On Sunday, Adam calls when the sun has barely popped into the sky.

I swipe my phone off the coffee table, settling back onto the loveseat. “Do you know what time it is?”

“What are you doing?” he asks in lieu of a hello. “It’s 8:05, Adam, what do you think I’m doing?” “Sleeping?” he guesses without remorse.

“Very recently.”

Actually, I’ve been up for more than an hour toggling between TikTok, where I regularly stalk an old high school upperclassman who’s now a professional photographer and married to the second-hottest man to come out of Glenlake High, and LinkedIn, where I’ve been panic-scrolling through job listings.

I should’ve kept my vow not to think about my dilemma, though; the findings weren’t positive. There are options, but none of them can touch what I have now. I love my job, and I know from personal experience how rare that is. The only imperfect thing about it is that they want to send me back to Seattle for good.

“…Eli?”

Adam’s voice snaps me back into the moment, and I shove my spiral into a mental drawer.

“What about Eli?” “Where is he?”

“Well, he’s not here at 8:05,” I say, wandering to the kitchenette. It’s gorgeous now, with gleaming navy cabinetry and gold hardware, the countertops a pretty white marble with blue veining.

I miss the old version, with its lovingly worn maple wood and grapevine wallpaper.

The first two summers I spent here—in this cottage, actually, rooming with a lazy Susan’s rotation of Adam’s cousins—I didn’t know how

important this place would become to me. I was too overwhelmed by excitement and homesickness. I loved Blue Yonder, but it didn’t belong to me yet, and that feeling always left me anxious. It wasn’t until Eli joined us the following summer that I started to truly feel the homelike shape of it; then it became rooted in my veins.

I glance out the window, homesick again, standing in the middle of the place I miss. I take in the tall, swaying trees and the long stretch of land, its precise rows of vines laid out so carefully. The courtyard is silent and empty, save for birds hopping in the dewy grass, and the pool ripples quietly, as if vibrating with the memory of Eli’s body slicing through it yesterday. It’s peaceful, but I don’t feel any of that.

“I assume he’s in his cottage,” I say, blinking away from the view.

Probably doing one of his new Eli things or filching something else off my list. Or maybe burying Cole’s body. Despite the time I spent ruminating over yesterday’s conversation and then admonishing myself for ruminating, I couldn’t put the pieces together. Once I’d formed my pillows into a human shape so my bed didn’t feel so empty, I tossed and turned, replaying the way Cole almost seemed like he was challenging Eli. About what, though?

“Possession,” I mutter. “What?”

“Uh…” My gaze lands on the ring boxes nestled in the back corner of the counter, their rich red a stark contrast to the white marble. They look like two bleeding hearts. “I am in possession of your rings.”

There’s a short pause before Adam draws out, “Yes, I know that. I gave them to you.” Another pause, this one more suspicious. “Why are you telling me that? Are you okay? Are you being held hostage? Is this some weird code? Because I wouldn’t be surprised at this point, given everything else that’s hap—”

“I’m not being held hostage, but thanks for making my theoretical traumatic experience about you and your curse.” I lean a hip against the counter. “Which doesn’t exist, by the way. Everything is going great. All the venue setup stuff is on track and we have a bakery appointment on Tuesday.”

“Nice,” he says. “Get it nailed down this time, okay?” My heart drops into my stomach. “I’m sor—”

“ADAM,” Grace yells in the background.

“I’m joking!” he exclaims, voice muffled before it clears again. “George, I was joking. I’m sorry, that was too soon.”

I sigh. “Just tell me why you called.”

Adam happily moves on; he has the attention span of a fruit fly. “Oh, because we set up a DJ appointment for you tomorrow. Gracie and I wanted to Zoom with the guy, but he was insistent that someone come in to vet the ‘experience.’ That’s literally what he called it. An ‘experience.’ ”

“Sounds epic.” I pick up a ring box, flipping the top to find Adam’s gold band nestled there, same as it was last night when I checked. And yesterday morning, when I also checked.

As I start to slide the box back, I catch a flash of neon pink behind Grace’s box—the paper ring Cole flicked at me yesterday. The one I should’ve tossed, but instead stuck behind real, actual rings that are real, actual symbols of forever.

I set my phone on the counter as Adam chatters on, picking up the ring. The paper is smooth and thick, layers folded meticulously by Eli’s attentive fingers. When he used to give me these, I’d be so careful slipping it onto my finger—my index or middle, or, after we started dating, my ring finger, but the right one. He’d trace a path behind it, help me push it down, then look up at me through his lashes, grinning. Sometimes his happiest smiles were his smallest ones, and his paper ring smiles were just the gentle upward curve of his mouth.

“Looks good, Peach,” he’d murmur, bringing my finger up to his mouth. He’d bite down on my knuckle, hard and messy until I laughed, then softer, just the scrape of his teeth, until I shivered.

“—thinking you can FaceTime me in. I want to see if this guy is legit. I swear, only the stone-cold weirdos are left,” Adam is saying. “Is that a bad sign?”

I shake out of the haze so real I swear I can feel Eli’s mouth on my skin. “It’s not a bad sign,” Grace calls.

“It’s not a bad sign,” I repeat. “It’s normal to have limited options a week before your wedding.”

“Don’t remind me,” he replies darkly.

“Don’t worry too much. All of my and Eli’s combined brain cells are devoted to working this out.”

And not one brain cell should be devoted to Eli.

I set the ring down on the counter, only it’s more of a frustrated fling, and my wrist knocks into the ring box with Adam’s band. It topples onto its side with a loud thwack—

And the ring bounces out, taking off down the counter.

“Oh, my god.” I lunge toward it, but it’s too late. It’s rolled over the edge of the sink.

Straight into the drain.

