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He cuts me off with a quiet intensity, his voice low. “Baby, I don’t know if I can go a few days without finally making you come.”

I let out a haggard breath, feeling the low pull between my thighs, a somersault of need. I squeeze his hand, then extract my fingers from his. “You managed for long enough. What’s a few more days in the grand scheme of things?”

He moves his hands to grip the steering wheel and leans his head back on the headrest, trying to pull himself together. After a moment, he nods to himself, then shifts the idling car into reverse and backs out of the parking lot.

It’s quiet for a few minutes as I wait for the look of anguish to fade from his face.

“ ‘Baby’?” I finally say, suppressing a giggle, because I absolutely have to address that.

Henry hangs his head in embarrassment. “I got swept up in it all. I mean, come on, look at you.”

I glance down at myself, bundled and frazzled. He said it so earnestly, but he must be out of his mind. There is no way that this necessitated a “baby,” the world’s least creative pet name.

“You’re a mess, dude. You gotta get it together before we see our moms,” I joke.

He smiles at me, giving me that look that I still can’t decipher, only now I’m pretty sure it’s filled with something much softer than judgment.

* * *

“Do you want to play a game?” Henry asks once we’re on the road.

“Like the license plate game?” I slip off my shoes and press my feet onto the dash like I used to, the gesture feeling natural again. “I’m pretty much only seeing Illinois plates.”

“No, a questions game. A getting-to-know-you game, no holds barred.” He glances sidelong at me for a beat, his gaze dancing over my propped-up legs, the moment laced with longing. “For half my life, you were the person I knew better than anyone, but there’s so much we missed out on over the last nine years. I want to know everything about the woman you are now.”

I had done my ten thousand hours of a previous version of Henry Cole. At one point in my life, I could have been a sworn expert.

I want to earn back that title.

“Okay.” The idea of having this kind of familiarity with him now, erasing all the years of separation, just Henry in the present tense, is almost as intoxicating as his touch. “What’s your go-to karaoke song?”

Henry gives me a once-over. “My karaoke song.” It’s not a question, but his tone is curious.

“Yeah, the more embarrassing the better.”

“I tell you I’m an open book and that’s the first thing you want to know about me?” he asks, a smile breaking out across his face.

“Yes,” I tell him, knocking my knee into his forearm, his hand hovering over the gearshift. “It’s the barometer for me to judge the rest of your existence.”

“I’m really going to disappoint you, then,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m not much for karaoke.”

“Henry!” I gasp. “Don’t make me call off whatever this is between us now over motherfucking karaoke.”

“I’m not opposed to it; it just hasn’t come up that often. Plus, I have a terrible voice.”

“Oh, I remember,” I snort. “But the worse you are, the more fun it is.”

“Well, what’s your go-to?” he asks.

“ ‘Like a Prayer’ by our queen, Madonna. Obviously.”

Henry laughs, a full-body, shoulders-shaking laugh. “Seriously?”

“Wait till you see the interpretive dance I do alongside it,” I say with a goofy smile. He’s so rarely dropped this buttoned-up side of himself over the last few days that each time I get to chip away at it a little more feels like an enormous victory.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind. Okay, worst date you’ve ever been on?”

“Oh, we’re just really cutting right in there, huh? Right to the juicy stuff?”