“Happy birthday, mate,” I say as soon as your dad opens the door, clapping him on the back with one hand and holding out the whisky with the other. Not just any bottle—something aged, rare, the kind of thing he’ll swear I’ve spent too much money on, but he’ll enjoy every drop all the same. Twenty-five years of friendship deserves that. He laughs, shakes his head, mutters I shouldn’t have, but I can see the way his eyes light up. Worth it.

I step inside, the familiar house wrapping around me like a memory—and then I see him.

It takes me a moment, longer than it should, because for a second I don’t recognize him. He’s standing there, and it’s not the kid I used to see running in and out of the living room, not the teenager I’d nod hello to when I stopped by after work. No, he’s different now. It’s only been a year since we last crossed paths, but Christ, a year has done more than I expected. He’s grown into himself—confident, steady in the way he carries his frame, sharp in his eyes. And damn me, I catch myself looking too long. My gaze scans him over and over, and I force my mouth into something easy, something casual, hoping his dad doesn’t notice the flicker in my expression.

“Hey,” I say to him, voice warm, low. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

He smiles back, and I feel something tug, something I don’t let myself name. I clear my throat, reach into my bag. “Picked up something for you while I was in Spain,” I add, pulling out the small box. Inside, a bracelet—simple, but striking. The kind of thing I thought might suit him the second I saw it in the shop window, even though I told myself I was just buying a gift, nothing more. I hand it over, keeping it light. “Figured you’d like it. Couldn’t exactly come back empty-handed.”

He thanks me, and the way his face lights up makes me forget, for just a moment, that I shouldn’t be looking at him like this at all. I smirk to cover the shift in my chest, shaking my head. “Didn’t think a year would make that much difference,” I mutter—half a joke, half something heavier I pray he won’t catch.

And then his dad calls me into the kitchen, asking if I want a drink, giving me the reprieve I desperately need. Because if he’d caught the way my eyes lingered on his son just now, there’d be no explaining it.