“I pick a song when something cool or important happens so I can remember it. Then when I want to relive a moment, I rewind it back and start the song from the beginning.”

I’ve thought about Hallie Hart more times over the last six years than I’ll ever admit, and yeah, there’s been a few instances where I let myself believe I saw her. Where I mistook someone else for her, as if my imagination was playing tricks on me. Tonight though, I’m positive that was her.

A dark green Nissan Altima parks in front of my neighbor’s house. It’s the exact same car that parked in front of my neighbor’s house the day the Harts moved next door to my family home in Boston. Same make. Same model. Same year.

It may have been six years ago, but I haven’t forgotten what happened.

“I live here, Hallie. So again, what are you doing here?” Her eyes go impossibly wide as she takes a step back. “But I live here.” “No, you don’t? Wren doesn’t—” Her new roommate.

Wait. No, she can’t be. Everything clicks. The roommate. The designer. Hallie always wanted to be an interior designer. She was going to school for it the last time we saw one another.

That thing I’ve been looking for since I moved to Chicago? That connection? That one person some search their entire lives to find? I had already found her when I was twelve years old.

“The guy you were with tonight.” I slowly shift back to face her. “Who was he?” The set in her jaw is evident even from here. “Not your job to worry about.” Nodding, I turn back to my house, hands casually tucked in my pockets as I continue to walk. With my back to her, I make sure my words are loud enough for her to hear them. “Lose him.”

I’ve always been attracted to Rio DeLuca, and it pisses me off that nothing has changed.

The silence is screaming that there’s a story here and Zanders picks up on it when he asks, “And who is this?” in a far too amused tone. “No one,” I say at the same time Rio says, “Hallie.”

Okay, if I could scream without causing our families to stare at me, I totally would. I love when he calls me Hal. It’s like a secret only he and I have.

“Well, maybe that was the first time you were told, but I know for a fact it wasn’t the first time someone liked you.”

Luke was a good friend growing up. Sure, he was a dick to his sister when we were younger, but he grew out of that and became the quintessential protective older sibling.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem fazed, which means she has no idea that I almost just referred to her as “baby” like I used to when we were younger. Sometimes I’d use it in normal, everyday conversation. Sometimes through text. Always when our clothes were off.

“Good night, friend.” He grimaces. “Yep. Don’t love that.”

As he pushes off the door, letting me past him, his flannel shirt opens, allowing me to catch a peek of black ink sprawling over part of the left side of his chest and ribs. Now, there’s something I haven’t seen before.

“Hello?” he asks, but they’re all looking right past him to me. “Okay, well fuck me, I guess. Hallie, this is Stevie, Indy, Miller, and Kennedy.” He gestures to each one as he says their names. “Everyone, this is Hallie. But I have a feeling you all already know that and she’s exactly why you’re here.”

“Yeah, well you’re not his, so tell him to keep his hands to himself too.” Her eyes drop to my mouth. “I’m not yours either.” We’ll see.

“You sure look good in my shirt for not being mine.” “Get fucked, DeLuca.” I smile as I open the door. “Would love to. You just let me know when and where, Hart.”

Her eyes are glued on my jersey sitting in my lap. “I’ve never asked you why you picked that number in the first place. You’ve been number eighty-three for as long as I’ve known you.” I chuckle. “Well, I was ten years old when I got to choose my number for the first time, and I didn’t know what to choose, so I picked my favorite day. I thought I was so cool picking my birthday. Eighty-three. August third. It’s stuck ever since. Can’t imagine having a different number now.”

“Tay,” Zanders says to his daughter on my hip. “What do you think? Do you think Uncle Rio can do this?” Taylor nods enthusiastically before resting her head on my shoulder, snuggling close, and wrapping her arms around my neck. I immediately close my eyes in defeat. Goddammit, these kids.

Sarah is Luke’s wife. She’s sweet, a great mom to my nephew, and a wonderful partner for my brother. She’s also a big reason why Luke offered to move back to Minnesota and take over care for my dad last year.

“Why do I need to pick a song?” she asks. It starts playing through the boombox speakers and I can’t help but laugh at the lack of subtlety in her song choice. “Because I’m going to kiss you and when we listen to next year’s playlist, I want this song to be on there so we can rewind it back however many times we want to and remember this.”

But I’ve never been anyone but myself with Hallie. Smooth, awkward, it didn’t matter. That’s part of the beauty of us growing up together, I guess. We’ve always known exactly who the other is. There was no need to try to be someone we weren’t.

“You single, Hal?” I finally give him the long-awaited answer, nodding to tell him yes. “Good.” He takes a slow predatorial step towards me, tone sharp and leaving no room for question. “Because we aren’t fucking friends.”

His responding groan vibrates against my body and God, it just feels right. No awkwardness, no figuring it out tentatively, because I’ve been kissing this boy since I was sixteen. We were the ones who taught each other how to do it. It’s second nature at this point.

It’s not only my parents’ opinions that feel too important, but also my parents’ mistakes. The two people who shaped my entire belief system, who shaped the way I view love, who I mirrored my own relationship off of, divorced six years ago and haven’t spoken since.

“Did you know that all my friends have gotten to have their person on the road with them at some point? Stevie used to travel with our team as a flight attendant. That’s how she and Zee met. Indy and Ryan met up when their team travel schedules overlapped. Miller spent a whole summer traveling with Kai and Max. And Kennedy, well she’s the doctor for Isaiah’s team, so they’re always together. After all this time, I just wanted my turn.”

He drops his head to my chest, pausing his movements before he cups my face and leans up to kiss me again. Slowly. Deeply. Desperately. “Say it again,” he pleads. My lips turn up in a smile against his. “I missed you.”

“You know I don’t work that way. I can’t do one without the other.” Meaning he can’t do sex without the commitment.

“We’ll have every birthday after college though. Every March eighth. It’s not our last.” He studies me cautiously.

38!

God, the moaning alone is a soundtrack I could come to.

“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.”

Mirroring his confidence, I take another step towards him. “Does that feel good?” He chuckles this disbelieving laugh. “You have no idea. And fuck, please keep talking. Hearing your voice is going to make me come.” Okay. This is wildly hot, talking him 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.

The only other thing in this box is an old piece of embroidery thread, which doesn’t really make sense. I pull it out to take a closer look. 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.

I never forgot him. I never forgot us. And apparently, neither did he.