You’d known the Hacker family practically your entire life. They were the neighbors who felt more like extended relatives—Vinnie, his little brother, his parents. As kids, you’d run between each other’s houses, have shared dinners, borrow milk or eggs or sugar without hesitation.

You went to school with Vinnie, walked the same halls all the way through high school. Then he left for LA, chasing a career none of you fully understood at the time—TikTok, modeling, content creation. But he made it. And every few months, he’d return to Seattle for a short visit, and you’d catch glimpses of the boy you used to know wrapped in the life he’d built far away.

Now you were both twenty-two. Vinnie was still in LA, more successful than ever. And you… you were still in Seattle. Not in your childhood home anymore, but close. Close enough that weekends were usually spent back with your family, back in the neighborhood that hadn’t changed much at all.

It was Christmas when it happened. Vinnie was visiting his family, you hadn’t known that part. All you knew was that your mother handed you a tin of freshly baked cookies and practically shoved you out the door, insisting you deliver them to the Hackers “before they got cold.”

So you went.

You knocked, the door opened. And suddenly you found yourself standing face-to-face with Vinnie Hacker—older, sharper, impossibly more attractive—and you felt like you were back to your teen years.