It sounded silly saying that when he was next to her in bed every night. But it was the truth. She thought back to the year they’d met studying abroad in Scotland, how it took them ten months to finally get things right. Despite how difficult the whole falling-in-love thing was, it seemed like a cakewalk compared to balancing her MFA with Noah’s first years as a teacher. They just needed a small window of simple. A reboot. She wanted to remind him that someday it would be more like this—quiet time alone instead of the tornado that had been their lives for the past three years—maybe even with less physical injury.

“Your suitcase?” he said. “That’s a mess. But you, Brooks?” He pulled her to him, scooping her up and depositing her onto his lap. “I’m so proud of you. You thought you had no direction when we met, and look at you now. You’re a student, a teacher, and soon your passion for writing will also be your career.” He kissed her softly on the forehead. “You amaze me. Every single day.”

Jordan took in a sharp breath. Yes, his touch could still drive her crazy, but it was the things he said—ridiculous things like being proud of her when she still felt so directionless—that melted her heart.

“And I miss you, too,” he said, his voice growing serious so she knew she wasn’t imagining the strain. “We’ll get through this—the hard stuff. And God, yes, I love you. Never question that.”

She kissed him, teasing his bottom lip with her tongue and teeth as she felt his smile against hers. They would get past the hard part, wouldn’t they?

“Run away with me to Greece,” she whispered to him.

“Already got my passport,” he answered, warm breath mingling with her own.

“And your kilt?”

Noah’s smile widened, and she leaned back to see his blue eyes shine at her.

“And my kilt,” he said.

With that he snuck a finger under the hem he’d teased before.

“We still have an hour before the taxi comes.” His statement came out like a question.

“How long will it take you to fix my suitcase problem?” Jordan asked.

He lay her back gently on the floor, one finger still under the soft cotton, tracing the line where her thigh connected to her hip—following it down until Jordan wasn’t sure she’d even bring a suitcase anymore, not if ditching the wardrobe meant more time for Noah to torment her until she forgot her own name.

His thumb brushed over the outside of her shorts, right between her legs, and yep—she might as well have been nameless at that point. But when he whispered Brooks, she knew without a doubt who she was.

She was the girl who fell for the boy and somehow managed to make it work for three years and counting. He was now the man she always knew he’d become, and together they were headed back to where it all began—to watch her former roommate, Elaina, and the boy in the kilt she swore she’d never fall for, Duncan, say, “I do.” Then Jordan and Noah would trace their steps back to Scotland, where they’d met and where they’d gotten it all so wrong before finally getting it right.

“Screw the suitcase,” she whispered, and Noah’s lips traced the line of her jaw until they rested at her ear.

“As you wish.”

Noah

Jordan strode past the skycap, and Noah followed her into the terminal.

“We could have checked the bags outside,” he told her. He may have purged half her closet from her luggage, but that didn’t mean he wanted to weave through an amusement park–length line with both their bags when they could have taken care of it outside.

Once in line, she turned to face him.

“This way we save a little extra cash.”

She combed the hair off his brow, and, well, he couldn’t argue with the logic of her touch—or the fact that this trip was already costing them money they didn’t have. But for the next week, he didn’t want her to worry about money or graduation or any of the normal, daily stressors.

He waggled his brows. “Means I can buy some shitty airplane headphones for the in-flight entertainment.”

Jordan hooked a finger in the collar of his T-shirt.

“I thought I was your in-flight entertainment.” She pouted, and Noah’s pants suddenly grew tighter in the groin region.

“Jesus, Brooks. We’re not even checked in yet.”

She bit her lip, then unbuttoned her gray peacoat and unwound her scarf. Her V-neck T-shirt was pulled off center so he could see the strap of her bra. The short flight from Columbus to New York meant not much more than an hour of alone time before meeting up with the rest of the group, and then plenty of time for his pants to loosen up on their own.

Noah sighed.

“What?” Jordan asked, but her grin told him she knew what she did to him.

“Did you really seat us next to…”

For fuck’s sake. He sounded like enough of a dick without finishing the question, but the words were already out there. God, he hated Jordan seeing him like this.

“Griffin and Maggie?” Of course she finished the thought. “No, we’re not next to them. We’re one row in front of them. And, babe? It’s been three years. We’re past all that, right?”

The line was moving now, which gave him a reprieve from having to look her in the eye and tell her that yes, when he wasn’t thinking about how he almost blew his chance with her three years ago, he was past all that, past her dating Griffin when Noah said they could only be friends despite how much he knew he was falling for her. But when all that was going to be sitting one row behind them for eleven and a half hours and spending the weekend with them, it was hard not to go back there in his head.

When Jordan hefted her suitcase onto the scale at the check-in counter, Noah gave his messenger bag, still slung over his shoulder, a safety pat, reassuring himself of the small velvet box inside. He would have a do-over after their time in Greece, on the train ride from London to Scotland. As long as everything went according to plan—no unnecessary stress for the girl who never relaxed—he would leave the States with his girlfriend and return with his fiancée.

Jordan gasped, patted her pockets, riffled through her purse, and Noah’s eyes grew wide.

“My passport!” she yelled. “Shit, Noah, my passport!”

He let out a long, shaky breath as he pulled both their passports from the back pocket of his jeans and lay them down on the counter.

Nervous laughter erupted from his girlfriend’s lips.

“This trip is going to be the end of me, isn’t it?” she asked as she steadied herself against the counter.

He looped his arm around her waist and drew her near as the airline attendant checked their bags to New York and through their connecting flight to Thessaloniki, Greece.

No, he hoped. This is only the beginning.

Chapter Two

Griffin

Griffin stared at the envelope on the counter. The envelope…stared back.

Chickenshit, it said. He could hear the stupid thing judging him.

He ran a hand through his hair and laughed.

“It’s a freaking envelope,” he said to himself. “You open the mail every day.” Yet he still hadn’t touched the taunting piece of paper.

And with that, he ignored the thumping of his heart and the dampness of his palms, tearing it open before he could chicken out again.

Because he was a man of logic, Griffin held his breath as he began to read, deciding that nothing was real or official until he exhaled.

Dear Mr. Reed,

Congratulations. We are pleased to inform you that out of hundreds of applicants, you have been chosen for the AmeriCorps Eli Segal Fellowship…

Griffin exhaled. He was sure there was more written on the document, but all his mind kept looping on replay was Congratulations.