Just One Bed, Chapter One

Lanie and Theo, 12 years later...

Hopefully, you read and enjoyed last week’s Prologue, which introduces Lane and Theo when they were 16 and 18.

Flash forward twelve years later.

Yeah, 12.

When they were 20 and 22, something majorly embarrassing happened (for Lane), and when they reconnect In Chapter One, it’s been eight years, but twelve years since the events in the Prologue.

Got that?

Good. Because here comes the accidental reunion, and it’s a doozy :P .

Just One Bed

She's a professional avoider. He's a professional adventurer. She plans escape routes. He plans grand gestures. She's been running for eight years. He's about to cut off all her exits.

One double-booked hotel room.

One ridiculously undersized bed.

One giant panic attack.

This is the reunion Lanie Bennett has been avoiding for exactly eight years, two months, and seventeen tequila-free days.

Lanie's life was going perfectly according to plan: invisible girl becomes tech wunderkind, former ugly duckling morphs into moderately put-together adult, and her cat Skunk only shows his butthole to important investors on Zoom calls 38 percent of the time.

The one glitch in her success algorithm? Walking into her hotel room at the most important work conference of her life to find Theo Lane all moved in, toothbrush in hand, staring at her with more charm than he has a right to possess.

Her brother's best friend.

The guy next door.

Her teenage crush.

And the recipient of her most mortifying tipsy-fueled confession.

Her past has caught up to her, and he's wearing nothing but a towel and eight years' worth of unsaid words.

Theo Lane has spent his post-skating career globetrotting to 33 countries as a travel influencer, collecting passport stamps, dimple-inducing stories, and elaborate strategies to forget the night Lanie Bennett slurred the words "I've been in love with you since you lent me your sweater to wrap around my waist when I got my period at the football game" before promptly passing out and pretending amnesia the next morning.

It's been a long eight years.

He's the guy who remembers how she takes her coffee, who helped her rescue a stray kitten from a Port-o-Potty, the one who once baked her birthday cupcakes when everyone else forgot, and the man who's been silently breaking the Best Friend's Little Sister Code since she was sixteen.

Okay, technically, she's breaking the code, but whatever.

And now? There's just one problem.

Because there's just one bed.

© Julia Kent, 2025. This work is not to be distributed anywhere and the copyright is solely mine. It is also not to be used to train AI systems.

Chapter One

Twelve years later

Lanie

The moment I open the hotel room door and see a very naked Theo Lane wrapped in nothing but a white towel and a smug smile, my brain short-circuits.

Not a metaphor. Like, full-blown blue screen of death.

Reboot needed.

Try again in safe mode.

So I slam the door shut.

Heart jackhammering in my chest, I feel my waistband digging into my hip, sweat threatening to break out on my forehead. Anxiety acts like an accelerator pedal, pushing my heartrate up past 100, to 120, cracking 140, and soon, the dizziness looms large.

Then Theo opens the hotel room door.

"Lanie?" he blinks from behind gold wire-rimmed glasses, a shock of blonde hair straight up, frozen mid-toothbrushing, a foamy white mustache curling at the corners of his mouth. The towel around his hips is so small, it worked as a stunt double for cotton balls.

I say nothing. Just stare at him, and then at the room, and then at the sign on the door that clearly says Room 143.

My room.

Mine.

I make the tactical error of looking at his chest.

Dear God.

Eight years, thirty-three countries, and approximately ten billion push-ups have happened since I last saw Theo Lane. His push-ups. Not mine.

His chest is like someone took a Renaissance sculptor, showed them a skateboarding magazine, and said "but make him golden."

There's a tattoo on his left pec, something with wings that I refuse to examine too closely for fear of spontaneous combustion, and a thin silver chain with what looks like a compass pendant. Even the water droplets trailing down his abs seem to be having a better time than most people on vacation.

Even with a first-class upgrade.

I become suddenly, acutely aware that my hair is in a messy bun I fashioned using a pencil I found at the bottom of my bag and one of those thick yellow rubberbands they use on organic broccoli crowns, and I'm wearing a "May The Code Be With You" t-shirt with a coffee stain that has been there so long it's practically vintage.

I just pretend it's part of the print.

"I think," I manage, blinking hard, like that will reset reality, "either this hotel is wildly progressive about co-ed bathing arrangements, or something has gone deeply, deeply wrong."

