If Whitney hadn’t interrupted, would something have happened between Henry and me? Would we have kissed? Would we still be standing here in the dark, wrapped in an embrace?

I closed my eyes and imagined it. Chills swept over my skin. I placed a hand over my heart and felt it thumping hard. What would it be like to feel his beating against it?

Then I forced myself to stop being ridiculous, go get my daughter some water, and put myself to bed. It was late, and I was acting like a delusional teenager, not a responsible mother of two.

I could not have a crush on Henry. I could not kiss Henry. I shouldn’t even allow myself to fantasize about it.

But I did.

All. Night. Long.

6. Henry

Six

Henry

I got out of bed early Tuesday morning and went right to the gym, thankful as hell it was open for a few hours on Christmas Eve.

I needed to let off some steam.

And not the angry kind of steam I was used to letting off during a workout, not the kind that made me want to punch things and kick things and make my muscles suffer to take my mind off a deeper kind of pain—no. This was something else entirely.

This steam was tension. This steam was need. This steam was born of an attraction to Sylvia so fierce I could feel it in my bones. All day yesterday at work and all throughout a second sleepless night, I’d thought of nothing but her and the chance I’d blown to touch her the night before. Kiss her. Take her in my arms and make her feel good again. Make her forget that her asshole ex ever existed, even if it was just for a little while. Make her feel brave and beautiful and sexy—all the things I saw when I looked at her.

But did she want me to?

There were moments when I was pretty sure she did—I could see it in her eyes, sense it in her body language. But then it was almost like she caught herself thinking something naughty and shut it down.

And maybe it was just wishful thinking on my part. Maybe she was just being nice, staying up late with me, talking to me, trusting me with her feelings. After all, she was still pretty messed up over her divorce. She flat out told me she felt broken. Even if she didn’t appear at all that way to me, what kind of monster would I be if I took advantage of that?

In any other situation, I’d have made a move last night at the door. If she were anyone else. If the circumstances were different. Maybe even if it were a year from now, when our wounds weren’t still so raw.