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A laugh escapes before I can stop it. Kell smiles.

The sound loosens something inside me. Not enough to solve anything, but enough that I can look at him without feeling as if every answer has to happen tonight.

“I’m still not sorry I kissed you.”

Kell’s expression softens. “Good.”

“And I’m definitely not sorry you kissed me back.”

“I’m not sorry about that either,” he says.

My gaze slides toward the back room before I can help it.

Kell catches me looking. “Laura.”

I laugh. “I know.”

For a moment, we’re almost us again. Then I realize that may be the problem with the word back. I keep imagining a place we can return to, when maybe there isn’t one.

Maybe there is only whatever comes next.

My purse is near the door. I don’t want to leave. Every physical instinct I have is telling me that leaving Kell standing here when he still wants me and I still want him is ridiculous. But staying because desire is easier than uncertainty would answer the wrong question all over again.

“I think I need to go home.”

Kell is quiet for a beat, then nods. “All right.”

Neither of us moves immediately, but I force myself to pick up my purse and walk to the door. Then I turn back. “What do you want?”

Kell takes his time answering. “If you come back and ask me to be with you, I need you to know what you’re asking for.”

Not prove you love me. Not promise forever. Just know what I’m asking.

“I think that’s fair.”

He nods.

I step outside. Kell stays in the doorway while I cross the cracked pavement toward my car, and part of me is furious that I’m driving home instead of finding out exactly how bad those towels are.

But I know one thing now that I didn’t when I arrived.

Wanting Kell back isn’t the answer.

I have to figure out what I’m asking him to come back to.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Laura

By Friday afternoon, I’ve spent four days trying to figure out what I’m asking Kell for without turning the whole thing into a list of pros and cons. I don’t have the whole answer yet, but I know more than I did Monday.

So after work on Friday, I call. Not text. Call. That feels important too.

He answers on the third ring. “Laura?”

“Hi.”

There’s a brief silence, not awkward exactly, but careful. “Hi.”