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“You could have texted and said, ‘Paul, I’m alive, but I’m busy right now shopping for appliances.’”

“You would have accepted that?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s why I didn’t text it.”

His laugh hits my neck. I close my eyes and smell flowers from the patio in Puerto Vallarta, the sea breeze, and Paul’s skin after sun.

“The day you left,” I say into his hair, “I remembered I never made you that pizza.”

Paul pulls back enough to look at me. His face is a wreck in the quietest, most Paul way possible. Eyes bright. Mouth trying for control and failing in the corners.

“You’re really here?”

I nod.

There are at least ten things I should say. I open my mouth, but Paul kisses me before I get any of it out.

His hands come up to my face. He presses close, breathing into me like he is finding air after six months underwater. I kiss him back too hard, too hungry. Too everything.

We break before one of us suffocates, then I pull him back into the hug.

My mouth finds his ear.

“Fuck, I missed you.”

Paul laughs, wet and shaky.

“Good.”

I huff against his neck. “Asshole.”

His arms tighten.

Then, so soft I almost miss it, he says, “Me too.”

I press my face into his hair and hold on until my heart understands that he’s not a fantasy outside my window anymore. He’s here. So am I. And this time, I know I’m ready.

Paul pulls back first, just enough to look around again, like the room might vanish if he stops touching me completely.

His eyes move over the mattress in the corner, the used couch Mom found on Marketplace, the mail stacked under a wrench so the fan doesn’t scatter my life across the floor.

“How long have you been here?”

I knew the question was coming. Still, my shoulders tighten like I can dodge it if I turn to stone.

“A while.”

“Clint.”

“A few months.”

His eyebrows lift.

“I wasn’t here creeping on you. I just knew almost immediately that I couldn’t stay in PV without you. I needed to figure things out here.”

His mouth twitches.