We went back to Brian’s house, and whatever it was between us now, it was good. We sat together on the couch, the same one we’d had sex on, and we had drinks together. He’d given me wine, and he sipped a beer. The sun was starting to set, and the light that fell in through the window touched everything with a golden glow.

Brian was a good guy. He was there all the time, no matter how up and down I was, and he deserved for me to be better. I wanted to give him more. I didn’t know if I could do that in a relationship, but I wanted to do that with friendship, at least. I wanted him to start being a part of my life, the way I’d apparently been a part of his life for so long.

I sat back against the couch and sipped the wine, looking around the living room. On the bookshelf in the corner, a silver frame contained a photo that looked familiar. I got up and walked across the room.

The photo was of a bunch of kids wearing football and cheerleading uniforms. The uniforms were so familiar, and I realized they belonged to the school I’d attended.

“What is it?” Brian asked from the couch.

I stared at the photo, at the strangers’ faces, and suddenly, they weren’t strangers anymore.

I could tell who they were. Adrian and Derek and Rob the idiot. Jason, Brian’s best friend back in school, and Oliver who was better at being benched. The cheerleaders had been my friends. Dana and Olivia and Sarah and Jane. And Anna, who no one understood, but she could do a backflip or drop into splits on demand, so we kept her on the team because we wanted to win.

My heart hammered in my chest. When I looked up at Brian, I saw the kid he used to be, scrawnier than he was now, less defined, but the same hope and kindness in his eyes. I remembered the banged-up car he used to pick me up in, the corny love letters he wrote, and he always wrote ‘sole mate’ instead of ‘soul mate’. Our first kiss. Prom. Sex for the first time on High Rock.

I burst out crying. It was so much, I couldn’t hold it back. The memories hit me one by one like physical punches, and I mourned their loss and rejoiced in their return in a roller coaster of emotions that made me cry harder and harder.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Brian asked, concerned. He got up and walked toward me.

I turned to him, clinging to him and sobbed into his chest. He stroked my back and let me cry.

When I finally caught my breath again, I looked up at him. He looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” he asked again.

“I remember,” I whispered.

“What?”

“Everything.”

He blinked at me. “Everything?” He looked unsure, like it would be too good to be true. In a way, it was.

“What do you remember?” he asked again, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right, as if he wasn’t sure I understood the question.

“That I love you,” I said.

He paled a little, his mouth dropping. When I nodded, smiling through my tears, he reached up and tentatively touched my face. I leaned my face into his palm the way I used to and closed my eyes, feeling his warmth. God, I missed this. I’d missed him, even though I hadn’t remembered a thing.

“You really do remember,” he said when he traced my bottom lip with his thumb, the gesture that always followed my cheek against his palm.

I nodded. Brian’s face was a mixture of awe and confusion, as if he was shocked and disbelieving all that the same time. He took that small step toward me that closed the distance between us and dipped his head. His lips brushed against mine. I leaned into him, my head tipped back, hands on his pectorals, and kissed him back

“You’re back,” he said against my lips when I did it, and I felt the smile curl over his lips.

When we broke the kiss, he led me back to the couch, and we sat down together. My head swam with all the memories. They gushed into my mind like water that had been held back, and it was all there. My relationship with him, school, my dreams.

“You were my everything,” I said to Brian. “And you stuck with me through everything, even though I changed so much.”

“I love you,” Brian said, shrugging. “I don’t know what else I would have done. You’ve always been the one for me.”

I smiled. I wanted to cry again.

“This is so overwhelming,” I said.

Brian nodded. “I can imagine. It’s a lot of memories to deal with.”

I nodded. There were so many. But the ones that stood out the most were of Brian, of what we used to be.

“I know this is a little late,” I said, looking up at him. “But I love you.”

Brian smiled and took my hand. He pressed my knuckles against his lips, and I knew he’d done it a thousand times. God, how could I have forgotten a man like him and a love like his?

“I love you, too, Sadie,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you.”

I smiled and nodded. “I know.”

He kissed me again, and this time it wasn’t the oh-my-God kind of kiss I’d gotten before. He took my face between his hands and kissed me gently, sensually, like I was a rare treasure. I kissed him back, and this time, it wasn’t like kissing a stranger that I had an inexplicable attraction to. I was kissing the man I loved.

Brian took me by the hand and led me through the house to the bedroom. When we were in the room, he pulled me against him and kissed me again. He explored my mouth with his tongue and slid his hands down my neck. His hand rested on my breast, and heat washed over me and pooled between my legs.

I sighed into his mouth. I could feel his erection in his pants, his need, and I felt the same. I wanted him.

“Make love to me, Brian,” I whispered.

I didn’t have to ask twice. He pulled me against him again, his hands running over my body, feeling me, caressing me. He pulled off my top and then my bra without ceremony. When I stood topless in front of him, he looked at me like he hadn’t seen me in five years. He planted a kiss on my lips before he dipped his head and paid attention to my breasts, one at a time. He squeezed my breast, his thumb rubbing over my nipple until it was tight and erect before he took the nipple into his mouth.

His tongue drew little circles around the nipple, and I gasped, my head tipped back, eyes closed. I had my hands in his hair, feeling his head move as he worshipped my breast.

He took the nipple into his mouth and sucked on it, and it was like a direct line to my core, tugging at me, making me wetter.

When he was done with one breast, he moved to the other and repeated the process, starting slow and picking up the pace again.

By the time he was done, I was out of breath and aching for more.

