“I thought I’d never see you again.”

At the sound of the voice in the doorway, Bess’s soap-slick hands twitched on the coffee mug she’d been rinsing. It slipped from her fingers and crashed to the kitchen’s tile floor. Hot water splashed her legs as she turned, gripping the counter to keep from sliding in the spill.

He stood, backlit, for just a moment before moving forward. The same dark hair, same dark eyes. Same quirked smile.

Everything the same.

Bess couldn’t move. Last night she had dreamed…oh, but it hadn’t been a dream. Had it? If not, surely she dreamed now. She curved her fingers against the sink’s porcelain, finding no purchase. Nothing to grip.

“Nick?”

Now he looked uncertain. His hair dripped, and the hems of his jeans. His bare toes, coated with sand, gritted on the tile as he took a step toward her, hand outstretched but quickly pulling back when Bess shrank against the counter. “Bess…it’s me.”

Her guts tumbled inside her, and she couldn’t breathe. She sipped at the air in uneven, hitching gasps. “I thought…I thought…”

“Hey.” He soothed her, coming closer.

She could smell him. Salt and water and sand and sun. The way he’d always smelled, back then. Bess found more air. Took a deeper breath. Nick didn’t touch her as she stared. His hand hovered an inch from her shoulder.

“It’s really me,” he said.

A low sob forced its way from her throat and she launched herself into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face to the damp fabric of his shirt. She breathed him in, deep and deeper.

It took him a second to put his arms around her, but when he did, his embrace was firm. Warm. He rubbed her back, then slid up a hand to cup the base of her skull.

Bess, eyes closed, shuddered against him. “I thought I was dreaming last night.”

She remembered stumbling up the beach, peeling off her clothes, tumbling into bed without even bothering to dry her hair or brush the sand from her skin. She’d woken to find the pile of salt-sodden clothes staining the rug and her bed a shambles. The passion of the night before had been replaced by a pounding head and slightly sick stomach.

Nick’s hand rubbed a small, tight circle on her back, just between the shoulder blades. “If you were dreaming, I was dreaming, too.”

Bess held him tighter. “Maybe we’re both dreaming, because this can’t be real, Nick. It can’t be real.”

He put his hands on her upper arms and pushed her from his body far enough to look into her face. She’d forgotten how small he could make her feel. How deceptively bigger he’d always been.

“I’m real.”

His fingers on her arms felt real. Solid. Strong. Her cheek was wet from where she’d pressed it to his shirt. Heat radiated from him as though she stood in front of a furnace, and the smell of him, that lost, welcome smell, filled her head until there was nothing else inside her. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away. Then she pushed herself out of his arms.

Bess looked at him. Salt water had spiked his hair, but had ceased sliding down his cheeks. His clothes had started to dry, too. He took up as much space as he ever had. His touch was as warm. Time hadn’t touched him, hadn’t painted lines in the corners of his eyes and mouth or silver in his hair.

Bess touched Nick’s cheek. “How can this be? Look at you. Look at me.”
He put his hand over hers, then turned his face to press a kiss to the center of her palm. He closed her fingers over it, but said nothing.

His smile broke her.

“Oh, no,” Bess said. “Oh, no. No.”

She pulled her hand from his. Neither of them moved, but the distance between them grew vast. Something flickered in Nick’s eyes, an emotion she couldn’t read.

“How many people have a second chance?” He asked. “Don’t turn me away, Bess. Please.”

He’d never asked her for anything. Blinking, Bess turned back to the sink. She’d left the water running and pushed the handle of the faucet down. Without the rush of water pouring from the spigot, the sound of the ocean outside filled the space between them and brought them together.

“How?” She asked.

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“It should.”

He smiled and sent the same old twist into her belly, and lower. “But does it? Really?”

When he bent to kiss her, the taste of him chased away logic. All reason. And that, too, was the same as it had always been.

“No,” Bess said, and opened her arms for him again.

* * * * * ** *

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