For a split second, my chest tightens thinking it might be Eric, even though that makes no sense. My rational brain knows it doesn’t. But fear doesn’t ask for permission to show up. We don’t have much contact since the divorce got finalized. Yet, he shows up at the most unpredictable times.
It’s just a notification for a sale on a clothing store app.
Still, I don’t fully relax. I sip my coffee instead and lean back against the seat.
The sunlight streams through the windshield, warming my face. And for the first time since waking, I feel something I haven’t had in a long time. It’s not peace. But like a pause. A break in the tension.
A moment of quiet.
But quiet lets memories in.
And suddenly, I’m right back at my cabin. Eric is yelling about money. Then Tony—calm, steady, immovable—stepping between us. Then the kiss.
My breath catches.
I shouldn’t think about it.
I really shouldn’t.
But my body remembers it more clearly than my mind does. The warmth of him. The strength in his hands. The way he tilted to me like he’d done it a thousand times. The heat of his mouth. The way my knees had softened, traitorous, wanting more than I should ever allow myself to want.
It was fake.
It was a distraction.
A way to get my ex-husband to back off.
That’s all.
But my stomach swirls anyway, remembering the way Tony’s voice had dropped after, low and intimate and commanding: “Let’s get inside and warm up, baby.”
A flush spreads across my neck. It shouldn’t affect me. It shouldn’t mean anything. But something in me whispers that it did mean something—to him or to me, I don’t know.
I am not part of a let’s anymore. Do I even want that for myself? Before the kiss, I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about what it would be like to kiss another man, be with anyone.
How do I move on when in my mind I committed my life to Eric? Yet, kissing Tony, I felt alive again. I want that for me.
My lunch break ends before I’m ready. I toss the empty cup aside and go back inside.
By the last hour of the workday, I’m running on fumes.
A headache pulses behind my eyes. My throat is dry. My legs ache from sitting too long. My nerves are a mess of tangled threads that I keep trying to smooth down.
Around four fifteen, Dr. Kline emerges with a mouthful of expression that says someone dropped the ball but hasn’t yet decided who.
“Holley,” he says, adjusting his glasses, “did you call the lab about the Raymond crown?”
“Yes. They said it’s delayed until Thursday.”
He frowns. “Thursday? That’s unacceptable.”
“They said there was a staffing issue—” I try to explain and he cuts me off holding up a hand.
“Call again.”
“I already?—”
“Call again,” he repeats, sharper.
