The moment we step into the nonfiction section at McCafferty’s, Abigail wraps me in a honeysuckle-scented hug.

“You came,” she squeals. Her name tag cuts into my chest but I squeeze her back.

“Of course I came.” I lean back and smile at her. “I’m supporting you and learning all about memoirs. Two birds, one stone.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I’m a bird?”

“Not just any bird. You’re like, queen peacock.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.” She looks over my shoulder and lowers her voice. “You brought Jackson?”

The tips of my ears get hot. “I did. He insisted.”

“I’m sure he did.” She spins me and points at a chair in the front row marked with a “reserved” sign. “That spot’s for you. I’ll add another sign for Jackson.”

“Aww, Abs, you didn’t have to do that.”

“What’s the fun in running the place if I don’t get to pass the perks along to my friends?” She smiles and weaves her way through the crowd of folding chairs to tape a sign onto a second one.

I glance around the room and cringe. Jackson’s one of only two men in the audience. We’re here to see a memoirist whose latest book chronicles her battle with postpartum depression. Not exactly light reading material. Not exactly guy friendly. Whoops.

I walk over to the display of the author’s books where Jackson stands, skimming the jacket copy. He holds up the book, tapping his finger on the cover image of a rocking chair and tiny baby booties. “So why the interest in memoirs?”

A secret for a secret for a secret. “I figure I should probably get to know the genre a little.” I shrug. “Some of what I’m writing is turning out to be the story of Penchant.”

His eyebrows lift. “Am I in it?”

I roll my eyes. “What do you think?”

His smile is so damn proud. “Well, let’s go learn about memoirs.”

I grin back at him. His excitement is infectious but it would be a hell of a lot easier to be around him if he didn’t act like he cared. He’s one charismatic sonofabitch when he wants to be and it’s too easy to fall for his charms.

Jackson and I weave through the crowd, and every step I take makes my cheeks grow warmer. By the time we slide into our seats I feel pink with embarrassment. For him.

I glance around again. Still ninety-eight percent women. “You can check out the store if you want.” I flip absently through the pages of the author’s book while we wait for her to take the stage. My eye catches on the word “vagina” and I wince. If this is what’s in store for the reading, I wouldn’t blame Jackson for running.

“I’ll stay.” He gives me a lazy smile and wraps an arm over the back of my chair. “We did get prime seating.”

“Oh my god, this is so not your thing.”

“You are my thing.”

I have trouble breathing with that one, but Jackson just smiles pleasantly and turns his attention back to the front of the room as if he hasn’t just dropped the biggest bomb on me.

I bury my face in the book, my skin heating. I want Jackson to not be so damn nice to me. It’s just going to make it harder when this thing between us ends. And it’s going to end. Whether or not he says it, there’s an invisible “right now” on the end of his sentence. As in, “You’re my thing…right now.” I don’t want to get used to feeling this way—feeling like I have feelings—only to have it taken away. I want to go back to being a shell.

The author finally takes the stage but all I can notice is this—Jackson’s arm, warm on the back of my chair, his fingers buried in my hair, gently stroking my neck. Even I know how stupid I’d be not to enjoy this tonight—enjoy the company of a man who’d sit through a reading on postpartum depression, enjoy the careful attention of his hands—so I lean back against his touch and force myself to relax. I can do this. But that doesn’t mean I’m able to pay any attention to what the author’s saying.

By the time the reading’s over, I’m heated and out of sorts. Jackson leans down close, the clean, fresh scent of him washing over me, and whispers a suggestion low into my ear. I look up at him and his green eyes are dark and familiar and dangerous all at once. The line to meet the author is thirty people deep. The choice is an easy one after all.

We head back toward Jackson’s home without ever having gotten the stupid book signed, holding hands over the emergency brake. He runs a finger over the heel of my palm and my pulse beats out a rhythm in response. When we finally make it into his apartment I’m ready, ready, ready for more. Because, dammit, if I’m enjoying this, I want to really enjoy it.

Jackson strides into the kitchen and props open the refrigerator door. “I’m pretty sure I still owe you dinner.” He looks over his shoulder. “Pasta or steak?”

“Whatever’s easiest,” I tell him when he turns back to face me. “Or nothing at all.” I reach out, wrapping my arms around Jackson and slipping my hands up the back of his shirt. His skin is hot against my palms, his body hard against mine.

Jackson groans and catches my face in his hands, tilting up my chin to kiss me. His mouth moves against mine in that slow, leisurely pace of his.

“Guess I should take you out more often,” he says.

I kiss him back, harder, wanting more. Wanting to memorize the shape of him, the taste of him. Telling myself not to forget, because isn’t this the truth of it? Each moment we’re creating is a step closer to our undoing.

