He scoffed but didn’t protest the honorific. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
I kissed him quickly on the mouth, then left for work.
The first three hours of my shift crawled by at a snail’s pace while I tried to sort out the confusion Cory caused in my brain. It hadn’t been that long ago he’d done it for the first time, and after the upheaval of all that settled, I found myself thrown right back into the mess all over again.
I hated it.
I fidgeted with my wedding ring.
“Reese,” my coworker Emily said, gently pressing her hand against the small of my back. “There’s a man at the end of the bar asking for you.”
I glanced down that way, finding Cory in the same seat he’d been in the night we met for the first time. Dropping the knife I’d been using to cut up lemons, I wiped my hands on a towel and switched sides with Emily.
“Hey,” I greeted, feeling a little silly for my emotions at the house. “I wanted to?—”
“Whiskey and coke,” he interrupted. “Top shelf.”
I cleared my throat, trying to remember what I’d said to him the first night we met. “I think our top shelf is your bottom shelf.”
“What makes you think that?” Cory smirked, jiggling his bare wrist. “You’re the one with the fifty-thousand dollar watch.”
My cheeks burned, and I turned away to pour him a drink. My hands trembled a little, more than they had a year ago, butthe bar was dark enough I didn’t think he would notice. Sliding the drink onto a cardboard coaster, I shoved both of my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.
“Thank you…” he trailed off, the question unspoken.
“Reese,” I whispered. “My name is Reese.”
“Nice to meet you, Reese. I’m Cory, and you’re right. This whiskey is atrocious.”
I laughed, puffing a huge exhale out of my mouth and tipping my head back toward the ceiling. Alright. We were doing this.
“I’ve got better whiskey at my place,” I said, the memories jogging back one after the other after the other.
“I’ve got a hotel,” he blurted.
The wires were crossing, this do-over something different while also being the same.
“Is that an invitation?”
“Did you want it to be?” he asked.
Cory gave me the shyest smile I’d ever seen on him, chin tucked toward his chest like he was embarrassed to be having the conversation with me. Feelings for him tangled and swelled in my chest, the overwhelming love that lived there for him eclipsing my earlier petulance about him not making me his number one priority all the time. But I respected what he was doing just the same. It wasn’t like starting over, but it was a fresh start. It was a chance to get back to who we really were to each other before life had gotten in the way of everything.
He finished his drink and then pulled out his wallet. He dropped a twenty beside the empty glass and a hotel room key on top of it.
“Los Angeles Gateway,” he said.
Fuck. It was the same script, the same lines, the same shitty airport hotel.
I swallowed hard. “Room 1409?”
Cory fought a smile, slipping his wallet back into his pocket.
“How’d you know?”
CHAPTER 5
