“Well, yeah, but everyone likes a lot of the same music they liked in college.”
“And your favorite ice cream is still strawberry?”
“Again, plenty of people like the same ice cream as?—”
“And you still sleep with the bathroom light on since you get up to pee in the middle of the night?”
“Okay, I see the point you’re making, but?—”
“And you separate out your food on your plate so it doesn’t touch.”
“Anyone who?—”
“When you sneeze, it’s always three times in a row. And you get the hiccups after you drink something with carbonation.”
I want to be annoyed by this. I want to chalk it up to anything other than what it is, and I want to ignore the way it makes my stomach feel like someone took it out of my body and placed it in the front seat of a roller coaster.
It’s unnerving how well he remembers me. I told myself for years after he left me for his real first love—hockey—that he forgot that I existed, that he never thought about me again.
But after what he said the other night…“I am tormented by what could have been.”And now seeing all the things he remembers and seems to know about me, I don’t think I can safely assume that I never crossed his mind.
In fact, it seems like it was quite the opposite. Like maybe I never left his mind at all…
That thought should not make my heart beat a little faster.
“All right, I’ll admit it,” I say. “It seems you do know me. Or at least you have a decent memory. But why? Why hold on to all of that information?”
He scoots closer to me, dipping his arms back into the tub to move himself along the bench.
“Why do you think?” His voice is gravelly, a thousand implications in his words. I shouldn’t be able to hear him over the jets—his voice is so low and quiet—but I feel like he’s right in my ear.
“I’m not going to guess or play games. We’re too old for that,” I say.
He moves a little closer, the gap between us closing, and my pulse quickens. I don’t move away from him. I don’t really mind it, even if there’s a part of my brain telling me it’s a bad idea to let him get so close.
But he’s still at least an arm’s length away from me. And that feels fine. A safe distance.
“I didn’t let go of you when I ended things.”
I didn’t either.
“Maybe you should have.”
“Maybe I should have,” he repeats, eyes glued to mine. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to. He inches closer, and alarm bells go off in my brain, but my body is deaf to them. His voice has taken on a serious, almost seductive tone, and I think it’s working. My heart is hammering in my throat. There’s a dull ache between my legs already.
“Were you holding out hope that I’d come running back to you?”
A corner of his lips lifts in amusement. He seems to like that I’m taunting him.
“More like, I’d hoped you let me come crawling back to you one day,” he says.
Desire weighs on me, my bones heavy with it. I can’t take my eyes off him as he moves toward me with languid, careful movements. The water flows around him, all sounds drowned out by the jets and the blood thrumming in my ears.
“Maybe if you got on your knees,” I say. “I like a bit of groveling.”
“I can get on my knees,” he says, his lips curling in a knowing smile. My mind conjures the way he used to set me on my bed and kneel in front of me to pleasure me until I forgot my name, an image he would be delighted to know he elicited.
I swallow hard. I have too much moisture in my mouth, and I’m practically drooling. I scan his torso, taking him in from shoulders to waist, everything I can see above the water line, and it was the wrong thing to do. Up close like this, his body is unreal, and I have to dig my fingers into the bench to keep from exploring with more than my eyes. I clench my legs at the throb of desire between them.
