“Then, I went to college, shared a dorm with my buddy Dane. He decorated a little, a few posters, but we were boys, you know? We didn’t care what our dorm looked like.” He shrugs. “Then, med school, residency in Chicago… both things I knew were temporary. This condo is the first place I’ve felt like it’s okay to set up roots.” He pauses. “I just don’t know how to.”
“Maybe I can help,” I offer. “We can go to an art show or something, see what strikes you.”
Greg shakes off whatever had his brows furrowed, offering me a soft smile. “I like that plan.”
For a while, we’re silent, listening to the wind blowing through the trees and watching the full moon stretch wide over the dark sky. It lights up the whole backyard, casting shadows on the lower half of Greg’s face.
I shiver when a big burst of wind finds us, and Greg chuckles, opening his arms.
“Come here.”
I swallow, thinking of the way he touched me under the water on the river today, and how refraining from any contact is the only safe bet here.
“It’s okay. I’m fine.”
“Body heat will help. Trust me,” he says, and he beckons me again.
It’s a terrible idea. He knows it, I know it.
And yet…
We’re both so selfish, so desperate for just a taste of what we know we can’t have, that we ignore all the buzzing, blaring, neon warning signs, anyway.
I slide over the shingles, moving snacks out of the way and letting him pull me in front of him. His legs frame either side of me, arms wrapping around me like I’m the tiniest thing, and I’m instantly surrounded with his warmth.
I sigh.
“Better?” he asks.
“Much.”
“How are you feeling?”
I giggle. “Silly. Fuzzy. Time keeps skipping.”
Greg laughs at that. “Skipping?”
“Like a scratched CD.” I laugh and bury my face in my hands. “Oh, God. Am I aging myself?”
“Stop that. I know what a CD is.”
“Let me guess — your mom used to listen to them?”
I try to laugh, but Greg turns me in his arms so that I’m facing him and leaning against one of his knees as his eyes search mine. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make jokes at your own expense.”
The concern laced in those words warms my heart even more than his arms around me, and I sigh, boldly reaching out and running my finger along the side of his jaw. My nail skates over the stubble there, and I follow that movement as Greg stares at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.
“Where were you when I was fifteen?” I whisper.
Greg closes his eyes, his hand coming up to wrap around mine. He holds my fingertips to his lips, not kissing them, but just holding them there like he’s memorizing the way they feel.
“On second thought, don’t answer that,” I say with a chuckle, trying to break the tension.
But Greg just frowns, shaking his head once before he opens his eyes. Those deep brown pools lock on mine. “Why does my age matter so much to you?”
“It’s not just your age,” I say with an arched brow and a smile.
“But age is part of it.”
I sigh, staring at where he holds my hand, at how the high buzzing through my system makes that touch so much more powerful. I feel every ridge of his fingerprints on my skin, the pulse of his heart through his veins, the warmth of the blood pumping through him warming me, too.
“Because I know how much life you still have to live,” I whisper, and I keep my eyes on where his hand folds over mine. “And I don’t want you wasting it on someone washed up like me.”
Greg squeezes my hand on a sigh, dropping his forehead to mine.
He’s already touching me. His knee supports my back where I lean against him, one arm around my waist and the other hand still holding mine. My ass is against his thigh, my bare foot against his sneaker.
But somehow, when his forehead tenderly touches mine, I’m aware of every single touch at once.
I feel him, all of him, alive and breathing and surrounding me. It’s too much, but I don’t dare move. I don’t dare break a single point of contact.
Slowly, Greg’s hand drops mine, sliding over my forearm, along the length of my sweater, and up to cradle my face.
I sigh, leaning into the touch, into the way it feels to be held that way. My eyes flutter open, and Greg cups the back of my neck, pulling me closer.
“Greg,” I warn.
I warn, but I don’t stop.
I don’t pull away.
I don’t do anything but wait, my mouth parted, breath escaping in shallow sips and puffs.
Greg swallows, his grip tightening, and then he lowers his mouth.
The movement is so small, so minute I almost can’t catalog it at all. But with his next breath, his lips touch mine.
I heave in a shaky breath, whimpering, clutching at his hoodie, but he locks down, completely still.
It’s not a kiss.
He doesn’t press those lips to mine, doesn’t push me down against the shingles and claim me. His lips just hover there, grazing mine, our breaths blending together in the treacherous space between.
“You’re not washed up,” he whispers, and I taste every word, his lips moving against my own — warm and soft and heartbreaking. “And if I never get the chance to show you that, to make you feel it, to prove to you with every touch I’m lucky enough to steal that it’s true… I need you to promise me you’ll believe it for yourself.”
My brows fold together, a tear I didn’t know was even building slipping silently down the side of my face and falling into my lap.
“You, Amanda Young, are smart, and passionate, and brave, and fearless, and kind and caring and giving and so, so fucking beautiful it physically pains me every time I see you.”
I roll my lips together against another threat of emotion, savoring the way his lips feel brushing against mine, the way it feels everywhere he’s touching me.
“You used my maiden name,” I say with a smile — a smile that’s stopping me from crying, if I’m being honest.
“Because I know how much your married one makes you feel trapped,” he says, and in a show of mercy, he lifts his forehead from mine, his lips gone with the movement. He grabs my face in his hands, his eyes searching mine. “That name does not define you, nor does the life you had with him. It’s over. It’s in the past. You are not a victim. You are a survivor.”
And that does it.
I try to fight it, try to bite my lips together and stave it off, but emotion breaks through, and I crumple into a heap in his arms.
Greg holds me, letting me feel it all, letting me process the haunting past, and the torturous present and the terrifying future at once.
I fist my hands in his hoodie, wishing I could lose myself in his words, in his touch, that there wasn’t such a complicated roadblock keeping us apart.
I wish I could know what it feels like to be loved by a man like him.
But I can’t, not without dire consequences that neither of us are prepared to face.
He’d lose his best friend.
I would lose the trust, the respect, and the relationship I have with my one and only son.