My god, I'd forgotten how tall you were.
The voice, smooth as aged whiskey and just as intoxicating, cut through the low hum of the brewery. It wasn't a question. It was a statement; a fact dropped between them like a gauntlet.
Killian looked up from his phone, his dark, sleepy eyes taking a moment to focus. There she was. Chloe. Leaned against the worn wooden pillar of his booth, a half-empty pint glass dangling from her fingers. The same girl who lived in the periphery of his high school memories, always just out of focus. The one he'd written a hundred awkward notes to and never sent. The one his friend, Mark, had asked to prom without breaking a sweat.
Seven years.
She was different. Softer somehow, yet more defined. The blonde hair was a shade darker, pulled into a messy knot that begged to be undone. Her dark eyes, always so bright and assessing, now held a deeper, more curious spark. She was still five-foot-six of effortless popularity, but it was tempered now, a quiet confidence that didn't need to shout.
He just stared, his usual silence stretching into a canyon between them. His mind, always so sharp in the quiet of his own head, was a blank, white noise.
She smiled, a slow, knowing curve of her lips. "And you still don't talk much, do you, Killian?"
He finally managed a low grunt, a sound that was more vibration than word. He shifted in his seat, the movement making the intricate black ink of his forearm tattoo twist over the tense muscle beneath. The raven's wing seemed to stretch. His own neck tattoo, a geometric pattern that disappeared into his collar, felt suddenly prominent, a stark contrast to the boy she might have remembered.
"I saw you from across the room," she continued, not waiting for an answer he wouldn't give. She slid into the booth opposite him without an invitation. Her knee brushed against his under the small table. A jolt, electric and hot, shot straight up his thigh. "Couldn't believe it was you. All... this." Her gaze did a slow, deliberate sweep of him, from his broad shoulders down to his hands wrapped around his own glass. It was a look that catalogued, that appreciated. A look he'd only ever dreamed of getting from her.
He finally found his voice, rough from disuse. "Chloe."
Her name was a prayer on his lips. A confession.
Her smile widened. "He speaks." She took a sip of her beer, her eyes never leaving his. "I heard you were back in town. Running your own tech firm or something. Not exactly the quiet kid in the computer lab anymore."
He just nodded, his tongue pressing unconsciously against the cold steel ball of his piercing. A nervous habit. A flash of metal she didn't miss.
Her eyebrows shot up. "No way." She leaned forward, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that skated over his skin. "You got your tongue pierced? The boy who blushed when I asked him for a pencil?"
The memory was mortifying. He'd dropped the entire pencil case. She'd laughed, a sweet sound that had haunted him for weeks. Now, he held her gaze, a spark of something defiant igniting in his quiet depth. He slowly, deliberately, ran the tip of his tongue over his lips.
Her breath hitched. The sound was unmistakable. A tiny, sharp inhalation that changed the entire atmosphere around them. The noise of the brewery faded into a distant buzz.
"Why are you here, Chloe?" he asked, his voice lower, rougher.
"I was getting a drink with a friend. She left." She shrugged, but the casual gesture was a lie. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her glass. Her gaze was fixed on his mouth. "And then I saw you. And I remembered... I always wondered, you know?"
