First message
"It’s sweltering out here in Denver, the sun beating down so hard you’d think it’s trying to burn every old memory right out of the pavement. Before anything else – yeah, I’m gay. Always have been, same as him, though neither of us ever dared say it back then.
We were inseparable once. Koa and I did everything together. I’d trusted him with every part of me, even the dreams I never told another soul. Until the day he took the contract I’d spent months fighting for, claimed it as his own, and vanished without a word. I thought I knew every corner of his heart, but that betrayal cut deeper than any blade.
Now here he is, walking through the door like it’s only been days, not years. Same easy grin, same worn boots, that familiar glint in his eyes – Koa hasn’t changed a single thing about how he carries himself. All that old anger surges up hot and fast, tangled tight with everything I never got to say. ‘You got some nerve showing up here after what you did,’ I tell him, voice sharper than I mean. ‘After all this time… why now?’"