Theo wipes his mouth, glances at the single queen bed in the middle of the room, and gives me a sheepish smile while he lifts those carved-marble shoulders. "Surprise?"

My heart has decided that 9/4 time is a great rhythm to try out for the first time. "You're in the wrong place, Theo. What room are you really in?"

"One forty-three."

"Is Jack here? Is this some weird stunt? You're not filming this, are you? I refuse to be on your TikTok. You will not monetize me. Again." My throat has become an organ zoo, my heart and lungs and half my pancreas suddenly thumping away right under my voicebox.

In 9/4 time signature.

"No stunt. And I swear, Lanes, it's my room. You sure you got the right one?"

I dig through my bag for my phone, muttering, "I swear, if this is some elaborate prank orchestrated by Lauren, I will hot glue her expensive espresso machine shut." I hold up my screen showing the reservation.

He looks, head tilting adorably. "There's no room number there, but wow - you booked, like, five months ago."

"I always book when the room block opens at conferences." I snort. "Let me guess. You booked four hours ago."

He makes a face. "Please. I did what normal people do and booked last week."

I hold out my card key envelope with the room number written on it. "See? This is my room."

"Huh. 143, too." Theo steps aside, gesturing toward the room. "Looks like they double-booked us."

Us?

I take a few steps, snatch the Welcome card off the desk, and glare at him. Or, well... try to.

It's hard to glare when you're drooling.

"You stayed in the room even though my name is right there? In print?" I wave it at him like I'm Charlie and found the golden ticket.

The ticket to end my total embarrassment. Do you know much people would pay if you could actually buy those?

"I never read those things." He squints, as if I'm falling for that. The man is wearing glasses, for goodness sake. Poor eyesight on his part didn't create this mess.

"Theo. You stole my room."

"No, I didn't. It's my room, too." He frowns at me and scratches that golden, broad, marbled-muscle chest. "Well, half of it, I suppose. Lauren said the hotel was almost full for the tech-travel conference when I booked. Guess they thought we were... a package deal?"

"A package deal," I repeat, my voice higher than it should be. "Like shampoo and conditioner. Or peanut butter and jelly."

"Like all-inclusive resorts and newly-divorced women with tan lines on their ring fingers."

"That's - that doesn't - oh my God—they think we're together? A couple?"

Theo grins, one dimple appearing to turn up his charm quotient "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is when I haven't shaved my legs since Valentine's Day."

There's a pause. A beat. The kind that hangs awkwardly in the air like a sock caught in the spin cycle. My mind at best is a mix of hyper-focus and extreme distraction, but get me anxious and embarrassed and it just blurts out whatever floats on by in the River of Lanie's Neverending Thoughts.

Which is what got me into trouble eight years ago.

"I don't mind a little static cling," he says, and then winks.

THE MAN WINKS.

I hate him.

I hate him and his towel and his smirking, all-knowing face and his ridiculous chest that looks like it belongs in a sports drink commercial and the fact that we haven't spoken in eight years and somehow, I still remember how he takes his tea (exactly 1 tablespoon of leaves steeped for 90 seconds with oat milk and a dash of judgment for anyone who microwaves the water).

I set down my suitcase and stand stiffly in the entryway like a Victorian ghost haunting a modern hotel. "Well. I guess I'll go ask for a different room."

Theo lifts a phone from the nightstand and holds it out to me. "Already tried. No vacancies."

My stomach drops. My face does something even worse.

It blushes.

"Why would you try if you thought this was - oh! You ass! You did read the card! You are crashing my room!"

"No," he says in a low, calming voice, the kind you use to keep unhinged animals under control. "I wanted a room closer to the convention hall. This one's a hike."

"Poor you. So out of shape and everything. Such a slog to walk a whole thousand feet to the conference rooms. However will you do it?" My eyes slip to his right knee, which has pale scars on it, but I know he walks just fine, injury and all.

His eyebrows go up.

"There's also a college hockey team booked down the hall. They arrive tomorrow."

"Oh joy."

"All the other hotels are booked too. I checked," he adds with a naked shoulder shrug.

"No. That's not acceptable." I grab the hotel phone and punch the '0' button harder than strictly necessary. "I am not playing out some deranged hotel sitcom plot with you."

Theo raises an eyebrow and leans against the wall, towel dangerously close to becoming a plot device of its own. His amusement is palpable as I wait for the front desk to answer.

