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I’d have to figure out how to share the alter with him as co-best men at Brett’s wedding, and I’d have to figure out how to remain Brett’s friend when I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as his brother without running my hands through his hair and shoving his shirt up until I could dance my fingertips and my lips down his chest. Until I could make him hum and moan and sing out curses interwoven with my name like a prayer. Without asking in all earnestness how he was feeling and listening intently to the answer, ready to be the one to make him feel better if he was hurting. Without feeling like I was having a combination heart attack and stroke with every “cool” he uttered.

“I wish I knew what you were thinking,” he said, and I almost told him all of that.

“Dalton, I …”

He interrupted me, voice rising in anger. I didn’t mind the interruption. I had no idea what I intended to say.

“For an entire fucking year, all I’ve wanted is to know what you’re thinking.”

“No, that’s not true. Why? Why would you care what I think?”

He laughed a bitter laugh, finally putting the card back in the stand. He looked at his watch and shrugged his shoulders, flipping the open sign to closed and locking the door. It was a series of motions that came naturally to him. He’d been doing it since before I’d moved to town, since way before the store and the building were mine.

“Show me the bookstore, Turner,” he said, but he didn’t wait for me, moving to the back of the store and through my office while I scurried to catch up.

The place was hopping when we entered the storefront, me on Dalton’s heels. The teenager at the register made a funny face until she saw me behind the stranger who had barged through from the back room.

There were kids and teens, young and older adults, and more than a few seniors. The line for coffee was four deep, which was a great number of customers for a beachfront store of any kind in the middle of winter.

I’d hired someone to decorate for the holidays, so where the toy store had the same “all items for sale” tree that it had always had and the same decorations hanging from the ceiling that Anita has inherited from the prior owners, this store popped with artfully placed green, white, and cranberry cheer. Dalton took it all in and smiled.

“Mr. Turner. We need more bookmarks. We’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to grab them. Do you mind?”

“On it, Tara. BRB!”

“Thank you,” she yelled. I returned quickly to find Dalton walking slowly toward the Cuppa Café counter, ignoring the line to run his hand over the wooden surface, another member of my staff staring at him oddly while taking someone else’s order.

He meandered to the windows and looked out at the ocean, framed as it was by the bay window, a circular sign visible outside, announcing Breakwater Books & Cuppa Café.

He walked from the entrance to the register, pausing every now and then to pick up a book or a trinket. He stopped to flip the pages of one particular tome that had sold quite well over the years at both BT&G and the bookstore, one with a pink cover and a unicorn with a rainbow horn.

He meandered up to me; there was no other word for his casual stance and crooked smile. Standing right in front of me, he said, “It’s just how I imagined it.”

“That’s because you helped me design it.”

He grasped my arms, like he’d done another time, and pushed me backward. Not frenzied and heated, like the year prior, but still intense. I heard one of my team call out, “Mr. Turner, is the toy store closed?”

Dalton didn’t stop guiding me, pushing the swing door with my back and tilting his head.

“For now. Ms. Casey will be in soon,” I yelled back.

Dalton kept his hands on me until he needed one to open the door to my office. It was the first time he became flustered, reaching for it and keeping me in his grip. When we were both through the door, he slammed it closed and slammed me against it.

“Dalton.”

“Shut the fuck up, Turner. It’s my turn. I’ve waited a fucking year for this, and I’m going to tell you exactly why I give a fuck what you think. But first …”

The next thing that happened is that his arms grasped me tighter, tight enough to leave marks, I thought, and that sting traveled through me, lighting me up from my hair to my toes. My cock got hard immediately, in a way I hadn’t experienced for three hundred and fifty-two days.

“Dalton,” I managed to get out before his lips were on me. I wanted to fight him, to push him back. At least some small part of my brain did, but mostly I ignored that part as I pulled the beanie off of his head and ran my fingers through his hair. He’d cut off most of the length, but it still framed his face. He had me boxed in, those strong fingers digging into me, his tongue in my mouth when he shoved a leg between both of mine, his hard length seeking out pleasure from my leg the same as mine was his. I lifted my leg in response, thrusting into him, but dropped that leg in favor of wrapping my other around him in a desperate attempt to pull him closer.

I’d missed the feel of him so much, but when I pulled him in with my ankle, he hummed, and that’s when I felt them. Tears, running down my face. Eyes shut tight, I tilted my head back with a thump on the door. I kept my eyes shut even though I could sense his face close to mine, though I knew he was watching me. His fingers grazed my face, wiping a tear away, and I opened my eyes.

“You cut your hair,” I said, and a noise burst out of him, half laugh, half gasp, and was that a tear in his eye as well?

“Yeah. My roommates made a big deal about it. Did you see it? They plastered my picture all over Insta. Me holding a shorn-off ponytail in my hand.”

“I … no. I didn’t. I don’t … I haven’t visited your social media.”