He should be a model.

Bren said his girlfriend described this guy that way. That he should be a model.

And my god, she wasn't wrong.

She was also pissed. At me.

Well, not so much me. More Bren. And rightfully so. If I'd known she didn't realize I was coming tonight, I would have never shown up. It was so long ago, that high school era when I hooked up with Bren and other guys just to dull some kind of pain. And sure, we had a connection, but it had nothing to do with sex or romance or anything like that.

I was so far from a threat to Madie and Bren's relationship. But of course, she couldn't see that right now; she just saw her boyfriend walking up with his ex-fuck-buddy. I didn't blame her. I shouldn't have let Bren set me up with his friend. I should have stayed home. Alone. Like I usually did to keep from hurting other people.

Although, then I wouldn't have met him.

Was it possible he was a model? I mean, it would explain how he'd afforded to send five freaking designer dresses to my door with a note to pick out the one I liked best for our date. Who does that? What kind of college kid does that?

The answer was pretty clear now that I was here: Beau Martin wasn't a kid. He might have a boyish charm to him, but the minute he looked me over and gave me a crooked grin from the top of the stairs, I knew.

Goddamnit.

"Hey," he'd murmured.

I'd taken a deep breath. Summoned a smile. I was a bit out of practice with dating.

Okay, it was possible this was my first date. Ever. Like officially, anyway.

"Hey. You must be Beau?"

His smile had grown.

"Damn right I am."

—

St. Paul's Catholic Church was a part of me. When I was fifteen, the woodwork absorbed my tears. The organ, my cries. When I was sixteen, I came to know my reflection through bits of stained glass. When I was seventeen, I found laughter between bake-offs in the basement kitchen. At eighteen, the peace that hymns spoke of...it started to slither into my soul.

At twenty-one, I was leaving.

Trauma and healing—this place held equal amounts of both for me. And now, after clearing my desk of the last picture of my family—mom, dad, and older brother—I didn't know what to feel. Bittersweet didn't cover it. A push and pull, maybe. A soul being torn in two.

Directions was completely unaffiliated with the Catholic church, but St. Paul's had housed it for years. The church was just a building. This organization, though, was the heart and soul. It had done what it could to piece me back together again after the accident. And when I graduated high school, I hadn't been able to move away from the one place where I felt whole. So I stayed. And I paid it forward. Slowly started running grief groups instead of crying in them. Well, maybe I still cried. Sometimes.

I felt a pull to stay, to work here. To run this place because I owed it so much. Even now. After six years, I wondered if I should just stay. For the kids who walked in those doors every night. But also for me.

It was impossible, though. I was at a point where I knew if I didn't cut ties with grief, it wouldn't cut ties with me. And here, in this church, I was breathing it. Maybe not always mine. But always someone's.

They never told me what that was going to be like.

Take Bren, for example.

I was there. The first time he opened up enough to talk about what had happened that night. His eyes shuttered, his jaw tense. Voice low as he described how his dad killed his mom. I'd never forgotten it. And sometimes, I felt it so intensely, even though it didn't happen to me. Even though I'd only ever lived it through his words.

They never told me what that was going to be like.

But there were rare occasions when it all washed away. Like when I got my hands on a canvas.

I stared down at my make-up kit that I had repurposed into a menagerie of art supplies. Make-up and art weren't all that different, but I had only ever been good at one of them. It was something I'd tried to bring here, hopeful that some of the kids would have found it as healing as I did. And a few of them did.

I wouldn't say that being an artist was a dream I was setting off to chase. At this point, it was more like...a lifeline. And a college degree was a safety net. And a new town was a new chance.

"I want to be pissed at you."

Dropping my art supplies into my box of packed belongings, I shook my head. A smile leaked onto my face before I glanced up.

"But you can't, right?"

Reese, an eighth-grader who I'd dubbed Bren Jr., lingered in the doorway of my office.

He wrinkled his nose. "Nah. I'd move outta Fresno if I could, too."

Sighing, I tried to resist the regret and sadness that seeped into my bones with one look into his dark eyes.

"If I could take ya with, I would."

He laughed, that little bit of cynicism taking over. "No, you wouldn't."

I sucked in a breath, as though shocked that he would even suggest that it was ridiculous to bring a fourteen-year-old to college.

"You have such little faith in me, Reese."

He shook his head, and shaggy too-long hair covered his gaze. "It isn't you. It's everything else."

Yeah, I felt that.

"Well, I'll be back to visit," I said with a sigh, hoisting my box of crap into my arms. "I expect you to keep your shit together until then."

His brows rose, disappearing into that mess on top of his head. Mischief brewed in the twitch of his lips, and I knew it had to do with the word shit.

Shit, indeed.

"Oooh."

I rolled my eyes, pushing past Reese.

"You sound like Bren, swearing and everything," he said with a laugh. "Tell him to come back and visit too, will ya?"

Nodding, I smiled. Bren had returned to work here over the summer before going back to OSU for the fall semester. Taken his experiences at Directions and paid it forward, like me. He was Reese's favorite.

"I will. I'm actually going to be living with his best friend."

Reese's face scrunched up. "Like with a guy?"

I rolled my eyes. "Guys can be best friends with girls, you know."

"Oh." Reese's expression relaxed. "So it's with a girl. Are you living with Madie?"

"No, that's his girlfriend. Guys can be best friends with girls who they aren't dating, Reese."

