“But we can’t go back, so I don’t know what to do with any of this. I don’t even know if you feel the same way, and it’s killing me too. I go back and forth every thirty seconds thinking I’m hurting you just by being here, and then thinking you couldn’t possibly still love me after all this time, and even if it’s not real, a part of me wants to pretend I have you, but another part thinks I’ll die if you don’t tell me you love me, even if it doesn’t change anything. Even if it’s just getting to hear it one more time.
“Everything’s different and nothing’s changed, Harriet,” he says. “I tried so fucking hard to let you go, to let you be happy, and when I see you, I still feel like—like you’re mine. Like I’m yours. I got rid of every single piece of you, like that would make a difference, like I could cut you out of me, and instead, I just see everywhere you’re supposed to be.”
I stare at him, heart cracking open under the weight of what I’m feeling.
“Please say something,” he whispers.
My eyes fill. My throat fills. I drop my face into my hands again. “I thought you didn’t want me,” I choke out, “so I tried. I tried to love somebody else. I tried to even like somebody else. I kissed someone else. I slept with someone else, but I couldn’t stop feeling like I was yours.” My eyes tighten against another wave of tears. “Like you’re mine.”
“Harriet.” He tilts my face up. “Look at me.”
He waits. “Please, Harriet.”
It takes a few seconds to force my eyes open. Water droplets still cling to his brows. Rivulets race down his jaw and throat. His thumb grazes my cheekbone.
“I am,” he says. “I am still yours.”
The nail that has been driving closer and closer to my heart all week sinks home.
The pads of his fingers slide across my bottom lip. His eyes are so soft, every ginger touch pushing back another layer from my heart.
But does it even matter that we belong to each other when we can’t be with each other? Our lives are immovably separate. Everything may look different than it did ten minutes ago, but nothing’s changed. He’s mine, but I can’t have him.
My hands tangle in his wet hair, as if that can keep him here with me. His do the same to mine.
“What is this?” he whispers.
I want it to be an I’m sorry and an I forgive you and a Promise you won’t ever let me go and a million other words I can’t say.
Wyn’s finally happy. He has the life that was meant for him. He has a career he’s proud of, one predicated on his being in Montana, and even if he didn’t, there’s Gloria, who needs him. The time with her that he needs, time he missed with Hank. And I’m in California for at least a few more years, too deep in to back out but not so far into the tunnel as to see the light at its end.
Maybe, in another life, things could be different. In this one, this can be only one thing.
“I think,” I say, “it’s one last I love you.”
His fingers tighten on me, his breath stilling. And then, like he’s answering a question, his lungs expand on an inhale and his lips meet mine.
When I let out a shaky breath, his tongue slips into my mouth. The taste of him reaches deep and loosens something I’ve spent months tying into knots. Need stretches out in every direction, waking up my skin, nerves, blood. Wyn angles my face up, deepening the kiss, and his tongue sweeps mine, hungry, tender. A whimper rises out of me.
His hand spreads across my stomach, finding its way several inches up beneath my shirt, and my spine arcs into him, every muscle in my stomach trying to draw closer to his.
He locks an arm around me and walks us backward. His shoulder collides with the shower stall’s door as he hauls me inside and knocks it shut again.
My clothes are already wet from being held by him, sticking to my skin in places, but he shields me from the water anyway as he peels my shirt over my shoulders and drapes it over the wall along with his towel. I lean back against the wall, catching my breath, as he methodically undoes the buttons on my shorts. He takes his time easing them down my legs with my bikini bottoms, and I stand there, skin prickling, breath uneven, and mind on fire. He hangs those too, without taking his eyes off me.
“Is this real?” I ask.
He reaches for my waist. “What else would it be?”
“A dream,” I say.
He pulls me in against him, his warm, damp stomach sliding against mine. “Can’t be,” he says. “In my dreams, you’re always on top.”
My laugh catches as his thumb sweeps up the outside curve of my breast.
I wind my arms around his neck, and he lifts me against the wall in a smooth motion, my thighs wrapping around his waist.
I gasp into his mouth at the sudden sensation of so much of him on so much of me. The bands of muscle across his stomach tighten. My lips part hungrily under his. His hands untie my bathing suit top, peel it away, and my heart pounds into his urgent touch.
He whispers my name at the hinge of my jaw, the water spraying over his shoulders, wrapping us in its heat.
He groans, palming me in slow, intense circles as my breath quickens. His mouth glides down my throat. “Are you sure about this?” he murmurs.
I hold him tighter. He draws back to ask again, but I pull him close, my tongue slipping into his mouth, finding the bitter, bready taste of Corona and sharp tang of lime.
I reach between us and thrill at the feeling of him in my hand. His head bows into my shoulder, one of his hands coming to grip the top of the wall behind me.
“I didn’t bring condoms here,” he says, but neither of us has stopped moving, looking for more friction, for release. The muscles all down his back and stomach and arms and ass are rigid with tension as our hips roll together.
His hands slide roughly behind my hips, canting them up to him. “We shouldn’t do this while you’re upset anyway,” he says.
I move my hand down him. “I’ll be less upset once you’re inside me.”
He wraps a hand over mine, holding me still for a second, our hearts slamming together, hot water racing down us. “We don’t have a condom,” he says again.
Some kind of pathetic sound of dissent squeaks out of me, and he seems to forget what he was saying, pushes me back into the wall, our hips grinding together, nails skating over wet skin. He lifts me a half inch so he’s right against me now. It’s not enough. He grabs the top of the wall again for support as we move together.
“Harriet,” he rasps against my ear. “You’re so fucking soft.”
“Thanks,” I say, breathless, “I don’t work out.”
“Don’t joke right now,” he says. “We can joke later. Right now, tell me what you want.”
“I already told you,” I say.
“We can’t,” he says. “I’ll find a way to get some while we’re out for dinner.”
I laugh into his throat, catch a rivulet on my tongue. “Are you going to hang out in alleyways and wave twenties at strangers who look like they’re packing condoms?”
“I was thinking I’d go to a drugstore,” he says, “but I like your way better.”