“Are you serious?” Ryan walks closer to the couch but doesn’t sit back down. “Since the first second I saw you again all I’ve been doing is trying not to throw myself at you every second of the day.”

My heart feels heavy, beating faster still. “Why did you try not to?” I ask.

It’s hard to swallow. My mouth feels dry. I’m poised to speak again when Ryan’s cell phone vibrates in his pocket. He pulls it out and looks at the screen before silencing it. He then slides it back into his pocket and sits down on the couch beside me.

“You need to go on this trip,” he says.

“I don’t.” The thought of him wanting me to leave suddenly makes me want to stay. “What if what we have goes away again?”

“It won’t. Six months is a long time, but we can handle it.” He takes my hand and moves his thumb over my fingers. “We’ve already made it ten years without each other. Six months will be like a long weekend for us.”

“Is that what you really think?” I ask.

“Yes. It won’t be easy, but we’ll get through it. We’ll be okay.”

I nod my head, moving forward to wrap my arms around his waist.

We’ll be okay.

He thinks we’re going to be okay.

I wish I believed him.

The next morning, I wake up again to an empty bed. It’s quiet. No running shower water or murmurs of the TV in the other room. I sit up and Ryan is nowhere to be seen. My apartment, which would once seem perfectly normal in this state, now seems deserted.

I get out of bed and walk into the living room. Duke is resting on the floor next to the ottoman as Ryan sits in my reading chair. He looks up at me with a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. I return it with one of my own as I cross the room, standing beside him and rubbing the back of his neck with my hand. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” he answers.

“I have to head over to Cristina’s to start getting ready soon. You’re meeting Jason and the guys at the hotel, right?”

Ryan nods. He looks tired.

“Are you feeling all right?”

He takes my hand from his neck and squeezes it in his own. “I’m fine.”

I walk around the chair and sit on his lap, pushing my hand into his sandy hair that always looks darker when we’re inside. He nestles me close and inhales against the top of my chest through my T-shirt.

“You don’t seem fine. Are you upset because today will officially prove that Jason loves Cristina more than you?”

A grin tugs at the corner of his mouth as he nudges at my chin with the tip of his nose. “Who told you?”