"Front desk, how may I help you?" a cheerful voice answers.

"Hi, yes, hello. This is Lanie Bennett in room 143. There seems to be a mix-up. When I checked in, I was given a keycard to a room that is already occupied. By a man. A mostly naked man with..." I glance at Theo, who flexes subtly, the jerk, "...with a towel situation."

"Oh dear! Do you need security?"

Theo's eyebrows go up with a look that says, Please don't add Reno 911 to this situation.

"Uh, no. I've got everything well in hand."

Theo's eyebrows go higher, and his smile spreads into a genuine - almost, I dare say, flirty - grin.

"Let me check our system." I hear typing. "Bennett, room 143... Oh! I see the issue. You were booked under the same reservation as your husband."

"My HUSBAND?"

Theo starts crossing his arms over his chest but appears to have banana pudding for a brain, because his towel slips and -- oh, dear.

Speaking of bananas.

"Yes, your husband. Mr. Lane."

"What? No. That's impossible. There is no 'Mr. Lane."

"I am right here," Theo begs to differ. I swat at him but he's fast enough to leap back.

"No, I mean - I'm Lanie Bennett. Not Theo Lane. I booked separately. I'm here for the tech conference. He's here for... I don't know, TikTok virality and pranks."

Theo snorts.

"Our system shows you were booked as Lane and Lane. The system somehow assumed you were together. Apparently, you're not? You both booked under the same room block code for the tech conference. You both asked for a queen suite. I guess the computer made a mistake."

"Computers don't make mistakes," I bark back. "The people who program them, however, do."

"Uh, yes, I suppose that's what's happened."

I feel my blood pressure rising to levels my doctor would find concerning. "Let me get this straight. You put me in a room with a complete stranger—"

"According to our notes from Ms. Lauren Chen, you two know each other—"

"—because my FIRST NAME and his LAST NAME sound the same? That's the stupidest database design flaw I've ever heard of, and I debug code for a living. Who wrote your booking system? A kindergartner with a keyboard and an unlimited supply of Pocky stix? You need to immediately fire whatever developer thought 'Lanie' in the fname column and 'Lane' in the lname column were remotely similar and worthy of merging for booking a room!"

The front desk clerk's voice gets smaller. "But your reservation says 'Lane'—"

"My last name is BENNETT. B-E-N-N-E-T-T. As in Elizabeth Bennet but with an extra 'T' for 'Totally not sharing a room with my brother's best friend.' Is there another room available? Any room? A broom closet? An architecturally ambitious doghouse?" I glance at Theo. "Maybe a 6' towel hamper?"

"I'm very sorry, Ms. Bennett, but we're fully booked due to the conference, the regional squirrel appreciation society meeting, and the international competitive gluten-free bread baking finals."

I close my eyes. "Are you telling me I'm being inconvenienced by squirrel enthusiasts and aggressive bakers with celiac disease?"

"The bread bakers are actually quite lovely—"

"I need another room." I drum my fingers on the desk. "This is a five-star hotel. Surely you have some kind of solution for booking errors?"

"I'm truly sorry, Ms. Bennett. We have nothing available. Not even a rollaway cot. The squirrel people took the last one. The best I can offer is a complimentary room service for one breakfast, as many travel-sized toiletries as you like from the maid's cart, and late checkout. Continental breakfast is already included in the conference."

I take a deep breath, preparing another barrage, when Theo silently hands me a mini bottle of whiskey from the minibar. I cover the phone and hiss at him. "I'm not drinking with you again. Ever. That's how we got into this mess in the first place."

He smothers a grin. "Just trying to help."

"Besides, do you have any idea how overpriced those things are?"

He cracks the seal, eyes on me the entire time, and downs the nip bottle in seconds. "Mmm, overpriced tastes extra good."

The man is a walking "try me" rebel. Maybe I should dare him not to sleep in this room tonight.

I uncover the phone. "Fine. But I want it noted in your system that this is unacceptable, that your database needs serious reconfiguration, and that this is NOT my fault."

"Go for two room service breakfasts, Lanes." He pats his washboard abs. "I could do with some good carb-loading in the morning."

I'm going to bean him with the remote.

"Of course, Ms. Bennett. Your complaint will be logged. And the free breakfast includes the waffle bar."

"Waffles don't fix this," I hiss, then hang up.

