It was Maxon pressing his chest against my back.
“Love?” he murmured. ”I love you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to sob. Trying not to scream. Trying not to break right there.
I used to think our story began the day Lewis told me he loved me. But the truth was… it began long before that.
We were childhood friends—me and the twin boys, Lewis and Maxon—because our parents were inseparable. Business partners. Vacation buddies. The type of adults who talked about raising their kids side-by-side the way other people talked about backyard gardens.
I practically grew up at their beach house.
I remembered those summers so clearly it hurt. Lewis smiling shyly at me, always the gentler twin, offering me seashells as if they were precious diamonds. Maxon chasing us with water balloons, loud, stubborn, and cocky even at ten.
The adults used to tease us constantly.
“She will marry one of those twin boys someday,” they’d laugh.