Des leans into the kitchen and yells at us before ducking out again: “Oi, something’s beeping!”

Elliot reaches over, roughly silencing the noise with a slap of his hand.

Returning to me, he ducks low, meeting my eyes, searching. “Macy, you know that I would make time any day for you. Any sliver of time I have is yours.”

This truth so easily given paralyzes my instincts to pace myself, to take a breather between the end of my engagement and diving right back into Elliot. My first admission slips out: “Sean and I broke up.”

I watch his pulse accelerate in his throat. “What?”

I’ve just dropped a bomb from a cloud. “It wasn’t—ever—what I really want—”

“You left Sean?”

I swallow down my urge to cry at the hope I see in his eyes. “I moved out, yeah.”

Elliot’s hand comes up to the front of my jeans, his index finger hooking just inside, sliding against my navel, and he uses the leverage to pull me closer. “Where?”

“I’m renting a room in the city.”

Blood rises to the surface of my skin, hungry for what I imagine is coming—his mouth lowering to mine, the overwhelming relief of it, the feel of his tongue sliding over my lip, the vibration of his sounds.

I close my eyes, and for a second I give in to the fantasy: the glide of his hands up my shirt along my waist, the way it would feel for him to lift me, put me on the counter, step between my legs and press closer.

So I move back, shaking with the restraint. “Remember what I said at Tilden,” I begin, “about feeling so much with you?”

He nods, his gaze fixed on my mouth, breathing jagged.

“I don’t want to rush into anything blindly.” I swallow, wincing. “Especially not with you. We messed this up once.”

Blinking up to my eyes, his expression clears a little. “We did.”

There’s an intensity between us that has always been there. It used to make me trust that he’s my person, and I’m his. And now, he’s left his girlfriend for it, I’ve left my fiancé, but in truth, we’ve been back in touch for a single month after eleven years in the wilderness. His best friend in the other room is a stranger to me, and the woman who just left knows more about Elliot’s heartbreak than I do. We are still so messy.

“Let’s eat some turkey,” I say, gently prying his finger from my jeans. “It’s going to take some work for me to put my words together, okay?”

Elliot slides his hand to my hip, murmuring, “Okay. Of course. Whatever you need.”

I allow myself one intimate touch and use it to press my hand over his wildly beating heart.

then

eleven years ago

From: Macy Lea Sorensen <[email protected]>

Date: September 1, 6:23 AM

To: Elliot P. <[email protected]>

Subject: Miss you