Page 113 of The Long Way Home
We both jump up, throwing the blanket aside, hearts racing. A racoon comes directly towards us on some sort of suicide mission it seems. The firelight flickers wildly as we run, tripping over roots, stumbling toward the cabin. Rachel’s shriek turns into laughter mid-run, high and breathless. I grab her hand just to keep from colliding.
“Hold on!” I grab her hand to steady us, and she yanks it away, squealing, laughter cutting through the chaos.
By the time we hit the porch, panting, wild-eyed, we’re bent over with laughter, tears streaking our faces.
She gasps, trying to catch her breath. “We should go in before that thing kills us.”
I grin, leaning close. “Yeah it’s probably best we call it a night.”
She opens the door into the house, and I follow, the warm light spilling over us like a shield against the dark outside. It settles on her, washes over me, and for a second, I just watch her move through the room, thinking how ordinary everything looks. And how wrong that is, because nothing about her has ever been ordinary to me.
I am going to tell her. I’ve decided. No more pretending. No more holding back. But I have to be careful. I have to talk to Josh first. He needs to know my intentions. I need him to understandthat I’m serious, that I’m willing to risk everything. I have to make sure I’m not walking into this blind, that I’m not just chasing a moment I’ll regret.
I have to be ready for the possibility that it could all go wrong, that the one person I’ve been closest to for years might pull away. I might lose her. I might lose the easiest, safest friendship I’ve ever had. I could push her away and never be able to bring her back.
But even knowing that, even feeling the risk in my bones, I can’t stop the pull. I’ve tried to shove it down, to pretend my heart doesn’t leap every time she laughs at something stupid I said. But I feel it. All of it. And I know, deep down, I won’t stop feeling it.
I am going to tell her everything.
Chapter Twenty-five
RACHEL
Now
What is that sound?
The blare of Rhett’s alarm cuts through the quiet like a jagged blade, shattering the fragile edges of sleep. God, it’s too loud. It has got to be too early for this. Make it stop. He needs to turn it off.
His arm drapes across my waist, anchoring me in a way that defies reason. His chest presses into my back. My body wants to melt into him, wants to sink into this tether we’ve made, the quiet intimacy that bloomed in the small hours after midnight. When words weren’t necessary, and nothing existed outside the warmth between us.
We didn’t spend much of last night talking, or at least talking about what this all means. The only real words we exchanged came during the fight that brought us here, unraveling us until we were tangled together in my bed.
After a decade of wanting him in ways I never thought possible, words felt redundant. Touch said everything. His hands knew me better than anyone ever could, tracing the contours of me as if he’d studied me. His mouth found mine, speaking my name with a reverence that felt like ownership and devotion all at once. He was claiming me in the dark, making me his in a way that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with inevitability.
I let him touch every part of me because I wanted it. Because I had been waiting for it, for him, for this moment, for years. I drank in every second, savoring the way his hands molded to me. I remember every inch of him. The curve of his shoulders, the heat of his chest against mine, the way his fingers curled around my thigh with a careful, possessive tenderness. I didn’t care to discuss logistics then. But now, in the harsh light of the morning, my reality crashes in.
Friendsdon’t do this.
My house.
My bed.
My dead brother’s best friend.
My best friend.
Naked Rhett.
Oh God.
We crossed a line and not a small one. A massive, blinding, no-going-back kind of line. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping the weight of him will keep me anchored while my heart spirals, thudding in a slow, nauseating rhythm. His arm is still draped over me. As if the world didn’t tilt on its axis sometime before dawn.
But it has. And the truth settles in, heavy and inescapable.
What does this mean now?
Lying here in the quiet afterward, my thoughts spin too fast to land anywhere solid. We didn’t just blur a boundary. We leveledit. Years of friendship. The comfort of knowing exactly where we stood. The careful, unspoken rules we lived by. All of it is gone now, rewritten in a single night of tangled limbs, half-whispered truths, and touches I am not sure I can survive missing.