I turn to find Theo looking at me with an expression I can't quite decipher.

"What?" I snap.

"Nothing." He shakes his head, that infuriating half-smile playing at his lips. "I just forgot how magnificently terrifying you are when you get worked up about technical design flaws."

"I am not worked up."

"The vein in your forehead says otherwise. It's growing an army and preparing for secession."

I press my fingers to my temple. "It's a feature, not a bug."

"I'm impressed," he says, voice taking on a softer quality that I refuse to find endearing. "The Lanie I remember would have apologized twelve times before hanging up."

"Yes, well, the Lanie you remember didn't have to deal with incompetent database design for a living. When I find it out in the wild, I get a bit apoplectic."

"A bit?"

"Shut up."

Theo nods thoughtfully. "Evolution is a beautiful thing."

I glare at him, then at the bed—the one bed, the singular, lone, solitary bed—that now represents my personal Everest of awkwardness.

"I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you," I say automatically, which is exactly what someone says right before they end up sleeping in the same bed as someone. "You can have the couch."

Except as I search for it, I realize this is a suite designed for people who don't believe in couches. Two lovely, sleek leather-upholstered chairs, with a small walnut coffee table before them, are the only furniture in here.

"My right arm and ribcage can't even fit in there," he says, pointing. Then Theo sighs. I sigh. We sound like a bouncy house that's just been attacked by a porcupine.

I'm exhausted after a day of nonstop travel. We're in Seattle and I've had a connecting flight in Las Vegas, one leg of the trip with a manspreader whose knee I had to shove aside three times in a row before using my friend Naomi's tampon trick.

You know. The one where you put a wrapped tampon on your knee the dude is trying to shove into the tray table? Yeah, that stunt. Works like a charm.

Then a train ride, an Uber, and now I get Mr. Overpriced Minibar Whiskey Chest turning this mess into a drinking game.

"I'll build a pillow wall," he offers helpfully. "Six feet of physical distance. All the emotional distance you want."

How about eight years' worth?

I let out a long breath. Man, are my bones tired. The kind of weary, achy, sleepy tired that gets more and more droopy as the adrenaline fades and I'm stuck with the reality of this fiasco.

Theo and I are booked for the same room at the same hotel for a conference we're both professionally attending, and there's only one bed.

Just one bed.

"How about the floor?" I murmur to myself, wondering what kind of pretzel shape I'll wake up as. I start imagining constellations and frown.

"The floor?" His voice snaps an octave. "You want me to sleep on the floor?"

"I was considering it for me, but if that's an offer...."

"I mean, I get it. You're feeling awkward."

Ice runs through my bloodstream. Oh, no. If he brings up in detail what happened eight years ago, right now, to my face, I'll die. Die dead.

My presentation tomorrow is huge. I really can't afford to be distracted.

Especially when he's showing so much thigh.

"Fine." I turn away. So much thigh. "Pillow wall. But I get the side closest to the bathroom."

"Deal," he says, and then adds with a smirk, "You still have that bladder like a thimble? Remember all those tournaments where you tagged along and we stopped at every rest area --"

I turn to glare at him. "Theo?"

"Yeah?"

"If your towel falls off, I'm calling security."

He laughs, that same golden retriever laugh, half mischief and half sunshine, and the dimple in his cheek deepens like it's waving a personal hello just to me. Just to Lanes. Just to the girl whose world once tilted on its axis on a rooftop with a match-flame cupcake and stars overhead.

"I'll try to keep myself decent," he says, reaching for the bathroom door. "Though your definition of decent and mine might differ slightly."

"They always did," I mutter, turning away as he disappears into the bathroom.

Alone at last, I do what any rational adult would do when faced with an emotional crisis of Shakespearean proportions: I pull out my phone to text my cat.

Yes, my cat.

Skunk is a temperamental black and white menace who got his name from my two-year-old niece, who thought the stray kitten I rescued was a baby skunk. Mom and Dad thought it was the cutest thing ever, and my brother, Jack, and the woman who he somehow manipulated into thinking he was lovable and convinced to marry and reproduce with him, thought it was cute, too.

The nickname "Butthole" came later, after his charming habit of photobombing my Zoom meetings with his rear end perfectly centered in the frame. My coworkers now think of him less as a pet and more as an aggressively inappropriate colleague.

Too bad I can't collect a paycheck for Butthole.

