Page 33 of Set It Right
But he wasn’t dancing on his own.
He had Zara by the hands, spinning her out and back in, his laughter carrying as she stumbled into him, breathless and smiling. She laughed too, hair slipping loose from behind her ear, her free hand bracing against his chest as they found the rhythm together.
My chest tightened.
“Isn’t that Zara?” Caleb said.
I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t pull my eyes away.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice rough, unfamiliar even to me. “That’s her.”
“How’s that going?”
I shrugged.
Remi glanced back at Zara, then to me and Caleb. “Is there a story there?”
He’d left town before Zara had started spending her summers here, so he’d missed…everything. Not that he would have noticed a little girl ten years younger than him.
“She was a childhood friend,” I said. “Her parents went to college with ours. She spent a lot of summers on the ranch.”
Caleb filled in the details I hadn’t. “She was Mac’s first crush. Kid was so smitten he didn’t know what to do with himself.”
The first few summers, that was true—a crush that faded when summer ended and picked right back up when it returned. Describing what came later that way, however, would have been a lie.
But I didn’t need to get into any of that. Not now…or ever. What good would it do?
“We were friends for a long time, then we weren’t.”
“She got married,” Caleb supplied.
Remi raised a brow. “Still married?”
“Nope,” Caleb uttered. “Free as a bird, as far as I know. Spending her whole summer on the ranch, just like old times.” He eyed me like he could see through me. “Is it, Mac? Like old times?”
I swallowed hard just to sound normal. “No, Cay. It’s not like old times at all.”
Six Years Ago…
“Hey, man. I’m Jackson.”
I took his offered hand, shaking it. “Hey. Cormac. Nice to meet you.” I moved back from the door, letting him into the apartment. “Do you need help?”
He dropped an overfilled duffel bag at his feet. “Nah. My brothers will be by with the rest of my stuff later. It’s not much, though.” He grimaced. “Sorry, I’m not bringing anything to the table. I can go out and buy whatever we need…”
“It’s cool. I think we’ve got it covered. Let me show you your room.”
This wasn’t how I pictured my junior year of college starting. Tim, Rye, and I were supposed to be sharing this apartment—guys I’d known since we’d all been wet-behind-the-ears freshmen. Then Rye had to do abysmally his last two semesters and get kicked out of school, leaving Tim and me on the hook for a three-bedroom apartment.
That we’d found Jackson had been dumb luck. He’d needed a place to live this year, and we’d needed a third roommate. Kismet. I didn’t know the guy, but Tim had met him while I’d been in Wyoming for the summer. He’d declared him cool, so I’d gone with it.
So far, so good.
He dumped his duffel on the stripped mattress and looked around the room. “It’ll do.”
I chuckled. “It’s not fancy, but anything’s better than a dorm, right?”
“No question.”
