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“My hands can do a lot of incredible things, Bels.” I can hear the smirk in his voice. I wonder if his mind is going back to the same place mine is.

I throw my arm over my eyes, muttering unintelligibly as Sunday noses up my jaw, teasing at the waistband of my pants. I’m nervous, but I want this. He’s been so gentle with me, so patient. I drop my arm just enough to look at him, pleading and frustrated.

He rubs slow circles into my hip with his thumb. “What do you want?” He smiles like an idiot when I scowl at him.

I suck at communicating what I want, too embarrassed by it. But he’s been teasing it out of me, not letting me have anything until I have the confidence to tell him. Verbal consent is a hill he’ll die on, every time.

“Hands, mouth?” he nudges.

That’s what we’ve worked up to. Hand jobs, blowjobs. But I’m ready for more.

“Fingers,” I bite out, slamming my arm back over my eyes again.

“Oh? You ready to be introduced to your prostate?”

The heat of the memory stains my cheeks, Sunday’s wolfish grin not helping.

“So, about this sprite?” I redirect the conversation, reminding him why I’m here.

I’m not convinced there is a sprite, truth be told. It doesn’t feel like there’s one here. But I run through the process anyway, cleansing the space with sage and then burning a slip of paper over a black candle I brought with me. I mutter the banishment under my breath out of habit, although I guess I don’t really have to do that around him anymore. Some habits are hard to break, though.

“Here, order what you want.” Sunday slides his phone into my palm when I’m done with the ritual. I look down at the pizza menu on the screen, but the veggie options are slim so it doesn’t take me long to choose. Habits really do die hard, and I find myself adding his pizza order too. Half veggie, half meat lover’s, with a BBQ thin-crust base. He looks at me with surprise when I hand him back his phone.

“You remember my pizza order?” he says, thumb hovering shakily over the screen.

“Kind of hard not to when I had to listen to you give yourself a TED Talk on it every time we ordered.” He started developing a complex about what he was eating in his last year of college, something I put down to that meathead jock he insisted on hanging out with.

“You got me there,” he laughs, joining me on the sectional.

His laugh slips between my ribs, soothing an ache that’s been unreachable until now.

I ran away when he showed me that box of sentimental keepsakes because it just…hurt too much. I couldn’t match up the boy I fell in love with, the guy that hurt me, and the man who apparently hoarded little pieces of us for six years after our breakup. Seeing his vulnerability last night cracked something open in me.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful.

I don’t know the shape of him now, which pieces have changed and which remain the same. But maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to start putting those pieces back together and see what happens.

I could do with a friend, really. He was my first real one. My first real everything.

“Your parents still running the mortuary?” I ask, extending that olive branch. To let us catch up on each other’s lives, properly, without my rage hanging over us.

“Yeah, for sure. I think they’ll still be running it when they’re dead, to be honest,” he jokes, face dropping when he realizes what he’s said. “I didn’t mean⁠—”

“It’s fine.” I stall his worrying. “Do you think you’ll take it over one day?”

His nose screws up in thought. “Mmm, probably not. There’s a couple interns who have stayed on over the years, so while the assets might come to me, I’ll make one of them run it. I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing.”

I don’t want to ask the next question, but I force it out anyway, looking down at my hands. “How…how was your internship in London?” It’s a sore subject for me, one of the excuses he gave when we broke up—too many miles between us.

He mirrors me, dropping his head as he traces the swirling pattern of his tattoos on his hand, playing with the rings inked into his skin.

“Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Great, from a learning standpoint. Kinda felt like something was missing, though.”

“Because you missed home?”

“Something like that.” He gives me a sad smile that reminds me so much of high-school Sunday. It makes me want to dispel this pressure that’s been sitting in my chest for months.

I blow out a shaky breath, angling my body toward him slightly. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold eye contact, but if I’m going to place my heart in his hands, I can at least do this.