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Questions begin running through my head in rapid succession. What does this mean? Is this real? Is this a fluke? Is this it? I feel my racing heart switch from being fueled by arousal to panic.

He stands as I enter the room, wrapped in a towel, having forgotten to grab clothes as I floated into the shower minutes earlier. He lets out a shaky breath. “You’re so beautiful. It physically pains me that I’ve never told you that.”

I melt. What else am I supposed to do? Every concern jumps right out of my head as I kiss him softly. “Go shower before I jump your bones,” I say into his lips.

“Is that really an option?” he asks, and I roll my eyes, pushing him toward the bathroom.

Once the door is closed, I get dressed, feeling positively high. My phone buzzes with a text from Hannah.

Hannah

Hurry up and get here already! WTF is taking you so long?? Mom needs our support to get it together and make this happen!

Shit.

This is not the time to figure out what this means. This is the time to make everything perfect for our moms so they can live happily ever after. Operation Latke. That has to be the priority.

He reemerges from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and I cannot believe everything that’s happened since he stood in front of me the same way twenty-four hours earlier. “Eyes up here,” he jokes, and I smile half-heartedly.

He sees right through it. “No no no, what happened?” he asks, stepping toward me. “What could have possibly happened in the last five minutes?”

“Just get dressed. We have to get back on the road. We’ve got plenty of time to talk in the car, Hen.”

He softens. “I can’t remember the last time you called me that.”

“Yeah, well…just hurry up. I’ll grab something easy for us to eat on the way out.”

Before he can say anything else, I slip out the door and scurry down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. I settle on bananas, coffee, and DIY sufganiyot, one of my favorite Hanukkah treats. While a normal sufganiyot is a jelly-filled powdered donut, another deep-fried reminder of the miracle oil that lasted eight nights, I had to work with what I could find—a box of ultra-processed powdered donuts and individual packets of raspberry jam. When I return, he’s packed up the room and is ready to go, and we eat quickly and silently, trying not to make any more of a mess than we already have.

I take one more look around the room, the purple bedding that’s in complete disarray, the awful Victorian chair, and everything in between, and hope this wasn’t just the site of some perfect anomaly.

Chapter 10

Being back in the CR-V feels like a hard punch of reality. I’m quiet as Henry finishes scraping the snow and ice off the windshield and gets in the driver’s seat. He drops the plastic tool in the backseat behind me, and his fingers brush against my arm as he turns back around. Even through the layers of my sweater and jacket, I feel the light touch like it’s just been tattooed on my skin.

I am twenty-six years old. I am a grown woman. I have had sex and been intimate with a moderate number of men, and yet the simple act of fingers fluttering past my arm has reduced me to my near melting point. Teenagers feel everything so much bigger, rawer, more consuming, and I guess it’s always like high school with Henry. Every touch, every look, every feeling is amplified to a ten. Or a fifteen, if I’m being honest. But I can’t let myself be distracted.

“Henry,” I say. It’s a complete sentence, and he turns in his seat to face me, the buzz of the idling car lingering underneath us.

“Okay,” he sighs, resigned. “Out with it. Tell me how you’ve already convinced yourself that this is a mistake.”

I take a deep breath. Being this vulnerable doesn’t come easily to me. “This was unexpected and inevitable, and I have never wanted anyone the way I want you right now. Including Past Henry.”

The exposed part of his neck flushes pink. “But,” he says, because he knows there’s a but.

“But this week is not about us,” I add gently. “I know you know that. We have to focus on our moms and on Operation Latke.”

“You’re making excuses.” It’s not exactly an accusation, but it hangs heavy between us.

Even though we had free rein of each other’s bodies less than an hour ago, my heart suddenly races when I reach over to take his hand and lace my fingers through his.

“I promise I’m not,” I say, and he lifts the hand that holds mine to place a kiss on my wrist. I want to stop talking and climb over the glove compartment into his lap, make out with his stupid face until our lips are raw, but I can’t. Focus, Norah, focus.

“Think about it. Are you ready to explain this to Kristine? To my mom and Hannah? Because I’m sure not. If we arrive at Great Blue Lodge holding hands, we’re going to get pummeled with a million questions we don’t have answers to yet. We need to figure this out for ourselves first. Preferably when we’re not staying in one cabin with our families. It’s just a few days.”

He looks at me with understanding, but the hold he has on my hand tells another story. “I don’t know if I can go a few days without touching you,” he says, his normally gruff voice thick like honey. “It’s like we cracked open a dam or something.”

“Hen,” I start.