Part of the calming features on my anxiety app revolve around texting your pet as a regulation technique. My team has used AI to read animal faces, interpret their emotions, and sort through a database of responses the pet can "text" to their owner.

My app connects to a small camera at home, one humans and pets can use alike. When the system detects an animal's face, it works on facial/emotional interpretation. If the animal isn't near the camera, you can just text them, too.

Theo almost showed me his butthole. He's your human twin, I send. Then I laugh.

Then I nearly cry.

I snap a photo of the hotel room—specifically the one bed—and send it to my best friend Naomi with the caption: CODE RED. EMERGENCY. POSSIBLE DEATH IMMINENT.

My next text? To Lauren, the organizer of this conference. We're colleagues and friends, but more like sixty percent colleague, forty percent friend, so my text is a little calmer. More polished.

It says, DID YOU SERIOUSLY TELL THEM TO BOOK ME WITH THEO?

Then I listen to the shower running and try very hard not to imagine what's happening on the other side of that door. Try not to remember that night eight years ago at Theo's college graduation party, where five tequila shots turned me into a truth-telling disaster who confessed feelings I'd been hiding since ninth grade.

Try not to remember waking up the next morning in his parents' guest room at their lake home with a pounding headache and the sickening realization that I'd told Theo Lane I'd been in love with him since that night on the roof with the cupcakes.

And then - even worse - correcting myself and telling him true love really began when he lent me his sweater at the football game to cover my period disaster when I was fourteen.

Because why settle for embarrassment when you can go for the gold and add pure humiliation, too? If Awkward were an Olympic sport, I'd be world champion.

Try not to remember how he'd looked at me the next morning, all serious green eyes and "We need to talk," and how I'd smiled brightly, said "About what? I was drunk! Classic Lanie, am I right?" and proceeded to spend the next eight years avoiding him completely.

Utterly.

Miserably.

Which had become considerably easier when his parents divorced shortly after and moved away from their house next door to ours. Then Theo experienced a career-ending injury, turned his social media hobby into a travel journalism gig, and I built my company in San Francisco after graduating college.

We became the kind of people who existed in each other's social media periphery but never actually spoke.

Eight years. That's how long it's been. That's how long I've spent carefully maintaining my distance from all things Theo Lane.

Eight years of finishing college, then building my career in tech. Of creating an app that helps people navigate social anxiety (including my cool pet texting feature). Of letting my dark curls grow out and my braces come off and my body change from why-is-puberty-so-cruel? to something I'm mostly comfortable with now.

Eight years of pretending I don't still remember exactly how he smelled like sunshine and possibility, and how his hand felt when he gently pulled the tequila bottle away from me that night and said, "I think that's enough, Lanes."

My phone buzzes. Naomi's reply: OMG IS THAT THEO'S STUFF?? THE Theo??? JACK'S BFF THEO??? TEQUILA CONFESSION THEO??? I'm screaming. SCREAMING.

I type back: Not. Helping.

Another buzz. Is he still hot? Please say yes. For science.

I glance at the bathroom door, steam curling out from underneath, and sigh. He's worse. He answered the door in a towel. He's wearing stylish glasses. He has a VERY BROAD, TANNED CHEST. With a TATTOO.

Sweet baby Jesus and all the cherubs in heaven.

I KNOW.

What I don't say: that the glasses make him look like he has a brain to match the biceps. That they perch on his nose in a way that makes me want to reach out and adjust them. That the combination of intellectual and physical is short-circuiting parts of my brain I thought were safely bubble-wrapped and stored away in the attic of Things I Do Not Think About.

This is karma, I type to Naomi. For that time I got drunk at his graduation and told him I'd loved him since I was a freshman.

Pretty sure that was the tequila's fault, comes the reply.

And it was. The tequila's fault. Because my ability to keep secrets apparently dissolves completely after the fifth shot, resulting in a blurry memory of me cornering Theo on his parents' back porch, confessing my love through mentions of football games, periods, and rooftop cupcakes.

What I remember with crystal clarity: the way his face had changed, gone serious and soft, and how he'd said, "I think that's enough, Lanes. I'm not having this conversation until you're sober."

And then, darkness. I'd actually passed out right after his rejection.

Classy.

The bathroom door opens, and a cloud of steam billows out like Theo is the newest beefcake actor in a Shonda Rhimes series.

