Page 39 of Reunited with the Hometown Hero
"'Stuck' is a harsh word." His eyes meet mine, something warm and challenging in their blue depths. "I prefer 'secluded opportunity.'"
A flush creeps up my neck that has nothing to do with the coffee. "Opportunity for what, exactly?"
"Conversation, for starters." He sits beside me, closer than strictly necessary. "We seem to do better when there's no audience. No history weighing us down."
"A small cabin is hardly free of history," I observe, but I don't move away.
"Maybe not." He cradles his mug between broad palms. "But it's a fresh context. Neutral ground."
I take another sip of coffee, using the moment to gather my thoughts. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Us." The simple word hangs in the air between us. "What happened. What might have happened. Where we go from here."
"Is there a 'here' to go from?" The question emerges softer than intended.
"I hope there is." His voice is low, deliberate. "I've thought about you every day for ten years. First with anger. Then regret. Eventually... just wondering."
"Wondering what?" My voice comes out softer than I expect.
"What if," he says simply. "What if you'd stayed. What if I'd followed? What if I'd slowed down, backed off when it mattered? What if we'd found a way?”
Heat coils low in my belly. "I've wondered, too," I admit. "Too many times."
His eyes don't waver. "And what did you figure out?"
"That we were too young." I pause. "Too reckless. We were playing with fire and thought we were fireproof."
He nods once, then shifts closer. His hand lifts—slow, measured—and brushes a damp strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers linger against my jaw, just enough to remind me how good it used to feel to be touched by him.
Noah's hand stays on my jaw, his thumb stroking the hinge just below my ear, a move so familiar it makes my breath hitch.
"I've gotta ask," he says quietly, voice gone rougher, deeper. "That fire between us... the way we used to be... is it still there for you?"
I should lie. Should protect myself. But his eyes are too honest for that, and I'm so tired of pretending.
"Yes."
The word hangs there, raw. My pulse pounds in my throat.
He exhales like I just answered a prayer he didn't dare speak. His thumb traces a slow arc below my ear, and I feel the tremor in his hand. Noah Morgan, who runs into burning buildings for a living, is shaking.
"Have you felt it with anyone else?" he asks, and his voice isn't jealous or hard. It's careful. Like he's bracing for the answer.
The question slices clean through my ribs.
My eyes close for one heartbeat. Then I open them and give him the truth.
"I tried," I whisper. "Different cities, different men. Some of them were kind. Smart. Attractive. Everything that should haveworked on paper." I swallow. "But none of them made me feel like I was the most important thing in the room. Like nothing else existed. None of them made me feel..." My voice falters. "Like you did. Like I could stop performing and just be. And then I saw you again, and I realized it was never going to be anyone else."
His hand stills against my jaw, and something shifts in his expression. Not triumph. Something closer to grief.
"Riley." Just my name, but the way he says it sounds like it costs him something.
"And you?" I whisper. "Did you try?"
His jaw ticks. He looks away for the first time, and I watch the muscle work beneath his skin.
"Yeah. I tried." A pause that lasts a decade. "Dated a few women. Good women. Patient. They deserved better than what I gave them, which was a man who kept comparing everyone to a girl who left him.” His throat bobs. "None of them felt like home. None of them made me feel like the best and worst version of myself at the same time."
