Fresh start. That’s what you’d needed when you got the keys to your new place, and today was the day.

The moving van’s engine coughed to silence behind you, but your attention had already drifted across the street. A tall man lingered at the opposite unit, his muttering a deep, familiar rumble. A voice you hadn’t heard since your teens.

You froze mid-step, the box in your arms tipping slightly as you strained to listen. Something short, maybe a curse under his breath, and it made you pause with suspicion. Simon Riley?

Your childhood neighbor. The boy who never smiled for photos but used to sit cross-legged beside you on the curb, sharing orange popsicles in the summer heat.

Except the man across the street wasn’t that quiet, lanky kid anymore.

“Shit!” you hissed as the box slipped from your hands, crashing to the ground and scattering its contents.

He turned at the sound of your voice, head tilting just enough for the porch light to catch his eyes. Warm brown and sharp. The same eyes that used to roll at your incessant chatter but always softened when you scraped a knee. They locked on you now, and your breath stilled.

The rest of him looked nothing like the memory you clung to, at least, not at first. His sleeves were shoved to his elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and mapped with scars. One arm inked from wrist to bicep in a dark, intricate sleeve that disappeared beneath the fabric.

The balaclava should have made him unrecognizable, yet there was something about the way he held himself; the way he stood, how his head angled when he looked at you. Even with most of his face hidden, you knew that stance, that quiet way he occupied space.

He stepped closer across the narrow stretch of asphalt, boots heavy enough to cut through the quiet. “Didn’t think I’d hear that voice again,” he said, his tone roughened by time, distance, maybe the weight of the years between you.

Your pulse jumped at the sound. The warmth of familiarity curled in your chest even as the timbre made your stomach knot.

You could only manage a soft, “Simon?”

The corners of his eyes creased slightly. Something that might have been a smile, now only a ghost of it. “Knew it was you soon as I heard ya swearin’ at the box.” His eyes swept over you briefly, then settled, steady and unflinching. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

That was Simon Riley? The boy who used to toss pebbles at your bedroom window when it was time to sneak out?

You blinked, trying to reconcile the memory with the man standing so close now. Shoulders squared, chest broad beneath his shirt, his height forcing you to tip your chin just to meet his gaze. Every inch of him seemed sharpened by the years. Solid, imposing, as if the boy you knew had been carved down into something unshakable. Heat crept up your neck, unbidden.

When did he get hot?