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“But…” I hear myself whisper.

That’s all I have. One word. But. I don’t even know what comes after it. I only know there’s a crack in the wall and I’m the one who put it there.

He scoots closer.

The last inch of air between us is about to disappear.

Someone knocks on my door.

Three sharp raps, loud in the stillness, landing in the middle of the moment like the same cold water that hit him under my sink.

Neither of us moves.

I should move. He should move. There is a person at my door and a man against my body and I am somehow doing nothing about either.

The knock comes again. Louder.

Luke doesn’t take his eyes off me. “You should probably get that.”

His voice is rough. I feel it more than hear it.

“Oh.” I blink, and the kitchen swims back into focus, my whole ordered life reasserting itself around the one moment it completely failed to control. “Right. I forgot where I was.”

Something flickers across his face, pleased and pained at once, at the fact that I forgot where I was.

Then he pushes off the counter. Steps back and gives me room.

And I slip out of the space between him and the cabinets on legs that aren’t fully cooperating, cross my apartment, and open the door.

It’s a delivery driver with a package and a screen for me to sign.

I sign it. It doesn’t look like my signature. Nothing about me looks like mine right now.

I close the door on the delivery driver and turn around, and Luke is still standing in my kitchen.

And I make the mistake of looking at him.

He’s a mess.

That’s the only honest word for it.

His hair is wrecked, damp and shoved in every direction, half of it my fault. There’s a smudge of something dark down one forearm. His shirt is soaked through the front and clinging, and I am trying to be a mature adult about that and failing.

Jeans. Boots. Water still sitting at his collar.

And the mustache.

I spent an entire evening two weeks ago deciding whether it was a problem. It is not a problem. On the wrong man, a mustache is a warning label. On this one it just makes him look like he could rebuild an engine, carry someone out of a burning building, and ruin your entire life, in that order.

He fixed my sink. Told me the worst thing that ever happened to him. Pinned me against my own counter.

And now he’s standing in the middle of my careful, orderly apartment like he belongs in it.

Taking up more room than anyone ever has in here.

And I think it with total clarity.

I want to kiss him.