The Hotel Bar

Two years of silence. Then he said her name like he'd been holding it in his mouth the whole time.

The wedding rehearsal dinner had ended an hour ago, but the hotel bar was still glowing amber and quiet, the kind of lighting designed to make bad decisions look beautiful. I was nursing a bourbon I didn't really want when the stool beside me pulled back.

"Hey."

One word. His voice. And my entire body remembered everything my brain had spent two years filing away.

Marco sat down like he'd been practicing how to be casual about it. He'd changed — broader in the shoulders, scruff a little thicker, that leather watch I'd given him for his birthday still circling his wrist. He ordered a beer without looking at the menu because of course he did.

"You look —" he started, then stopped. Ran a hand through his curls. Tried again. "You look really good."

"You look like you haven't slept," I said, because I was not going to make this easy for him.

He laughed — that warm, self-deprecating laugh that used to undo me — and said, "I haven't. Not since I found out you were coming."

The honesty hit me like a door swinging open into a dark room. I took a sip of bourbon to buy time, but my hand was shaking, and we both saw it.