She takes a sip from her glass but is startled by my entrance so she misses her mouth. A trickle of water snares my attention as it glides down her chin and slope of her neck to the collar of her shirt. A shirt that’s very familiar to me. “Oh, hi.”

I think I mutter a hi back to her, but I’m too enraptured by her shirt to notice. My shirt. It’s my white Rice University T-shirt. I recognize it from the writing on the sleeve. “<3 Olivia”. It’s funny how she signed her name on my shirt to lay claim to me for everyone to see and then she commandeered it and wore it for herself anyway. I can’t believe she kept it after all this time.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“You’ve had my shirt this whole time?”

She looks down at herself as if just realizing she even had it on. Her fingers tug at the ends of the shirt in a self-conscious gesture. “Oh, yeah, I…um…I wear it to bed sometimes or…” she trails off.

“Or what?” I take a step toward her, and another, until she’s firmly pressed against the kitchen island.

I tip her chin up with my finger, and when her dark-brown eyes meet mine I see the storm in them. A storm of vulnerability. “Or when I’m having a bad day.”

My chest tightens at this revelation. She wears my shirt when she’s having a bad day. I was able to provide her comfort even when I wasn’t there. The pain of not knowing if she thought of me as much as I thought of her eases, the weight slightly lifting from my shoulders and making way for hope.

“Are you having a bad day today?”

“Not at all. I just…missed you.” I lean my head down to the crevice of her neck and inhale.

When I don’t say anything she continues, “Is that okay?”

My laugh gets lost against the column of her throat so I lift my head up to her level. I wrap her ponytail around my fist and pull until her lips part. “Is it okay? Is it okay that I never stopped being a source of comfort for you? Is it okay that you’ve carried a piece of me with you all this time? Is it okay that something of mine has touched your skin for all the years that I couldn’t? It’s more than okay. It’s everything.”

Her hand graces my shoulder. “I didn’t need a shirt to carry you with me, Kai.”

My hand falls from her hair to the collar of her shirt and pulls until the fabric rips beneath my hold.

She isn’t wearing a bra so her breasts are bared to me, and I’m rewarded with the sight of her nipples hardening into peaks. “What the fuck are you doing?”