Ellie's boyfriend kissed her goodnight and disappeared without a trace, never to be seen again... until now.
***
A week before their high school graduation, Austin and Ellie parted ways with a goodnight kiss, thinking they'd be seeing each...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
There he was.
My breath caught in my throat as I took him in where he sat behind the computer. His dark hair was much shorter than I'd ever seen it before, but it suited him. So did the way he was dressed. The crisp white shirt was open at the neck and rolled up at the sleeves, which displayed his toned underarms and the ever existing tan. I watched in awe as the muscles flexed when he moved his fingers over the keyboard.
Fingers that had once touched me in the most intimate of places.
I bit down on my bottom lip to hold back a groan.
Damn. He was fine.
My mom definitely would've said he grew out of his puppy stage, and he certainly had. From his shoulders alone, I could tell he was a lot more built than he'd been in high school. There was no question that he was a man now.
My eyes moved back to his face, and I took in the broad forehead with the perfectly arched eyebrows, the masculine lines and the three-day scruff on his square jaw.
And damn, it made me weak at the knees.
He looked good. So damn good.
He'd been focused on the computer in front of him, but when the door closed behind me, his dark eyes snapped up and met mine from behind the tortoiseshell framed glasses perched on his nose. The air sizzled, and there was a moment -even if just a brief one- of recognition. He straightened up in his chair and the beginning of a smile spread across his lips. And my heart, my poor heart, jumped violently around inside my chest.
The pull, the same one that had always been there between us, that tugged us towards each other whenever we were in close proximity, was still there.
I took a step towards him and was greeted by a full-fledged Austin smile. The kind that hit me straight in the heart.
I was overcome by emotions. It was all so overwhelming. So raw... just so much, and all at once. I smiled back at him as tears of happiness flooded my eyes.
But the exhilarating moment was short-lived. It was like he caught himself, that was he was doing wasn't right and schooled his face back to neutral. But it was enough...
I had seen it and I knew.
I had been right this entire time.
This man in front of me, whose office sign said William Rodgers, was in fact Austin Johnson, my high school boyfriend.
No matter how hard he'd tried to deny it, or to avoid me, he couldn't do it any longer. I took a step closer to his desk and his eyes widened.
"Austin," I started, and my voice sounded both hoarse and on the verge of tears. My heart beat so fast I was worried I'd pass out.
And then, just like that, I didn't know what to do. I had imagined this moment so many times over the last month. What I would say and how I'd keep myself together and act cool and sophisticated.
