His jaw tightened. “I want to kiss you goodbye, but if I start, I won't leave on time.”
Heat flooded through me—want and frustration and something dangerously close to hope all tangled together. I closed some of the distance between us. Not all of it, just enough to show him I wanted this too.
Just enough to make it a choice we’d both have to make.
I stood close enough that I could see the conflict in his eyes—duty pulling him one direction, desire pulling him another.
For a moment, I thought he might say fuck it. Might throw his perfectly calculated timeline out the window, close that last bit of space, and kiss me the way he had in the pre-dawn dark.
But Connor McNamara was nothing if not disciplined.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, just like last night, intimate and careful. His thumb traced my cheekbone, and I could feel the restraint in his touch.
“Two weeks,” he said again. A promise this time.
“Two weeks,” I echoed.
Then he stepped back, grabbed his suitcase, and walked out the door, leaving my skin warm where he’d touched me.
I looked around at the kitchen that wasn’t mine, in the apartment that would be vacant in six months. The breakfast dishes dripped in the drying rack, left behind by a man who just walked away, yet still lingered in the smell of coffee and woodsybody wash, the memory of flannel sheets and almost-kisses. The apartment settled into silence around me—just the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my own heart wondering what the hell just happened.
Hannah
CLOSEDFORPRIVATEEVENT.I breezed past the sign to set up before the first guest arrived. Uncle Mike had been surprised when I’d volunteered for the engagement party—I usually preferred the main floor where I could hustle for tips—but Connor would be here tonight. I wore my official event attire: button-down and vest instead of my usual black tank. And underneath, the lacy bra and panties I hadn’t touched since I’d rage-packed them five months ago, leaving Sebastian’s apartment and my old life behind.
The couple requested peppermint bark martinis as their signature cocktail based on some inside joke, so I got to work: candy canes in the food processor, chocolate sauce for dipping, pre-freezing the rims so they’d harden.
I watched the door like an idiot as guests trickled in, reminding myself that Connor was here for the party, not forme. We’d kissed once, that was it. Not even a hookup. Maybe he’d bring someone tonight. Maybe I’d be back on Teresa’s couch, listening to them through the wall. I ground the last of the peppermint to offset the sound of my gritting teeth.
“That’s a lot of candy canes for September.”
I spun around. Connor McNamara leaned against the bar, hair gelled, suit pressed. His gaze traveled over me—not lewd, more like checking I still had all my appendages—before he smiled. “Trying to cause a supply chain shortage?”
“Your terrible taste in creamer inspired me,” I teased, already reaching for the vodka. I mixed him a peppermint White Russian—Kahlua, vodka, cream, crushed candy cane—and slid it across with my best Lebowski impression: “Careful, man, there’s a beverage here.”
Connor laughed, the sound I’d been waiting two weeks to hear.
Keeping his eyes locked on mine, he lifted the glass, eyelids dropping in satisfaction, and heat pooled low in my stomach. “Perfect again, Goldie.”
When a queue formed behind him, he lifted his drink in appreciation and moved off to mingle, leaving me to work. I fell into rhythm—pouring, mixing, smiling on autopilot while I tracked him across the room.
It wasn’t until the party was in full swing that my stomach threatened to rebel when a person I never expected to see walked through the door.
Sebastian Callihan, my ex-boyfriend, two hundred miles from where I’d left him. Sleek button-down, expensive watch, that familiar expression: half-smug, half-disapproving.
I kept my head down organizing bottles, hoping he wouldn’t notice me. At first he didn’t, greeting the groom with a familiar bro handshake-back-slap.
But my shitty luck just kept following me.
Sebastian approached with the easy confidence of a man who’d never considered he might not be welcome. “So this is where you went into hiding. Wasting away in Margaritaville?”
“They’re martinis, actually.” I held up a pre-rimmed glass. “But I wouldn’t expect you to notice. Your attention to detail has always been lacking.”
His lip curled. I turned away to pour Cabernet for the father of the groom, but that pest just lingered like a gnat you try to shoo away, watching me work with a general air of annoyance at being ignored.
When the line cleared, he came back. “Is this what you’re doing now? I knew you’d fallen far, but I didn’t realize it was this bad.” He hit me with that familiar smile—all teeth, no spine. “Aren’t you curious why I’m here?”
Desperately. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Nope.”
