Chapter 1

Kayla pov

I sat cross-legged on my bed beside Priya, my best friend and next-door neighbor, my eyes glued to her phone as she scrolled through the page I'd been dying to see all summer. Tomorrow was my first day at Ashbourne Academy. Tomorrow, I'll see him again. The photo filled the screen.

I smiled at the photo of him, mid-stride on the ice, hockey stick in hand, that same stubborn set to his jaw I remembered from a rink half a world away. Okay, fine. We Googled him four times in the last hour. Maybe five.

"You've done the smile again, Kayla," Priya said, not looking up.

I grabbed a fistful of my bedsheet and pulled it close, pressing it to my nose like it could hold me together.

"You don't know how it feels," I said softly. "Seeing him again."

"He's just a hockey captain every girl in this academy likes," she said. "Except me."

My head whipped toward her. I hadn't expected her to say it like that, like he was ordinary, like he hadn't rearranged my entire childhood in six weeks.

I let out a slow breath and leaned my head against her shoulder.

"Do you think I've changed too much?"

I stood, crossing to stand in front of her until she finally looked up. I snatched the phone from her hands before she could stop me.

"What now?" she asked, annoyed.

"Do you think he'll recognize me?" I searched her face like she had the answer. "Do you think he'll still want me, the way he did back then?"

"What's this whole 'back then' all about?"

I gave her a small smile. I'd told her this story before, but never every piece of it. So I told her everything, the summer, the rink, the promises, all of it. But my smile faded into a frown.

"He isn't going to forgive me for leaving without saying anything, right?"

Priya's eyes roamed over my face for a moment, thoughtful. Then, without warning, her laughter cut through the quiet, sudden and bright, before she dropped her gaze entirely.

I didn't know what tickled her, but I dragged myself over to the chair by the window and sank into it, too tired to do anything but let her have it.

"Girl, you were both kids," she said finally, wiping her eyes. "That's a once-in-a-lifetime thing that was never meant to last."

I shook my head, reaching for the magazine on the small table beside the chair. "It wasn't supposed to end, though. My mom's death right after that summer wasn't supposed to happen either. Neither was what happened with Cole and me."

"Okay, fine!" She threw up her hands.

"You're asking if you've changed. For sure, you aren't that eight-year-old kid he knew before. You're an adult now, with boobs and an ass to match." She smirked. "You mentioned he loves cakes, maybe bring him a reunion cake, something to bring back the old days."

I dropped the magazine.

"A cake," I repeated, testing the word like it might mean something different the second time.

"A cake," Priya said again, entirely too pleased with herself. "You said he used to steal your slice every summer. Show up with a cake and tell me his face doesn't do anything."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. It was insane. It was also, annoyingly, the kind of insane I couldn't stop thinking about.

"You're supposed to talk me out of things like this," I said. "That's your whole job as my best friend."

"My job is to make sure you don't spiral into a decade-old crush without backup," she said. "A cake isn't a backup. A cake is a plan."

***

Morning came too fast. I sat in the back seat of Priya's mom's black SUV while Priya sat up front. The drive was silent — she'd offered to drop us at school before heading to work, which made my morning a lot easier.

Speaking of the cake, Priya had ordered a chocolate cake from a catering site, delivered right to her door at six a.m.

"Are you kids okay?" Priya's mom broke the silence, catching my anxiousness through the rearview mirror.

I smiled and nodded. The cake sat close beside me, box balanced carefully on my lap.

"Now, Kayla, what's up with the cake? Whose birthday is it?"

Before I could answer, Priya cut in.

"The girl got a cake to deliver on the first day of resumption, to—"

My heart skipped. I lunged forward and pinched her arm, hard. She yelped.

"Ow! Not my fault your crush is getting a cake on his first day back at school. That hurt, Kayla."

"Her crush? She already has a crush?"

Curiosity had made her ask, but I'd rather stay far away from that conversation. I couldn't stand explaining myself to an adult like Priya's mom — she'd definitely see me as some unserious kid chasing a boy.

"It's nothing, ma'am," I finally answered.

I noticed the car gradually slowing down and looked out the window, palm pressed to the glass, taking in the view.

The school loomed ahead, tall and imposing, students trekking toward it on foot while a few sleek Ferraris sped past us. I smiled, blinking the excitement out of my eyes before anyone could catch it.

"Happy now?" Priya asked, glancing at me through the rearview mirror.

"Yes, girl."

We finally rolled to a stop. I grabbed my cake and adjusted my backpack, reaching for the door handle just as Priya opened it from outside. I'd been so lost in my head I hadn't even noticed she'd already climbed out of the car.

"Thank you," I said, stepping out with the cake balanced in my hands.

I stood there a moment, taking it all in — the navy-blue building, too big to fully take in at a glance, the white wrought-iron gate standing open ahead of us.

Everything about the place looked expensive, like it had been built to remind you of exactly how much you didn't belong.

Priya's mom waved and pulled off, tires humming against the pavement, and Priya immediately tugged at my sleeve to get moving before I could linger too long staring at the gate like a tourist.

We'd barely taken three steps when a green Lamborghini Aventador roared into the exact spot Priya's mom had just vacated, engine cutting through the morning noise like it wanted everyone to notice.

Head turned. 

The chatter around us surged, voices rising from the students in front and behind us, a ripple of excitement moving through the crowd like wind through grass.

"It's the Sterlings," someone said, and then it was everywhere, whispered and shouted in the same breath.

Of course it was him. I'd known this was coming — I'd seen the car in a hundred pictures on his page, recognized the exact shade of green before I even saw the plate. Still, knowing and *seeing* were different things, and my whole body went still with the difference.

I turned before I could think better of it.

And there he was.

Cole Sterling.

He stepped out of the car like he'd done it a thousand times, like the entire school turning to look was just weather, something that happened around him and never to him. He hadn't changed the way I'd imagined he might, he'd changed the way people did in magazines, sharper somewhere, taller everywhere, the soft edges of the boy I remembered replaced by something colder and more deliberate.

My grip tightened on the cake box. This was it. This was the moment I'd rehearsed a hundred times in my head, the slow recognition, the smile I still remembered from a rink half a world away.

I stepped forward, cake held out slightly in front of me like an offering, like proof.

His eyes swept the crowd once, disinterested, and landed briefly, carelessly on me. Nothing. Not even the pause of someone trying to place a familiar face.

He looked away like I wasn't there at all, and climbed the steps without breaking stride.

I stood frozen, the cake box suddenly too heavy in my hands.

Beside me, Priya went very still. "Kayla—"

"I'm fine," I said, too fast, my voice thinner than I meant it to be.

I wasn't fine. I was standing in front of Ashbourne Academy holding a chocolate cake for a boy who'd just looked at me like I was furniture.