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I felt my whole body deflate.

“But… it’s Christmas,” I said. “We have the whole day. We were meeting Noel and Nick for dinner. Noel’s making her famous chicken and I was going to do my bourbon bread puddi—”

“I can’t,” he said. “I have to go home.”

I set my fork down. He put the pan in the drying rack and stood staring into the sink. “This is… hard,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “It is.”

He seemed to steel himself. Then he came over to sit in the chair across from me. “Please eat,” he said. “I won’t feel good leaving you here hungry.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Tears pricked at my eyes. I sniffed and sat up and slid him the manila envelope, just to have something to do that wasn’t crying.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“A clean slate,” I said, wiping under my lashes. “It’s all the pictures of you that were plastered all over town.”

He pulled out the stack of flyers and fanned them out. “How’d you get this?” he said, looking up at me.

“I paid some teenagers at the wedding twenty bucks to run around and take the signs down at their parents’ shops while everyone was distracted.”

He smiled at the envelope. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“I promise as a new resident, my first order of business will be to initiate a vigorous rebranding for you. It’s not going to be easy. These people are traumatized.”

He laughed, his brown eyes squinting at the corners. It didn’t last, though. “Please run for council,” he said. “Nick and Noel are going to need the help.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “I will. Will you promise to visit?”

Silence.

“I think it might be easier if I didn’t.”

“I think it’s going to be hard either way,” I said.

He stood. “It’s time to go.”

I got up while he grabbed his luggage and swiveled it to the vestibule. He put on his boots and wrapped his scarf around his neck. I watched him shrug on his jacket.

He looked so, so sad.

God, why did this feel so terrible?

It had been only a few days. Not long enough to feel this torn. This anything. But I did anyway.

I came in to give him a hug.

“Could you kiss a man you’ve only just met?” he whispered, tucking me under his chin.

“Sure. Unless you want me to sign an NDA or something first.”

He gave me a half-hearted laugh and pulled away to look at me. He slipped my cheeks between his warm palms and I swam in the reflection of his gentle brown eyes, breathed in the crisp scent of his cologne. Then he pressed his soft mouth to mine.

I’d like to tell you I felt nothing. I’d like to say it was a letdown, that it wasn’t what I hoped it would be. But it was. It was like a memory. Like coming home.

Like déjà vu.