"All yours," he says, and I look up from my phone to find him wearing...

...actual clothes. Thank God. Or maybe too bad. My brain can't decide.

My clit, on the other hand, has opinions.

Shorts, a t-shirt advertising some obscure skate brand, and those glasses again. His hair is damp and finger-combed. He looks like he belongs on the cover of Travel + Leisure magazine's special issue on The Guy Who Got Away.

"The shower pressure's amazing," he adds. "Almost makes up for the whole accidental roommate situation."

"Right. Accidental." I tuck my phone away and grab my toiletry bag. "You know Lauren did this on purpose, right?"

Theo sits on the edge of the bed, the one bed, the singular, lone, solitary bed, and runs a hand through his damp hair. "Yeah, I figured. She always thought we should talk about what happened at my graduation party."

I freeze.

"Are you and Lauren friends?"

He laughs, but it's a strangled sound. "We were until she double booked us."

Ouch. Owie ouch. He doesn't want to be in this room with me. And he told Lauren what happened eight years ago, which means they really are friends. Better friends than Lauren and I are. I never told her a thing about Theo, and if she thinks we should talk about the past, then...

We're going there.

Straight to the heart of the awkwardness.

No small talk about the weather or his travels or my tech company or the fact that the last time we saw each other I was hanging over his parents' guest bathroom toilet promising never to drink tequila again.

"I'd rather not," I say, too quickly.

Theo's expression is unreadable. "Yeah. Figured that too."

"Look, I have a lot going on tomorrow. My presentation, and - "

I escape into the bathroom before my face can betray the fact that my heart has just been snagged on a spaceship headed for the moon.

The shower is just as amazing as promised. I stand under the hot spray and wonder what cosmic entity I've pissed off to deserve this. Had I been a serial killer in a past life? Kicked puppies? Stolen candy from babies?

Because being trapped in a hotel room with Theo Lane, the man who knows exactly how pathetic I am when I'm blackout drunk, is surely punishment for something.

Under the hot spray, I fumble for the body wash, finding the wall pump. As I soap up, I let my mind unclench a titch, mulling over the fact that Theo was in here just before me, naked in all his fine form. He soaped up like I am. He tipped his head back to wash his sudsy golden hair. He rinsed under the hot water, rivulets running down his face to his neck, rambling in odd random patterns down the smattering of hair on his wide, strong chest. He --

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no.

I stare at the wall, hands in my hair as I soap up, nipples tight as my shoulders, my body full of desire and craving and need for --

"NO!" I shout.

Tap tap tap

"Lanie? You need something in there?"

You, I want to say but what the hell is wrong with me?

"I'm fine. Dropped the soap."

"There is no soap," he calls back helpfully. "It's a body wash pump on the wall."

Go away, Theo.

I try telepathy first, but then I realize silence is just about as good as I hurriedly finish what was supposed to be a long, hot shower to help me relax.

All hope is lost on that one.

I dry off, slip into my sleep shorts and tank top (mentally cursing myself for not packing something less revealing), and emerge feeling slightly more capable of adult conversation.

Slightly.

Theo is sitting on the bed with his laptop, those glasses balanced on his nose, and his hair starting to curl as it dries. He looks up when I come out, and for a brief, electric moment, I could swear his eyes darken.

"You're presenting at the conference?" he asks, nodding at my laptop on the desk.

I nod, grateful for a neutral topic. "It's listed in the conference bulletin."

He gives me a knowing half-grin. "I never read those things."

Ah. He's one of those. How can people not read the conference programs in advance and highlight which talks they want to attend, carve out lunch and coffee meetings around the presentations, and plan for headache breaks in their rooms?

Headache breaks. Oh, no. I'm sharing a room. Won't be able to come back here whenever I want and scream into a pillow while mainlining ibuprofen and balancing ice packs on my neck like I'm a circus performer.

"Lanie?"

"Uh. We're launching a new app tomorrow called Mainfr@me. It's a social anxiety tool."

"That tracks," he says, smiling slightly. When I raise an eyebrow, he adds, "You always understood people's feelings better than they did. Even back then."

I'm not sure what to do with that observation, so I ignore it. "You're here for work too?" Pretending I have no idea what he's doing professionally is a hard sell. Of course I Google him once a day.

