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“I’d do anything to feel this free all the time,” I tell him.

His lips press to the top of my head. “You don’t need to do anything to feel this free, though.”

He’s right. This outing has barely cost us a penny—we could easily afford it in my barista/gravedigger fantasy—and I’ve never been happier. I certainly wouldn’t need more, but I doubt it would hold up if he wasn’t here with me.

“I’m not sure my mother has ever had a moment this peaceful,” he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. He’s already told me she’s probably got two years left, maybe three. It weighs on him, that ticking clock. He wants to fill it with all the things she won’t have, and it’s too late for some of them. “If she did, the shit my dad’s done has tainted it by now.”

“Why does she stay with him?” I ask.

“Because of us,” he says. “I found out when I was a teenager and it was already old news to her at that point. She was willing to pretend things were fine, for our sake, so we’d feel like one big happy family.”

She just didn’t realize what a strain it would be on her oldest son. Or what a strain she puts on him now, with that all-encompassing love of hers, and the way he struggles to live up to it. I might be the one wrong thing, the one deceitful thing, he’s ever done.

When dusk falls, we link hands again and head toward the hotel. “How long do you have?” I ask. My voice sounds small and childlike. I wish he could stay. I just want one more day with him. It seems like so little to ask and yet I know it’s impossible for either of us.

His hand tightens around mine. “A few hours.”

We stop at a bar on the way back to the hotel. He orders us mussels and frites and two glasses of red wine.

“I could listen to you speak French all day,” I tell him.

He grins. “If you worked at Dooha, you probably would. I promise it wouldn’t seem so exciting then.”

“Pretend I’m your nurse,” I say, tipping my head up and closing my eyes. “Say something.”

“Je pense qu’il y a une hémorragie interne.” His voice is soft as velvet. My nipples tighten under four layers of clothing.

“That sounded sexy,” I tell him. “What was it?”

“I think there’s internal bleeding,” he replies and I laugh.

Our food arrives and we eat quickly, suddenly famished. We’re only half done when the bar grows crowded. The mood is celebratory—it’s not every day the city is unexpectedly shut down. We are bumped from all sides and Josh turns us so I’m seated and he’s standing, blocking the crowd with those ridiculous shoulders of his.

I take a sip of my wine, savoring it the way I did the hot chocolate. His gaze falls to my mouth and my blood heats in response.

“What are you thinking about up there?” I ask.

His eyes drop to my mouth again. “Watching you drink wine is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he says. His nostrils flare a little, as if he’s trying to breathe me in.

I swallow. I need him undressed right now and looming over me. I need those large hands of his palming my hips, pulling them off the mattress to meet his. “Maybe we should go back to the room,” I say breathlessly.

He nods, the check is paid, and the two of us stumble from the bar, walking too close to be graceful. On the street, he presses me against the building’s crumbling stone facade and kisses me, the air biting cold, his mouth warm and needy. I press against him, my hands sliding beneath his coat.

“I want to be so far inside you, you’ll never forget I was there,” he whispers.

You already are, I think, pulling him down the street.

We reach the room and shed our clothes as if they’re suffocating us. And then we are on the bed, deliciously naked, and he’s above me, pinning me down with his heavy limbs, moving inside me like he’d sooner die than stop.

He wrings the first orgasm from me easily, but then demands another. I can feel it building, a tight ball of heat in my stomach, but it’s the sight of him there, trembling on the cusp but refusing to be pushed over as he waits for me, that finally sets it off.

And then he lets go—a desperate, hoarse cry in my ear, his body shaking above mine.

“I’m not going to forget, ever,” I whisper against his skin. “I promise.”

He doesn’t have long after that. He tells me to stay in bed as he gathers his things, so I watch him move across the room, stepping into boxers, tugging a t-shirt overhead.

When he’s dressed and his stuff is gathered, he comes to the edge of the bed and presses his lips to my forehead. They hold there for the longest moment and neither of us says a word.