Teddy leaps out of the truck when we arrive, sniffing around the back of the building until she finds a place on the snow to squat and pee. I’m wearing my coat, but Gabe’s is draped over his arm. He doesn’t seem to notice the cold.
It’s only seven, but dark as midnight. It gets dark early in Montana, so I’ve been told.
Still, I can see the mountains—white-tipped and rolling—like a frothy wave in the distance.
When Gabe puts his hand on the small of my back, I lean into it.
“Okay?” he asks.
“Okay.”
Once inside we knock the snow off our boots, and Gabe cleans out the frozen globs that have formed between Teddy’s toes.
I hold my coat against my chest as Gabe starts a fire. I’m still standing in the entryway when he finishes. He comes over, takes my coat, and hangs it up.
“Chani,” he says.
“I’m fine,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.
“We don’t have to…” he says.
“I…”
The room warms. Gabe puts his hands on my arms, his thumbs stroking my biceps as if I’m a scared animal he’s trying to soothe.
It’s not entirely incorrect.
“I’m not in any rush,” he says.
He’s not talking about tonight. He is, but also, he isn’t.
I push back. Move away. A few inches.
That tight, scared, panicky feeling presses against my ribs. My confidence falters.
“The last time we did this…” I gesture between us.
“Yeah,” he says. “About that.”
There’s something in his voice that makes me stop. He sounds embarrassed, and I don’t know why.
“About what?”
“About what happened between us on the couch,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
We’re getting into weirdly intimate territory. We’ve talked around that weekend but we’ve never talked about what actually happened. Or didn’t happen.
“I shouldn’t have…” He rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “It’s just, I felt like such an idiot.”
Apparently, the call wasn’t the only thing we still needed to discuss, only this time I’m the one in the dark.
“Why?”
“Because,” he says as if I know what he’s talking about.
“Because what?”
Then, to my complete astonishment, I watch as a flush spreads across his cheekbones.
“You know,” he says.
“I don’t,” I say.
He looks up at the ceiling. For a moment, the only sound is the crackling fire, the room nice and warm and cozy.
“That night,” he said. “When we were…when things got…”
I’m staring at him, and he’s staring at the beams overhead.
“We were kissing and you were, you know, underneath me, and it was really hot, and then…” He trails off. “You know.”
I don’t. I don’t know. It’s clear that whatever memory I have of that night is not the same one he has.
He glances down, catches the expression on my face.
“Come on,” he says. “Are you really going to make me say it out loud?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.
“You don’t know that I got so turned on that I came before we could go any further?” he asks.
My mouth falls open. It is quite literally the last thing I expected him to say.
“You what?”
He throws his head into his hands. The fire pops.
“Oh god,” he says. “Oh my god.”
My eyes are practically bug-shaped.
“Oh my god,” I say.
“Jesus Christ,” he mumbles into his fingers. “I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t,” I say. “I thought…when I told you to stop…I thought you were annoyed but okay about it.”
“I was annoyed,” he says. “At myself. For being too drunk and out of control. For acting like a horny teenage boy. For getting off and then not getting you off.”
Suddenly our awkward interaction after the fact takes on a whole different meaning.
“You wanted to—?”
“Very much,” he says.
“Well,” I say. “I didn’t know.”
His face is still flushed and it’s adorable. My heart feels like it’s contracting and expanding at the same time.
“I don’t know whether I should be relieved that it’s all out there or horrified that I just told you,” he says.
“It’s kind of charming,” I say. “That you wanted to, but couldn’t.”
“Hold on,” Gabe says, his hand up. “I still could have.”
The indignation in his voice makes me bite back a laugh.
“But you just said…”
He moves toward me. My laughter quickly cuts off, my mouth going dry at the look in his eyes. We’re no longer joking about something that happened ten years ago. We’re not joking at all.
“I would have needed some time, but that wouldn’t have been a problem. It won’t be a problem.” His voice is a low growl. “It’s not a problem.”
I swallow. Hard.
It’s not just about us talking about something that happened back then. It’s about what’s happening now. Between us.
Back to what has felt inevitable since I accepted this assignment.
“It’s not a problem?” I ask, even though I know I’m poking the bear.
I’m wobbly and nervous and not one hundred percent sure that this isn’t a terrible life-altering mistake, but I also know that this is it.
Gabe might not be in a rush, but all of a sudden, I am.
After all, it’s been ten years.
He looks at me.
“It’s not a problem,” he says. “With you, I…”
“You…?”
“I want you,” Gabe says. “I’ve wanted you. Since the first moment.”
It’s so simple and direct.
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
He blinks.
“Okay?”
I nod.
“Okay.”
We stare at each other for a moment, the tension crackling between us. Then, as if it’s nothing, as if it’s something we do all the time, Gabe reaches out and puts his hand on my elbow. It’s enough to make me unfurl, his arms coming up around my back, holding me against his body, my chest pressed to his.
Then he leans his head down and kisses me.
It’s soft, soft the way a first kiss is soft. New. Tender.