I hadn’t even tried on the nightgown since we left the store. I slipped it on and looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. Could I do this? Could I do this to Elliott? I walked around my bedroom, letting my body grow accustomed to its first real negligee. I thought maybe I would feel stupid and chicken out. But it only made me feel beautiful. There are housewarming gifts when you move in, but what is the equivalent when you move out? I needed this last thing before we left this place. I closed my eyes and saw Elliott’s sweet face. It made me sad.

I walked downstairs and stood before Griffin in the nightgown I had selected first. Griffin looked at me as if I were the most beautifully marbled dry-aged beef. Or the key lime pie with the Macadamia nut crust that Henry makes. He smiled. He came so close to me that when he exhaled, his breath lightly kissed my nose. I tried to remember Elliott. But the years, the weight of memories bearing down on me, and everything that happened in this very kitchen were just too much. I stupidly told myself Elliott and I had not had sex yet, and so I could be faithful to both my past life and my future one.

“Bae.”

I had taken us both by surprise. He poured the champagne into the two glasses and I let it tickle my nose. Griffin made a toast: “To this beautiful and kind house. She was good to us. She gave us our life’s passions. She gave us a home.” We toasted, we drank, we kissed, and then we turned off the lights and went upstairs. It had been eight years since the first time Griffin and I had been together, before anyone else.

As we were climbing the stairs, I realized that this moment was not a sentence at all. It wasn’t a paragraph. No, this moment wasn’t even a chapter. It was the end of the book. A book you read and when the words “The End” loom large, your heart tightens. And hurts.

Griffin removed his clothes. As I started to take off the nightgown, he moved closer to me. “No, leave it on.” Dammit, Elle had been right. I would never understand men in the way Elle and Reggie did.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“I do. I do indeed, Bae.”

This was unlike any time before. We were gentle with each other. We touched more. We kissed more. We looked into each other’s eyes more. The tears in my eyes reflected back to me with tears in Griffin’s own eyes. It dawned on me. This was bittersweet sex.