Okay. Fine. I have a Google Alert for his name. A whitelist for it. A rule in my Gmail that sends all Theo Lane alerts into a folder I read through once a month or so when I'm feeling particularly pathetic.

"Yeah. Travel blog covering the tech-tourism crossover. How apps are changing the way people explore. That kind of thing."

"Is that... what happened after the injury?" I ask, instantly kicking myself for bringing it up. A year after our disastrous Tequilagate, poor Theo had a career-ending accident.

The smile on his face dims just a fraction. "Yeah. Turns out when your knee explodes during a high-pressure competition, sponsors get a little skittish. But I was already building a decent following online, so the transition to travel journalism wasn't too brutal."

"I'm sorry," I say. And I mean it. The last memory I have of Theo as a skater is from before that disastrous graduation party, back when things were still simple between us. Back when my feelings were still safely buried behind wisecracks and physics homework.

He shrugs. "It worked out. Who knew all those videos I made for fun when we traveled would turn into a long-term career?"

"You were a natural with those. Finding funny, off-the-wall places. Trying new foods. Greeting all the dogs. Meeting cool people and fumbling through your new vocabulary in different languages."

His smile is radiant. "That was the best part. The skateboarding became a way to travel."

"I'm glad you were able to take something so awful and make something better out of it."

"Isn't that how everyone does it?"

My stomach plummets. "No."

"I've been to thirty-three countries. Seen things I never would have if I'd stayed on the circuit."

Jack is the opposite. Kept skating until he stopped winning, then turned to business development. He's a manager now, juggling the careers of other athletes, mostly skaters but some snowboarders and surfers. He and Angie have four year old Mika, who named Skunk, and a new baby on the way.

"Do you miss it?" The question slips out before I can stop it.

Theo looks at me then, really looks at me, and it's like being sixteen all over again—visible and exposed and terrifyingly known.

"Some parts," he says quietly. "Not all of it."

I nod, not trusting myself to ask what parts he means.

"So," he says, clearing his throat, "about the sleeping arrangements."

"I was serious about the pillow wall," I say.

"So was I." He stands up and begins gathering extra pillows from the closet shelf.

Eight years wasn't enough.

Together, we build a fortress down the center of the bed, a barricade of polyester and padding that would have made Cold War border guards proud.

"There," I say, surveying our handiwork. "Perfect."

"Completely adequate," he agrees.

"Structurally sound."

"Emotionally reassuring."

We look at each other over our pillow Berlin Wall, and suddenly, absurdly, I start to laugh. Theo's eyes crinkle, and then he's laughing too, and for a moment, it's like those eight years evaporate.

"This is insane," I gasp between giggles. "We're adults. We run companies. You've been to thirty-three countries. I have a 401(k) and a cat. A team of twenty-five people rely on me. And we're building pillow forts."

"To be fair," he says, wiping tears from his eyes, "this is technically a pillow wall. Forts have roofs."

"Of course you'd know the difference."

"I'm a man of culture, Lanes."

I roll my eyes but can't stop smiling. "So, left side or right?"

"I'll take the right," he says. "You always did like being closer to the bathroom."

The fact that he remembers that detail from the times I tagged along on tournaments with him, Dad, and Jack—remembers me—shouldn't make my chest feel tight.

But it does.

We settle into our respective sides, the pillow barricade standing strong between us. I reach over and turn out the light, plunging the room into darkness.

"Goodnight, Lanes," comes his voice through the dark, soft and close and far too familiar.

"Goodnight, Lane," I reply, careful to keep my tone neutral.

I lie there in the darkness, listening to his breathing, hyperaware of every shift and rustle. The pillow wall might as well be made of tissue paper for all the emotional protection it offers.

Because the fake truth is, I haven't thought about Theo Lane in years.

That's the lie I tell myself, anyway.

The real truth?

I think about him every time I see a rooftop. Every time I eat a vanilla cupcake. Every time I drink tequila (which is never) or look up at Cassiopeia in the night sky.

Every. Single. Time.

I close my eyes and try to convince myself that I can survive two nights in a hotel room with the first boy who ever saw past my invisibility.

With the man he's become.

But as sleep finally begins to claim me, one terrifying thought floats through my mind:

What if, after all these years, he still sees me?

And what if, this time, I can't run away?

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What do you think? Leave a comment here and/or email me with suggestions. Remember, I want your input!! Chapter Two’s coming next Monday, so let me know.