I groan, tilting my head back. “Jesus, we’re a cliché.” He laughs, that quiet, low laugh that still hits me in the chest. “Could be worse.”
“Could it?” I shoot back, but I’m smiling too. We leave the building together, the parking lot lit by the soft glow of streetlights. The air smells like asphalt and leftover rain. My heels click against the pavement; his boots scuff beside me. It feels weirdly normal, which somehow makes it worse.
He opens the truck door, and I slide in without thinking. It’s muscle memory by now, how easily we fall into old patterns. We start driving—no words, just the sound of the engine and the hum of tires on the wet road. I check my phone once, see a missed text from home, and put it face down on my lap.
Somewhere between one stoplight and the next, I realize I’m not heading home. I’m heading homewith him. He didn’t ask. I didn’t say anything. It just… happened. Like gravity, pulling me in, same as always.
I should tell him to turn around.
I should. But I don’t.
Last night was weird,in a good way. If you can say that. We didn’t have sex. We didn’t even kiss. Not once. We just… talked.
Hours of it. About everything and nothing, work,the kids, his mother’s garden, the first movie we ever saw together. We laughed at stupid things that probably weren’t funny, shared stories we’d both already told a dozen times. It should’ve felt ordinary. It didn’t.
Somehow, it felt more intimate than anything else we could’ve done. There was no pretending, no heavy guilt in the air. Just the quiet comfort of being understood by someone who already knows every version of me, the best parts, the broken parts, the parts I try to hide.
At one point, I realized we were sitting shoulder to shoulder, watching the rain slide down the window, not saying a word. And for once, silence didn’t feel awkward. It felt safe.
And maybe that’s what scares me most, that after all this time, after all the chaos and bad decisions, being near him still feels like peace.
Now,morning light spills across Ethan’s living room. I’m curled up on his couch in one of his old t-shirts, nothing underneath but panties. Coffee in hand. Trying not to overthink what has happened in the last two-ish weeks. Ethan’s across from me, hunched over his mug, turning it like he’s searching for answers in the bottom.
“It’s been years,” he says, voice low, steady but breaking around the edges. “And I still feel like I’m seventeen every time I look at you.” My throat tightens. I staredown at my coffee, the swirl of it blurring in the cup. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes this harder.”
He nods, slowly. “I know. Still true.” I pull my knees up to my chest, trying to make myself smaller, safer. “Some mornings, I wake up so sure. I love David. I do. I’ve built a good life. One that makes sense. But then you walk into a room, and it’s like…” I stop, breath catching. “I forget how to breathe.” Ethan runs a hand down his face, the sound of it rough in the quiet. “I don’t think I’ve breathed right since the airport.”
My chest aches. “This isn’t fair.”
“To them?” he asks quietly. “Or to us?”
“To anyone.” He stands, crosses the room, and kneels in front of me. His hands land on my knees like he’s afraid to grip too hard. “I’m not trying to wreck your life, Liv. I swear.”
“But you are,” I whisper. “Not on purpose. But it’s happening.” He flinches like I hit him. “I have kids,” I say, the words cracking. “A husband who’s been nothing but good to me. Who trusts me.” He nods, eyes down. “And I have Hannah. Two little girls who think I’m some superhero.
“So, what are we doing?” My voice breaks halfway through the sentence. His eyes find mine, steady and wrecked. “We’re falling in love all over again.” That’s when I lose it. The tears hit before I can blink them back. Hot, fast, shaking. I press my palms to my face, but it’sno use. It’s not quiet crying, it’s ugly, open, body-breaking.
He pulls me in, holds me like he’s trying to stop the world from splitting. His arms are solid and familiar and the worst comfort I could want. “I never stopped loving you,” he says into my hair. His voice is soft, almost a confession. “Not when you left. Not when I married Hannah. Not when my girls were born. I thought it would fade. It didn’t.”
I look up at him through tears, blurry, broken. “I tried so hard to forget you.” He touches my cheek, thumb catching a tear. I shake my head, choking out, “We can’t keep doing this.”
“I know,” he says. “But I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’m not yours to lose.” He exhales, a sound somewhere between a curse and a prayer. His hands find my face, holding me there, eyes burning into mine.
“You are mine. You always have been. And I’m not losing you again. I loved you yesterday, I love you today, I’ll love you tomorrow and every day after that.”
Something breaks inside me at that, the way he says mine, the rawness of it. Maybe it’s that I still want to believe him, even when I shouldn’t. I nod, barely. “We need to try to be friends. For real this time.” He nods too, eyes closing like the words hurt to hear. We sit there, both of us quiet, both pretending that some peace might come from this.
Because we both know this isn’t lust. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t go away. The type that ruins you.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ETHAN
