He laughs darkly, and I laugh too, and he says, “It’s a day event, wear whatever you’d like.”

“Okay. Pajamas,” I joke.

“I’m game.” He grins devilishly.

We share a long, charged look, then I set my cheek on his shoulder and it feels so right to just sit here in my apartment with him. “Thanks for hooking me up with your friend.”

“Anything for you, Regina.”

His usual teasing tone is absent from his voice. He sounds somber, certain, honest. We sit there, admiring my new place, until his phone starts buzzing between us. After a while, he curses in exasperation and pulls it out, checks the screen, and I see the number 18 on his text-alert icon.

“Wow. Spurning some invitations somewhere?” I narrow my eyes in bemusement. “They really want you there.”

He tucks it back into his pocket. “Yeah. Not interested.”

* * *

I’m distracted Thursday night as I have dinner with Trent at Carnivale. He asked if I was available on the evening of my birthday. I’m exhausted after moving and unpacking, but he’s been trying so hard that I couldn’t deny him the night before.

He’s trying his best to make me laugh, but I almost feel like I’m forcing it. I don’t understand my mood. I remind myself about the letter at the bottom of the lake that Tahoe and I burned so long ago, knowing that Paul is fish food now. He can’t hurt me now. But I can’t shake off the restlessness I feel. Why I can’t connect with Trent the way I do with…well, HIM.

At the end of dinner, Trent gives me a big box and tells me I can open it in my apartment. I’m hesitant to invite him over, but I also don’t want to be rude when he’s clearly trying so hard to make my day special. I tell him he can come up for ten minutes while I open my gift. We sit in my living room and he watches me open the box that reads MAC.

“It’s all the makeup you could want for the year,” he says. “So you can always look like a queen.”

I love MAC.

I love makeup.

It’s what I do.

But something about getting more stuff to put on my mask makes my stomach sink. It’s been a battle to try to open up to Trent completely, and staring at a makeup kit, I wonder if he even cares to know what’s beneath.

In the distance I spot the apron Tahoe teased I should wear tomorrow, sticking haphazardly out of the box. I feel warmth surge through me, a smile appear on my face.

It seems to give Trent the wrong impression.

“God, you look gorgeous right now. I can tell you like my gift. Get back together with me, Gina,” he begs. He moves to kiss me but I quickly turn my mouth out of reach.

Even though a part of me wants to press my mouth to his because I wish that he were capable of erasing Tahoe’s peck from my lips. I want to feel in his kiss just a fraction of the electric thrill I felt from Tahoe’s lips, so firmly, so warmly, on mine.

But I can’t do it. Nothing feels right anymore.

“Just give me time. I’m just confused. New apartment…” I signal around. “I don’t know, just give me a little time.”

I look at him, trying to find pieces of him to love, really trying to find something that even resembles what I feel when I’m with my playboy Viking.

* * *

When Trent finally leaves, every muscle in my body aches from hauling and unpacking boxes. I take a hot shower and after soaping up and shampooing my hair, I stand under the water with my eyes closed. I roll my shoulders under the spray, run my hands over my scalp and dig in my fingers, trying to relax the pounding in my head. Rivulets of water slide down my face. A drop of water clings to my top lip. The feel of Tahoe’s lips pressed against mine returns unbidden. Soft but firm and warm and…oh god.

Right now in my quiet new apartment, in a shower that still feels a little unfamiliar, I can’t believe I had the willpower to keep my mouth closed and not part my lips and taste him in a way I have dreamed of tasting him for what feels like my whole life. I picture how his lips would move against mine and instinctively I know that he would take charge, that he would be the one kissing even if I started the kiss.

The water is pounding on the top of my head and my lips are tingling and I let myself kiss him in my mind. I remember us sitting close enough for me to turn and run my hands through his hair and press into him in the way only women who really, really want sex do—nipples tight against his hard chest, hips lined up against his. I kiss him in a way I’ve only dreamed about, and then I’m enveloped in his arms, which feel familiar but are holding me so possessively now, and I’m transported back to Tahoe in the outdoor shower during spring break. Unapologetically gorgeous and male, so full of himself and so muscular and golden, and so very naked.

And he’s just as naked right here in my shower, every inch of his naked form is pressed up against every inch of mine. My hands follow the rivulets sliding down my body, and I move them and move them, picturing Tahoe’s fingers inside me. The thoughts drive me wild. Soon I’m grabbing him closer and he’s got me pinned against him. I picture him moving in me, and he’s kissing me everywhere I want to be kissed, and when he kisses me again—just a peck on my lips, like the one he gave me today, the real one, dry and firm and so very unexpected and so delicately powerful—a thousand shudders rock through me, one after the other.

I’m panting seconds later. I lean my temple against the shower wall. I’m standing on unsteady knees, bracing myself. I should feel better, more relaxed, sated, but though the ache between my thighs has calmed down some, the ache in my chest only feels heavier.