He looked skeptical. "I don't know about that. Have you been on TikTok?"

"Oh my god."

That app was like a middle schooler's bible.

Reese threw up his hands. "What?"

All I could do was shake my head in response.

"Fine." He shrugged. "So you're living with Bren's best friend who is a girl but isn't his girlfriend?"

I grimaced. "No, he's definitely a guy. Well, and a girl. It's kinda complicated and—" I bit my tongue. "Nevermind. Just...just go do your homework."

Reese laughed and threw me a wave after staring at me for a second, and then he was off.

And I was free. If free was even the right word to describe it.

Next stop: Oakland, California.

****

This was such a bad fucking idea.

I stared at the apartment. My new apartment.

It looked like a duplex—two units in one tall, skinny house. There was a front porch that drooped a little and white siding that could use a power wash, but beyond that, it charmed my pants off. Definitely nicer than what I had been expecting, at least from the outside. Beau was probably paying some base fee that he didn't tell Nessa about, which was why rent was so affordable.

It was so affordable. I'd never be here if I had been able to find a better deal somewhere else.

Even so, it was such a bad fucking idea. A selfish one, too.

The night I spent with Beau, our date...it was one of the best of my life. But I walked away from that—from him—the following morning for a reason. A reason that went far beyond what I'd told him, which was that I just wasn't looking for a guy, a boyfriend, a long-distance anything.

My phone buzzed in my lap, a perfectly timed reminder of what was at risk.

I ignored it, knowing it was Denver. I had nothing left to say. Nothing left to give. The only thing left to try was hiding. To blend in with the masses here at OSU, become forgettable, and move on. Maybe that made me a coward, but there was also a part of me that felt brave for even taking this step. This colossal step...away from him.

The only thing I regretted about this move, though, was that I couldn't do it by myself. If only I could leave Beau out of it. And Nessa and Bren and Madie. If only I didn't have to rely on their generosity.

There was no way he was honestly okay with this. Beau. I'd seen his face fall the morning I walked away. I saw his lips harden into a line, his firm nod of understanding. Like hell did he want to live with me after I'd rejected him.

Sighing, I picked up my phone and deleted the message from Denver before calling Bren. He picked up on the first ring, sounding concerned.

"Collins?"

There were a few shouts in the background, the clanging of pots, the whirring of machines.

"Bren? Where are you?"

"At work. Is everything okay?"

If there was anything I'd learned about Bren Hadaway in the past few months, it was that he excelled at worrying.

"Everything's fine." I sighed. "I'm outside the apartment and—"

"Oh, Beau should be there soon to let you in. He's here at The Grounds right now, but I think he's leaving in a minute."

Something twisted in my chest at the idea of seeing Beau Martin again. God, this truly was a terrible idea.

"Okay."

I barely pushed the word out. I didn't know what else to say, didn't know how to fight past the turmoil all balled up inside me.

Suddenly the background noise on the other side of the line vanished. There was a click of a door. White static noise reached my ears, interrupted only by Bren exhaling.

"What's wrong?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

"Nothing."

"Collins..."

Exasperation was mixed with impatience. But also kindness, because it was Bren.

"Are you—" Pausing, I took a moment to swallow. Compose myself even though he couldn't see me. "Are you sure that Beau and Nessa are okay with this?"

Bren was quiet for a few seconds.

"Beau says he's okay with it," he replied, taking out Nessa's name because we both knew we weren't talking about Nessa, his dry-humored friend that I'd only met once but had immediately liked. "He's nervous, though, so go easy on him."

"He's nervous?"

There was no way he was as nervous as I was. He was the innocent one in this situation, and I was the one who'd messed everything up and then come back to do it some more.

"Been fidgeting in the corner of the cafe all day."

I couldn't picture Beau being nervous. The night we met, he put me at ease within seconds, acting like nerves couldn't touch him.

"Why is he nervous?" I whispered.

Bren snorted. It was faint, but I heard it. "You tell me, Collins. Why is he nervous?"

I bit down on my lip. This wasn't the first time Bren had alluded to the fact that Beau hadn't breathed a word to his friends about our night together. And I hated that because it made me like him even more.

"I don't know."

"Sure you don't," Bren replied, and I imagined him shaking his head. With a sigh, he added, "He's okay with it. He promised me. We're all happy that you're joining us at OSU this semester, got it?"

He said it firmly. Intently. Giving me that tough love that I gave him sometimes and leaving no room for arguments. It reminded me of my dad.

Okay. Comparing my dad and Bren, the guy I used to fuck in high school, was weird. But still. It applied.

"Got it."

"Madie and I are closing tonight. But we'll come over later, okay?"

That warmth of familiarity invaded my bones a little bit when I thought of seeing them. I felt out of place sitting on this street in Oakland. This apartment that was about to be my home was foreign and strange and definitely a lot different from the studio I had in Fresno. But Madie was sweet, and knowing her had softened my hard exterior just a bit. And Bren was familiar. The thought of seeing them made something swell up in the corner of my eyes.

But I didn't want to be more of a burden than I already was.

"You don't have to, Bren."

He ignored me.

"I'll see you later."

Well then.

"And Beau will see you soon."

Bren hung up.

And I started to panic.

✨

a/n:

Let's see how this first Beau + Collins meet up is going to go! Any predictions?

Thoughts on Collins so far?

Thanks for reading!

xoxo