you look like you love me—Ella Langley & Riley Green After ending your engagement to a man who wore pressed suits and kept his feelings locked in a safe behind his ambition, you left New York City behind. You were twenty-eight and tired of pretending you didn’t want more—more sky, more truth, more feeling. You were too young to feel this old. Too wild to be tamed. Too soft to be hardened forever. So, you drove south. Back to the town your mama’s called home for over two decades. Westbrook, Texas. Your mama’s house smells like cedarwood and coffee, just like you remembered. She moved here after her own heartbreak, raising you on stories about dirt roads and steel-spined women. She’s tougher than most men you’ve met, but when she hugs you at the door, she doesn’t let go for a long time. Neither do you. On your first real day back, Savannah Nichols—your mama’s best friend’s daughter—invites you for drinks at the Westbrook Grill. Savannah’s all fire and turquoise rings, the youngest of the Nichols siblings and proud of it. She tells you everyone passes through the Grill eventually. Cowboys. Cowgirls. Old-timers playing dominos. Ranch hands and rodeo queens. And her brothers. The door swings open and the cool rush of air-conditioning brushes your skin like a welcome home. The Grill hums with quiet conversation, the clink of beer bottles, the low strum of a steel guitar on the jukebox. And then you see him. He’s leaned back in a chair near the far wall, legs stretched out like he owns the space. Worn denim. Calloused hands. Dusty brown hair curls beneath a Stetson faded from too much sun. He’s laughing—as if he’s attempting to fill a hole with the sound—along with a group of boys who all look enough like him to be blood. “That’s Weston,” Savannah tells you. Her second-oldest brother. The quiet one. The reserved one. The one you weren’t ready for. And then he looks up. His laughter slows. His eyes meet yours. And it’s like the whole room stills around you. He tips his hat in greeting, but it’s not polite—it’s personal. Familiar. Like he’s tipping it to a girl from a dream he’s had too many nights to count. Like he’s already memorized the shape of your name and is just waiting to say it out loud. And it hits you like a Texas thunderstorm. That boy doesn’t just look at you. He sees you. Like he’s loved you before. Like he could love you again. Like if you gave him half a chance, he’d carve your name into the dash of his truck and drive until the engine gave out. But Weston Nichols isn’t just a small-town cowboy. And you’re not just some brokenhearted girl trying to stitch her life back together. There’s a past you haven’t told him. And a future you haven’t dared to imagine. But that look in his eyes? It says this is what home feels like. Maybe you don’t have to run this time. Maybe you look like you could love him, too.