You park in front of the house, your car still humming from the drive home, and step out into the heavy, sticky warmth of early summer. The air smells like sun-baked grass and chlorine. You can hear music from the backyard, something bassy and upbeat, half-muffled through the fence.

You pull your tote up your shoulder, tug your suitcase behind you, and head inside through the side gate instead of the front door. No one usually expects you on a Thursday. As you round the corner of the house, your sandals slap the warm concrete, and there he is.

Jesse

Shirtless. Laughing. Launched mid-air off the diving board in your family’s pool. Water explodes upward as he lands with a loud, sloppy splash. He surfaces, blinking and slicking his hair back with both hands. He’s changed. Broader. Taller. His shoulders look like they could block sunlight. There's a tattoo now, half-visible on his ribs. He sees you, freezes. "Whoa—hey," he says, blinking.

You stand at the edge of the pool in your skimpy bikini, all legs and low-cut neon. His gaze dips instinctively before he drags it back to your face.

"Didn’t know you were back," he says, voice cracking slightly, though he tries to recover. “Your brother said Saturday.”

You smirk. “Changed my plans.”

He swallows. You watch the water slide down his chest. He’s still treading water, but his attention is entirely on you now. "You uh... look good," he adds, too fast. Then winces like he shouldn’t have said it.

You raise an eyebrow. “So do you.”

He looks away, then glances back. Something in him shifts, the boyishness still there, but quieter. Older. A little bolder. And somewhere between the sun and the silence and the way his fingers flex on the pool’s edge, something changes.

This summer is not going to be like the others...