The Sweetest Chirp by Toni Aleo

Audrina:
I ran.
I left everything I knew, and I didn’t look back.
I have loved my best friend since I the moment I knew what love was. While I adore a good best-friends-to-lovers trope, that was never our story. We danced around each other, skated along the line but didn’t cross it, and I never knew why. Until one night, I took matters into my own hands. Doing a challenge from social media, I thought I had my best friend right where I wanted him.
As mine.
Just when I thought we were going to be together forever in the all the ways I had dreamed of, he pulled the rug out from under me. He broke my heart in a matter of seconds, and I had no choice but to take off.
After three years, I thought I was in the clear; I thought I’d never see him again, and I was finally building a life. Maybe not one I’d wanted, but one I loved.
I should have known better.
Thatcher Orlov would never give up.
He’s found me, and now I not only have to face him, but everything I left behind.
And everything I’ve hidden.

Thatcher:
It’s not everyone who can say their best friend was born the same day as they were and slept in the bassinet beside them in the hospital.
But Audrina and I can.
She is all I’ve known my whole life.
Every huge moment, Audrina was there. When I was drafted, when I won my gold medals, and even through all my hockey-related injuries. She had always been my rock, my stable ground when everything felt off-kilter. We spent our whole lives in some kind of limbo where it felt like we were in a relationship, but we weren’t. While the lines were blurred, my feelings for her weren’t.
It took one song to ignite a fire brighter than any I’d ever witnessed, but I ruined it all by letting my jealousy get in the way. She took off, leaving me behind. And in the three years since she left, there hasn’t been a moment I haven’t been looking for her. I need her—not only as my best friend, but as mine.
But now, I’ve not only found her…I’ve found she isn’t alone.
My world is turned upside down in a matter of seconds, and while I’m know for my chirping on the ice, her voice is the sweetest chirp I’ve ever heard.