Rewind It Back (Windy City, #5)(80)

“Oh, it’s all on the table, Hart. All you have to do is give me a chance.”

My previously melting body stiffens in his hold.

His playfulness morphs when he realizes. “I’m joking around.”

“I know.”

He searches my face. “Take your time, Hal. I was giving you shit.”

“I know.” I fall into his chest and let him hug me goodbye.

He wraps his arms around me tightly, resting his chin on my head. “I’m leaving my truck for you to drive. It’s parked in the garage. Zee is picking me up.”

“Thank you for that.”

“I’m leaving my espresso maker for you too, if you feel like making yourself a latte.”

“But my latte art will never be as good as yours.”

“Well, at least you’re self-aware.”

I chuckle against him.

“And the rest of my house is yours while I’m gone too,” he continues. “For work, or for . . . exploring.”

Pulling back, I look up at him. He doesn’t have to explain. We both know what he’s referring to.

“See you when I’m back home?”

I nod. “See you then.”

His eyes roam over my face and his thumb dusts over my cheekbone as if he were about to kiss me. I can see him contemplating, struggling with himself not to, but eventually, he decides against it.

Leaving me alone in his kitchen, he takes his suitcase with him.

Once he’s gone, I try to get back to work, but it’s no use when all I can concentrate on is that closet upstairs. I attempt to find an ounce of patience, but it’s pointless. All I needed was his permission, and now that I have it, I can’t wait any longer.

Leaving the samples on the kitchen island, I take off for the stairs, heading straight for his room. That closet door is wide open, left intentionally for me to see. But before I can take a step in that direction, my nerves slow me down.

I have no idea what I’m about to find.

What was so bad that he didn’t want me to see a few weeks ago, but has no problem with me discovering now?

I can’t even begin to guess, so while trying to brace myself for anything, I step inside.

I quickly learn this isn’t his main closet. It’s filled with backup hockey gear, extra luggage, and some old jerseys he’s saved from over the years. I can tell they’re old because they have a number eighty-three on the back, and he hasn’t worn that number since college.

There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary in here, and again, I don’t know what I’m looking for. But when I push his old jerseys apart on the top rack, I find a black box sitting on the shelf below it.

My intuition screams that this is it. Whatever I’m supposed to find, it’s in here.

There’s not a fleck of dust gathered on the lid, but the edges are worn, like this box has been opened and closed hundreds of times over the years. It weighs next to nothing and there’s a slight rattle inside from when I pick it up and carry it to the bed.

Taking a seat on the mattress, I open it.

When I look inside, my stomach hollows out in a way I’ve never experienced before. My lips part of their own accord and my breath catches in my lungs. I don’t need to do much digging to know exactly what this is. What these are.

I tossed my own copies years ago. Partly out of anger, and partly because I no longer recognized the hopeful girl who once saw the good in everything. Who once had so many best memories she needed a way to remember them by.

The box is filled with every mixtape and CD I made for him over the years, each given to him on my birthday.

All of them, from ages eleven to nineteen, which include the two I gave him before we started meeting up on the roof, they’re all in here. And it’s evident they’ve been played endlessly over the years. They’re each in their individual cases, which are all cracked in one place or another. Some of the hinges are broken from overuse, from being opened and closed too many times.

It suddenly feels impossible to breathe.

I cannot believe he kept these.

Judging by the look of betrayal on his face the last time I saw him, I assumed the first thing he did was get rid of these. Burned them. Shattered them. Something dramatic to match how hurt he was.

But he kept them.

The only other thing in this box is an old piece of embroidery thread, which doesn’t really make sense. I pull it out to take a closer look. It’s almost unrecognizable, tattered, discolored, and worn. It takes a moment until it clicks, for me to realize what this is.

It’s that old friendship bracelet I made him on my thirteenth birthday. The one he wore on his wrist and never took off until it withered away and fell off on its own sometime after he had left for college. It broke off without him realizing. I assumed it was long gone by now.

Something so small. So seemingly unimportant. But it wasn’t. None of it was.

In disbelief, I move on, trading the bracelet for a cassette, thumbing over the signature I inked there years ago. I linger on the tail of the heart the way he always used to. It’s such a silly little signature that I came up with when I was a kid, but I never moved on from it because I loved watching the way he’d trace it every year.

All my best memories. He kept them.

He listens to them still.

For so long, I held on to every little detail of our relationship, replaying them in my mind on a loop. I cherished the smallest moments we had together. Even at my lowest points, I was grateful that I got to be loved like that at least once in my life.