“That’s the most honest thing you’ve said all afternoon.”
“I’ve been working up to it.”
“It shows.”
He laughed.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “we’d have failed at eighteen, made it at twenty-five, and been all right by thirty.”
“We’ll never know.”
“No. We won’t.”
They finished their hotdogs. The afternoon stretched, and the wind did its work, and he watched her tuck the same strand of hair behind the same ear for the fourth time.
“Dinner tomorrow,” he said. “Still picking you up at seven.”
“Yes.”
He held his hand out for her empty paper, and when she gave it to him, their fingers met in the exchange, and he didn’t let go right away.
“Tessa.”
“Gabriel.”
He leaned in and paused half an inch from her mouth because he wanted her to know he was asking.
“Yes,” he said, “or no.”
“Yes.”
He closed the distance.
It wasn’t the kiss of two people figuring out how. It was the kiss of two people remembering. His hand found her jaw, andhers fisted in his shirt, and she made a sound against his mouth he had been waiting to hear again. She softened against him. Her free hand slid around his neck and held him there, and the bench and the chess players and the city all fell away. There was only her. Only this.
He pulled back before he forgot how to.
“Just an appetizer,” he said.
He stood, gathered the wrappers, picked up his sack from the bench leg, and walked away before she could respond.
Chapter 8
TESSA
Tessa zippedthe back of the dress and faced the mirror.
The emerald silk did things to her figure she hadn’t planned for. She’d bought it two years ago for a gala, worn it once, and hung it back into its garment bag the next morning. A man at her table had spent the night staring at her chest like she’d dressed for him.
She was wearing it tonight.
Her phone lit on the bathroom counter.
Gabriel: On my way. Traffic’s light.
She’d given him her address the night before because he’d insisted on picking her up, and she’d stopped pretending she had a reason to say no.
She slid her lipstick into her bag with her wallet, her keys, and the three granola bars she always carried. She checked the mirror one more time.
