Page 84 of Return To You

“Thank you.” Now he’s making me blush. “But we’re only talking about me.”

“Not much to say about me,” he says, stacking his cutlery on his plate.

I down the last dregs of my coffee. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

He represses a smile. “Another time. We need to start moving if you want to make your one o’clock.”

We clear the table, then carry it back inside. Ethan follows with the chairs while I shoo Damian back in.

“How long have you lived here?” Ethan asks while he does the dishes.

I stand next to him to wipe and put away. He doesn’t ask me to stay seated, and I like that he seems to understand I need to move, and I need to put my things back where they belong. And also, I like doing that with him. It warms my heart. Another memory to keep safe for later.

“I bought the house about a year after I moved back. So what—four, five years? Something like that.”

He seems to think about things and I expect him to ask me why I chose this house. I know he noticed. What am I going to tell him when he asks? I’ll just say it was a coincidence. Total coincidence.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Did you move back… right after your divorce?”

I take a deep breath. It’s not as simple as that. “Before, actually. The divorce was final later. A few months after I moved back home.”

He keeps his eyes glued to the dishes, scrubs a plate that’s already clean. “What—what happened?”

How can I tell him? I’m not ready for this, not right now. Later. “Um… there just—there was nothing left for us to share. It…” I take a break and look at him, at his strong profile, his easy presence. “I’m not really ready to talk about it.”

“That’s okay.” He hesitates. “Was it a bad breakup?” he pushes.

“Not the way you might think. He was a good guy. A real good guy. We just… had nothing. It just fizzled out.”

I’m not ready to share with Ethan the deep loss, the wound I still carry around. But maybe, someday, we might get there. Maybe I can let him close enough to share this with him.

“Okay,” he says softly, handing me the last plate.

After I put the plate away, he pulls me into his arms and runs his hand over my back. “Is someone’s birthday coming up?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Apart from Lynn’s?”

He drops his head and laughs softly. “I’m not gonna live this down, am I? Who else knows about this?”

“Lemme see… the whole town?”

He shakes his head. “Any reason there’s a shopping bag with a cute as hell swimsuit in your car?’

“A wh—? Oh!” I frown. “How? Oh right.” He picked up my car, and I still have Cassandra’s bag in it.

He nods. “So. Swimsuit?”

“A gift from Cassandra.”

His lips graze my hair. “I like her taste. After your client, I’m thinking we should we get you in that excuse of a bikini and go for a swim.”

“Sure. I’ll just need to go grocery shopping real quick before that. And then we can go for a swim. That’d be nice.”

“And what’s that booster seat? Is that for Skye?” he asks as he lets me reluctantly out of his embrace.

“Yeah. I guess, now that Alex is back for good, they won’t need me as much. But… yeah. She has her bedroom upstairs too. With Chris’s crazy hours as a baker, she used to spend a lot of time here, so we wanted to make her comfortable.” It’s going to feel awful empty, once summer is over, Ethan is gone, and Skye doesn’t need me to take her to school anymore.

He grabs my waist and pulls me to him. “I’m sure they’ll be grateful for the babysitting.” He kisses my eyelids softly and gives me a squeeze, and I just love, love that he knows how I feel but also knows not to dwell on it.

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