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  Stella’s throat closed with emotion, so tight she couldn’t answer. Her hands shook so that the ice cubes clattered, and she set the glass on the counter, then tucked her hands in her pockets. She looked at him, trying to think of what to say, how to answer. How to leave.

  Matthew put his own glass down and came around the island. He took her in his arms before Stella could even think about pulling away. He stroked a hand down her back, then up again to cup the back of her neck. He breathed warmth against the top of her head.

  He held her. That was all.

  “There’s no way to know what might’ve been different.” Stella’s voice caught like silk on barbed wire, shredding. “There’s no way to ever know. And it’s useless to blame myself....”

  “But you do,” Matthew said. “All the time.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I understand,” Matthew said.

  It would’ve been easy to brush off his answer as trite, but the sound of his voice stopped her. She listened to the sound of his breathing for a moment. She believed him.

  * * *

  Stella drank the rest of her gin rickey, but not another. That one was enough to give her a pleasant buzz, and that made the movie Matthew put on that much funnier. Sitting next to him on the couch with her legs curled under her, occasionally holding his hand or resting her head on his shoulder, sometimes with him leaning against her, it was companionable. And sweet. And...normal.

  Normal like brushing her teeth at the sink next to him, like showering and putting on her pajamas and climbing into bed next to him. When he spooned her, that also felt normal. Stella waited for him to slide his hand from her belly to between her legs, to nip or nuzzle at her neck, but Matthew’s breathing slowed and he did neither of those things. He fell asleep, and that felt normal too.

  She woke in the morning better rested than she could remember being in months. Longer than that. Years. Funny how toward the end of her marriage she’d yearned with a burning fire to no longer have to share her bed, and yet it had been the warmth of a body beside her and the soft shush-shush of Matthew’s slight snores that had soothed her to sleep so sweetly.

  Maybe it was just him, Stella thought as she rolled to face him. Maybe he was special. Different. She thought of Craig, how often she’d dreamed of how perfect it would be if they’d found their way back to each other, and yet when they had, how very obvious it had been to her that he wasn’t what she wanted anymore.

  Matthew still slept, both hands curled beneath his chin under the pillow. Practically angelic. Definitely hot. She wanted to slide down his body, take his cock in her mouth and wake him that way. Or at the very least, kiss him. But, ugh, morning breath, and a quick look at the clock told her she didn’t have time for any of that. She settled for tracing the line of his bare shoulder and pressing a kiss there. He didn’t wake, and she didn’t do it again.

  Stella slipped from Matthew’s bed and dressed quickly. She didn’t need a shower, and she brushed her teeth in double time. If she didn’t move her ass, she was going to miss the only direct flight back to Harrisburg. She’d be lucky as it was to get a seat on it.

  In the bedroom, Matthew had rolled to face the other direction but didn’t appear to have woken at all. Stella packed her bag and slung it over her shoulder and debated about kissing him again, at least to wake him enough to tell him goodbye. But what would she do if he pulled her into bed and wanted to fuck her one more time?

  More important, what would she do if he didn’t?

  She settled for scrawling a note for him, thanking him for the wonderful weekend. She signed her name, her real name, though writing it down made her feel stranger than telling him had. What she did next, though, made her palms sweat and her stomach leap and twist and threaten to climb out up her throat.

  She left her phone number.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Getting up in the dark sucked. So did getting home in the dark. It was one of the few things Stella despised about her otherwise pretty fantastic job.

  What made it worse, of course, was pulling into her driveway with no outside lights on to greet her. Or any inside the house either. Tristan obviously wasn’t home and probably hadn’t been home either, Stella thought, since the kid couldn’t enter a room without turning on all the lights or exit without leaving them all burning.

  She pulled into the garage and gathered her things, juggling her travel mug and the giant water bottle she always had the best intentions of finishing but never did. The mail slipped from her fingers as she slung her bag over one shoulder, keys dangling from her other hand. Her jacket snagged on the car door and she almost had to do an entire dance routine just to get herself inside the house—everything made more complicated by the lack of welcoming light. Maybe she ought to get some timers.

  In the kitchen, Stella dumped everything on the kitchen table and considered the task of making dinner. She’d left some leftover meat loaf defrosting in the fridge that morning—a quick glance showed her it was still there. With some instant mashed potatoes and a salad, it wouldn’t be a bad dinner, but suddenly a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a handful of chips sounded ever so much better. If her son were here Stella would’ve made the effort at a real dinner, but alone...what was the point?

  Stella sorted through the mail while she ate her sandwich and mentally ran through all the tasks she still needed to get through tonight. Laundry. Balance her checkbook. Pay bills. Find out from Tristan what his upcoming schedule was like and what weekends he’d be with Jeff. She had a phone call from her mother to return, along with one to her best friend from high school, Lisa. They’d been playing phone tag for weeks.

  Which was why, when her phone pinged with a text message, she swiped at the screen without bothering to see who it was. At the single word—hi—from an unrecognizable number, Stella paused. The area code said it was from Las Vegas. Well, whatever had happened there was going to stay there, because Stella had never been to Sin City and didn’t know anybody there either.

  The second message came a few minutes later as she put her plate in the dishwasher and was pouring herself a glass of iced tea.

  Stella?

  She paused, then typed Who’s this?

  It’s Matthew. From Chicago.

  As if she knew dozens of Matthews. For all he knew, she might. Or it had been so long—another couple of weeks—that she’d forgotten him. Stunned, Stella stared at her phone while heat rose inside her, burning up her throat and into her cheeks. Her heart pounded. She blinked rapidly, for the moment finding it difficult to breathe.

  Carefully, she put down her tea and the pile of mail she was intending to go through while she ran a hot bath upstairs. She cradled her phone in both hands, willing herself to be calm. Not an idiot. At least he couldn’t hear her. Or see her, thank God, there was that.

  Hi! What a nice surprise, she typed.

  I got your note.

  Obviously, she thought, but didn’t type. Great. I’m glad. It’s nice to hear from you.

  The front door creaked open, and she went through the living room to greet her son. Her phone pinged again as she found Tristan in the entryway, kicking off his sneakers but, typically, leaving them where they fell as he headed toward the kitchen through the shortcut of the dining room. He’d almost bypassed her entirely, making this like some kind of Benny Hill farce, but she just caught him.

  “Hey,” Stella said. “First, put your shoes where they belong, please.”

  “I will. Starving.” Even in his sock feet, Tristan’s steps sounded like the boom of a marching band.

  Her phone pinged again, and she pulled it from her pocket to peek at the messages. Matthew had sent her a picture of a platter of spaghetti and a glass of wine. It made her laugh, along with the caption—

  Bachelor’s feast.

  “Hey,”