“What? What?” Adam shouts.

“No, it’s nothing!” I shriek, bending over the sink to peer into the dark abyss. “A bird ran into the window and scared me. I think it’s dead.”

“Sick,” he says with dismay. “Isn’t that a bad sign?”

“It’s not a bad sign,” I practically wail. His wedding band flying down the sink sure is, though.

“Well, if it’s dead, make Eli take care of it. You’re gonna cry.”

I’m definitely going to cry, but I’m not going to make Eli take care of anything. This is all me.

“Uh-huh, sure.” I lean farther over the sink, ramming my forehead into the lever handle in the process, which sends a violent spray of water all over the front of me. “Oh fu— Adam, I think the bird is moving. I gotta go, noted on the DJ appointment, seeyougoodbye.”

“George—”

I hang up, then clap both hands over my mouth to muffle a moan. Oh, hell.

 

 

I’m wetter, significantly more panicked, and three minutes down a YouTube rabbit hole when footsteps pound up the porch steps.

There’s a brisk knock. “Georgia?”

No, no, no. I briefly consider not answering; Eli is the last person on earth I want witnessing this moment.

“Georgia,” he repeats, his voice louder, more urgent. “Let me in.” “Good morning! No, thank you, everything is fine.”

“I’m going to break down the door.”

“Well, that’s dramatic,” I huff, stomping to the front door. I inch it open so I can stick my head through the gap.

Eli’s standing there in gym shorts, his thin gold chain, and nothing else. There are sheet lines running across his stomach and chest, his hair standing up in the back. I’m trying so hard to be strong, but I’m only human and he looks beautiful and vulnerable, his skin still sleep-warm, probably, eyes hooded and mouth puffy.

“Sorry, but I abide by the no shirt, no service rule,” I manage, ripping my eyes from the solid expanse of his torso.

“Apologies for the break in protocol,” he says pleasantly, though there’s an intensity in his eyes as he inspects me. “I ran over from a dead sleep.”

Without the door serving as a barrier, I can hear the fine texture in his voice, the sandpaper he only gets first thing in the morning. I want to rub it between my fingers, feel it all over my skin.

Down, girl.

“That seems very unnecessary.” Behind me, the sink ticks like a bomb. “Debatable. Adam called saying something about you screaming and a

dead bird and a bad omen.” “There’s no dead bird.”

He visibly deflates. “Okay, good. I would’ve taken care of it for you, but I would’ve cried.”

“Who wouldn’t?” I exclaim. This is why we didn’t have glue traps for the mice in our apartment. Our neighbor across the hall used to catch and release for us.

“So, if there’s no dead bird,” Eli says, raising an eyebrow as a silent acknowledgment of my fib, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything is good.”

The continuation of my lie fully awakens him. He places a broad palm on the door, his knuckles grazing my cheek. He exerts only the lightest pressure, a request I want to deny. But my body has defected from my brain and instead I rock back on my heels as the door creaks open.

Eli’s careful gaze moves over my face, starting at what is surely now a welt on my forehead. My hair is a mess, the rest of me a wreck.

His eyes flicker lower, then widen, and I watch, mesmerized, as his Adam’s apple undulates against his throat. “You…are wet.”

I look down. “Oh.”

My sleep shirt isn’t white, but this is a bad time to discover that if white’s winning the wet T-shirt contest, lavender’s a fierce contender. It doesn’t fully reveal the shade of things, but it certainly details the shape.

Eli flushes, swallowing hard again as he looks away, scratching at his stubbled cheek.

We used to see each other naked every day, in mundane moments and intensely pleasurable ones. He’s perched on the closed toilet seat to talk to me while I showered; I’ve watched him strip out of his work clothes while I recited a grocery list. He’s had the nipples that are making his ears flush red now in his mouth hundreds of times. He’s touched my breasts, kissed them, given them ridiculous pet names and fucked them. I could draw this man’s dick by memory, have had my hands and body all over it, and yet catching a glimpse of his chest this close makes my face bloom fire-hot. We’re both embarrassed, as if all that knowledge doesn’t sit between us.

Or maybe it’s because it does, because we’re really looking at each other for the first time in so long, remembering things together in the same space. Somewhere, my self-preservation instincts yell, don’t get pulled under.

No more disasters.

Right. Especially when I’ve already got one on my hands. I cross my arms over my chest, forcing a smile.

But Eli sees right through it and takes a step forward. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I’m good.” My voice wobbles. “I promise.”

I expect that to be the last of it. I expect him to nod or clench his jaw or sigh, the way he would when I’d regurgitate that line when I was very clearly not good. I expect him to walk away.

But he’s not that Eli right now, and god, that’s terrifying. He stands there, his palm pressed to the door. It’s the same spot he stood morning after morning, summer after summer, waiting for me.

It’s so disorienting that he’s doing it again. It’s a homesickness of its own.

“What’s going on?” he repeats.

The gentleness of the question twists with every other overwhelming emotion, and a knot forms in my throat. There’s a quiet to his voice, some silent reassurance that whatever I need he’ll take care of.

I shouldn’t trust that, because I’ve leaned on people before and they’ve let me fall. He has.

But I don’t want to be alone. I need someone here, even if it’s Eli.

“I accidentally dropped Adam’s wedding band down the sink and I don’t know how to get it back and I’m fully freaking out because he’s going to unfriend me and kick me out of the wedding,” I burst out.

A hot tear rolls down my cheek. Eli’s expression morphs from confusion to surprise to intense tenderness so fast it hurts, right beneath my ribs.

He steps closer, over the threshold, and for a second I think he’s going to take me into his arms. For a second, I want it so badly I can hardly breathe.

Instead, his fingers graze mine, gone before I can really feel them. “Okay. Let’s go figure it out.”