“Yes. Chloe offered me Associate Director of Design. I accepted.” I glance away. I can’t look at his face. That conversation with Chloe feels like another lifetime. One where my former pretend boyfriend wasn’t delivering pretend pizza to me.

“When?” He leans against the counter, his ass shifting those long, thick legs and the end of his suit jacket hitches up, pulling out his shirt, showing a band of skin at the waist, with muscle that goes into that tight V at his hip I see when he’s in a g-string at work.

And — blank. My mind goes blank. My salivary glands and clitoris, however, take up the slack. I focus on that spot of his skin. It’s easier than answering his question.

He waves slightly. “Hello? Carrie? San Francisco?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I confess. “When OSF opens, I guess. Maybe sooner.”

“That’s great. Congratulations.” Why is he blinking like that, staring at me like I told him I won the lottery?

“Thanks.”

“I got accepted to grad school,” he blurts. “Stanford and Cal Tech.”

I stare back at him. “Stanford has a massage program?”

“Engineering,” he says patiently, inhaling sharply, suddenly, like a gasp he’s trying to control. “It’s time to get serious. Nobody can dance forever. And I have to make a change — even Zeke says so. Not that I’m taking advice from Zeke now. Or maybe I am.” He looks a little alarmed at that thought, but takes another breath and soldiers on. “I can’t just spend my life waiting for you to love me back.”

“Love you back...?” I echo.

Snappy comeback, right? Hey, less than three minutes ago, I was trying to find four one-dollar bills for a pizza delivery guy I wasn’t expecting, who is now standing in my kitchen doing a pretty fair imitation of Dermot Mulroney. You try being witty under those circumstances.

With a tiny voice in your brain screaming Why didn’t you wash your hair today when you showered?

“Yes, love me back. Pretending was my idea, I guess, so I only have myself to blame, but I wasn’t pretending. I love you, Carrie. I’ve loved you since that night you came over and we made tacos but we used tuna fish and they were awful and we had to order pizza.”

That was a year and a half ago. I stare at him, in awe.

“Sausage and mushroom, extra cheese,” I whisper.

“Don’t interrupt,” he says. “I might lose my courage.”

I press one hand over my mouth and remember to breathe through my nose, my own hot breath all I can feel.

“And we laughed so hard and then we watched a movie and you fell asleep on my sofa,” he continues, starting to pace. Except my kitchen is about eight feet by ten feet, so he can only take three steps in each direction.

“‘Gone Girl.’ You made a joke, you said I was gone before she was…”

He glares at me, looking fierce and sophisticated, like one of the billionaires in a drama about power and dominance. I clap both hands over my mouth and shut up as the rest of my body screams for him.

YesYesYes.

“I looked at you curled up and sleeping, with the light shining on your hair, and I just knew.” Soft love fills his eyes, the corners turning up, memory capturing his heart. I want to cry, his words like little thorns, so beautiful on a rose yet so painful.

“But I was dating Jamey,” I finish for him.

Ryan nods, eyes sad. “Yes. I wasn’t going to say anything when you were with someone else.” He looks away.

“And then last month,” I whisper, trying to understand how this all connects, trying to figure out what to say next. “He broke up with me. And I texted you and you let me come over and oh, God,” I groan. “My broken vagina kiss!”

He walks around the counter till he’s standing right in front of me, and pulls my fingers from my lips. He holds them tight, his thumbs slowly caressing my palms.

“That was the best kiss, C-Shel.” His mouth warms my fingertips, eyes looking up at me with expectation. Grounded and centered, this Ryan is my friend, my television buddy, my — well, he’s everything.

More than ever before.

“And now you know my vagina’s not broken.”

He laughs. “We’ll get to that later. Let me — I thought all the way over here about what I was going to say to you, after Chloe explained.”

“Chloe?” My voice squeaks. “What does — ”

This time, it’s his hand that covers my mouth.

“But here’s the thing you need to know,” he goes on. I stare down at his fingertips, eyes crossing. “That night on the Cape when we made love? That wasn’t pretending. Not for me, anyway. When I was inside you for the first time — look at me,” he says urgently.

Slowly I meet his eyes again, his words making blood pound from the inside out, my body drawn to him.

“When I was inside you for the first time, everything in the world was in that moment. Every question I ever had was answered. I don’t know how to say it better than that. I just knew. That was as real as it gets. Carrie, I was never pretending. Not then, not before, and certainly not now.”

I cannot believe my ears. That’s an expression, but I mean it literally. I am questioning my own sanity.

“Wait just a minute — never pretending?” An indignant feeling starts to bloom in my chest as his words sink in. “When this all started, you said we were going to pretend. And then I thought maybe I wasn’t pretending but you said you were, and then I thought maybe you weren’t but I heard you tell someone you were, and then we had sex and I definitely wasn’t pretending but who knows what a guy is thinking?”

He makes a sound of protest, but momentum propels me onward.

“You’re not just any guy, of course, because you’re Ryan. You know — my friend. My stupid reality television friend. My work husband. My — ”

“Soulmate,” he interrupts, the word so quiet that it can’t be right.

I’m inventing this, aren’t I? Reaching down, I pinch my inner thigh and yelp from pain, then look back up.

No. He’s still here, though his eyebrows are now knitting in confusion, eyes on my pinching hand. I’m going to have a nasty bruise on my leg, but I’ve confirmed this is actually happening. Worth it.

“And then maybe I sort of said I was pretending because I heard you say you were, and I didn’t want to be the only one who wasn’t… and then we were both pretending again at work because a few people knew although most of them didn’t, and now you are telling me you never were?” I press my palms flat against his chest, ready to give him a huge shove or a passionate kiss, unsure which will happen first.