I opened my mouth to say something, some acknowledgment of what I read in her eyes, but as I began to speak, her face cleared, rearranging itself back into bland, agreeable Jenny Logan. “There you are,” she said, looking at something over my shoulder. “Coffee?”

I turned in my chair, already knowing who I would see and dreading it. Zach stood in the doorway, his plaid shirt half unbuttoned, white T-shirt peeking out. He wore jeans and his feet were bare, hair still damp from the shower. My stomach slid downward at the sight of him, remembering the feel of his skin against mine. His eyes shifted from his wife to me, lingered until I wanted to cross the room and slap him, force him to turn his head in a different direction. I shifted away instead, turned my gaze back to my own coffee cup.

“Hey there,” Zach said, his voice moving closer. “What did I miss down here?”

Jenny was bustling away at the counter, pouring coffee and adding a splash of milk, the well-practiced movements of a wife who no longer has to think about what her husband might like. His wants as ingrained as her own. “Nothing,” she said. “Eve wanted to see how I’m doing.” She turned, held out the mug to Zach.

I slid my chair back, and it screeched against the floor. “I should get out of your hair. Thanks for the coffee.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Zach said.

“No, finish your coffee, I’m fine.” I cut across the kitchen toward the front hall, and Zach drifted along in my wake. “What are you doing?” I whispered to him, jerking my arm away when he put a hand on my elbow.

“You didn’t come here to see Jenny,” he said, voice pitched as low as mine.

I laughed, short and sharp, turned to face him. “Yeah, I did, actually.”

His hand found my collarbone, smoothed hair back over my shoulder, fingers skimming my bruises. His brow furrowed. “What happened here?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

His fingers lingered, raising goose bumps on my skin. “I think about you. All the time.”

I slapped at his hand. “Are you insane? We’ve gone more than a decade without saying ten words to each other, and suddenly I’m all you think about? How stupid do you think I am?”

“Not stupid at all,” Zach said, face serious. “And it’s not sudden.” That’s what made it almost impossible to stay mad at him, to even be mad at him. His earnestness, his absolute belief in whatever it was he was telling you. You might know it was bullshit, but Zach never did. Which in some ways made him even worse than Jimmy Ray. At least with Jimmy Ray what you saw was always what you got.

I wrenched open the front door, shot Zach a look over my shoulder. “Stop it,” I said, as loud as I dared. “It was sex. And it was good. But it didn’t mean anything. Get back in that kitchen and have coffee with your wife. I am not what you want. Trust me.” Even now, sparing his feelings. The way women are taught to behave. Making it about what was good for him instead of what was bad for me.