He smiled at me. I reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head. I didn’t want to be the only one without clothes, and I wanted to feel his skin beneath my fingertips. His skin was hot when I touched him. I kissed his chest, planting kisses all over his pectorals and down his abs, tracing the individual muscles with my lips. I circled his navel with my tongue before moving lower.

My hands fiddled with the jeans he wore, undoing them and pulling them down enough to let him out. When I pulled down his boxers, his cock sprung free, hard and eager. I ran my hand down his shaft, and he shivered.

I was on my knees in front of him, holding onto him. I stuck out my tongue and licked him from his base to the tip on the underside of his dick. He moaned, and I closed my lips over him, swirling my tongue over the tip. His abs were defined as he tensed his muscles, and I looked up at him. His face was a mixture of lust and pure pleasure.

I took him deeper into my mouth, sucking him, moving my head forward until I met my own hand at the base of his cock. A flash came to me of doing this to him before, close to when we’d decided to sleep together. We’d explored each other’s bodies a lot before doing the deed.

He put his hand on my head, but not to force me, just to touch me.

I bobbed my head up and down, sliding him in and out of my mouth, mimicking sex. He groaned, moving his hips slightly, instincts taking over.

After a short while, he pulled back and slipped out of my mouth. I looked up at him.

“If you keep at it, we’re not going to get around to sex,” he said.

I let him help me up, and he kissed me again. His hands went for my pants, and he undid them. He pulled them over my ass and nudged me to sit down on the bed.

He kneeled in front me and pulled the pants down over my legs and threw them to the side, taking the panties with them, pulling off my shoes. He spread my legs with his hands.

“My turn,” he said and dived between my legs.

His mouth came down on my pussy, and I gasped, falling back onto my elbows. His tongue flicked over my clit, and I shivered. He licked a long line from my entrance to my clit before he focused his attention.

The more he licked me, the wetter I became, both through my own need and his saliva.

He closed his lips over my clit and sucked me just hard enough for me to cry out. He kept up his sucking, and I shuddered, my body responding. My hips moved involuntarily as he licked and sucked me. The muscles tightened in my core, and the only thoughts in my head were of Brian and what he was doing to me.

An orgasm rocked through me, quick and hard. I cried out, feeling it burst through me like white light. I fell onto my back and closed my legs around Brian’s head, keeping him there. He sucked on my clit as I came, but it was gentle. My toes curled, and my muscles contracted, forcing the air out of my lungs. Pure pleasure washed over me, and I couldn’t think at all.

After a moment, I gasped for breath, and I breathed hard. My body still convulsed, my muscles contracting and relaxing in a rhythm.

Slowly, the orgasm faded and left me bathed in warmth. I opened my eyes to look at Brian. He was looking at me, and his eyes smiled, satisfied. He planted a kiss at the top of my slit before he stood up.

His cock was still out, hard and eager. He got rid of his pants, kicking off his shoes and crawled over me onto the bed. He kissed me, and I tasted my sex on his lips.

From the nightstand, Brian reached for a condom. He unwrapped it and rolled it over himself. When he was sure he was protected, he leaned over me, his large body covering mine.  My heart hammered with anticipation, my nerve endings raw.

He pressed himself against my entrance for barely a second before he pushed into me. I moaned as he split my body open and buried himself inside me.

I gasped as he slid back and pushed into me again. My body rocked on the bed, and he moved inside me in a rhythm. His eyes were on mine, and I felt connected to him in a way I hadn’t felt connected to anyone for years. I had been floating out in the dark for so long, the sense of belonging was overwhelming.

He moved in and out of me, faster and faster, his hips bucking and his balls slapping against my ass. I reached up and touched his face, my hand on his cheek. He turned his head and kissed my palm before he moved his focus back to what he was doing. His face was riddled with concentration as he pushed into me faster and faster, making my body rock on the bed, my breasts moving back and forth.

I closed my eyes and got lost in the feel of his thick flesh moving in and out of me, stroking all the right places, his body hovering over mine, covering me. The sounds of our sex filled the room, his labored breathing and my gasps and moans combined with the slick, squelching sound and the slap of flesh on flesh.

His lips came down on mine unexpectedly, and he kissed me, his tongue in my mouth again, even though his hips were still moving back and forth, sliding himself in and out of me. Who said men can’t multitask?

“I want to be on top of you,” I said after a while.

Brian smiled and pulled out. He lay on his back next to me, and I clambered onto him, straddling his hips. I lifted myself, positioned his cock with my hand, and lowered myself onto him. From this angle, he pushed into me so much deeper, and I had to take a moment to adjust to him.

I moved my hips and wiggled my ass. He grinned at me. His pupils were dilated, his lips parted, and his face was riddled with pure desire.

I leaned forward, hands on his chest, and kissed him. His tongue was in my mouth again, and I didn’t think I would ever get enough of it. I broke the kiss and moved onto his neck. I licked his skin, drawing small circles with my tongue, moving down toward his collar bone. I licked along his collarbone to his shoulder and back again. When I worked my way up his neck again, I nibbled instead of licking.

I started moving my hips slowly. I moved toward his ear, taking his skin into my mouth bit by bit. I squeezed my ass, clenching him inside of me. He groaned. He gyrated his hips beneath me, but he let me work slowly up his neck, torturing him. He shivered beneath me. I nibbled at his earlobe, and a sharp intake of breath told me that I had it right, that this was still his spot.

I sat up.

This was me. The real Sadie, the “old Sadie” was back. Or perhaps it had merged with the “new Sadie,” all thanks to Brian.