“Jackson, please,” I whisper. He pulls back till we’re nose to nose. His breath comes out in short spurts and it makes me deliriously happy to know I’ve had this effect on him.

“Not yet. We’re going to need some energy first. There’s plenty of time.” But it all squeezes in my throat because there’s not.

I make a soft, disappointed sound against Jackson’s mouth and he laughs and lifts me onto the counter. He pours me a glass of wine and I sip it while I watch him cook, searing steak, arranging a salad with greens and grapes and a crumble of goat cheese.

It’s a marvel to me that grown-up Jackson has all these things. Fancy ingredients, the ability to make them come together and sing. I still can't believe that he grocery shops at all. Considering my kitchen at the guesthouse currently houses one stale box of crackers and a heel of cheddar cheese, he’s putting me to shame.

When we finally sit down at his little table, I have to admit I’m starved. The steak I shovel into my mouth is delicious—tender and juicy and savory. I was hoping that Jackson’s mac and cheese had been a fluke—the recipe that you’d pull out of your sleeve to impress someone in a pinch. But the reality is he’s really good at cooking.

Jackson is so different from what I remember. There’s the Jackson who I met at sixteen and the Jackson I’m just getting to know now. And it’s like they’re layered on top of each other when I look at him—the past and the present colliding, pulling me in even as I tell myself to keep a handle on my heart. I’m afraid of how much I could love him.

“Dammit, Jackson, you can really cook,” I admit, setting down my fork. Sometime in the last few minutes, my dinner has disappeared. Imagine that.

“Life skill number three hundred and sixty-eight.” Amusement sparkles in his eyes. “Acquired just after number three hundred and sixty-seven: change batteries on the smoke detector.”

I laugh and grab our empty plates. “I see modesty hasn’t made it on the list just yet.”

“Why call something a humble brag when it’s just a brag?”

Jackson follows me into the kitchen, finishing his own glass of wine while I rinse our dishes in the sink. I hear the ring of glass on granite as he sets down his glass, and a minute later, his front presses against my back. I arch my butt into his hips because, let’s be honest, the whole night has been working toward this and I’m tired of waiting patiently.

Jackson groans against my neck. “I see what you’re doing there.” He leans forward to bite my earlobe.

“Hmm,” I say.

He reaches past me to shut off the water, skimming his hands up my arms on the return trip, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

Okay now. Okay.

Then Jackson steps away, leaving me panting against the side of his sink. I groan in protest and turn. “Where are you going?”

“Patience, young grasshopper.” He retrieves a dishtowel from one of the scratched kitchen drawers, then returns to gently dry my hands.

“Thank you.” My throat is dry with need.

Jackson sets down the towel but doesn’t immediately let go of my hands. Instead he turns over my left hand and traces my lifeline with the tip of his index finger. Then, ever so lightly, he bites the pad of my thumb and each of my fingers.

The grate of his teeth, their gentle insistence, sends a shock through my body. When he presses a kiss into my palm, the whole world tightens into a coil in my belly.

I’m so far gone. I should care, but I don’t. All I want is this and nothing else matters except for me and Jackson and this thing we’re creating in the space of his tiny kitchen. My shirt lifting up, up, and over my head. Jackson down on his knees, his nose at my waist.

He catches me by the back of my legs, trails his fingers higher and higher until he reaches the point of no return and goes farther. Nothing else matters except the way my body comes to life for him, comes to life under him, the way kissing him feels like coming home.

“This isn’t casual anymore, Natalie,” he whispers against my mouth, his heart pounding under my palms.

“I know,” I whisper back, because he’s right. What we’re doing tonight feels like more than having sex, and it has every time since the moment we kissed. No matter how cliché it sounds, with me and Jackson it feels dangerously close to making love.

Stop being so good to me, I think. Stop being so good for me. But I let myself feel the weight of his body on mine—good and grounding—and I let it keep me in the here and now.

After, we lie on the kitchen floor, the base of the refrigerator blowing hot air against the tiles.

“Hey,” Jackson says. The muscles of his abs tense under my palm as he talks. He runs his fingers down my bare back, buries his nose in my hair. “Conor’s leaving Europe at the beginning of August and we’re going to throw a little coming-home party for him. It would mean a lot to him if you could be there.”

What he doesn’t say is, “It would mean a lot to me,” but I know that’s what he’s saying. I also know that in August, Gayle’s grace will have run out and I’ll be back in Boston, settling into an apartment in the sticky heat of summer.

I lean over to kiss him on the mouth. “I’ll look at my calendar.” It’s not an answer but it’s as close as I can get. I don’t want to make a promise I’m going to have to break.