WHEN WE GET HOME, Floyd is so excited to see me, he jumps up on me and almost takes me down. Eli laughs.

“I could get used to this unconditional love,” I tell him.

“What?! Does Elsie not love you?” he teases, and I’m impressed that he remembers my cat’s name, but that’s the thing about Eli — he seems to remember everything I say.

I smile at the thought of her. “She ignores me a lot… she’s a cat.” I wonder where she is right now, probably sleeping comfortably on the loveseat in my loft. The kids are at school, having lunch. I hope John is packing them good lunches with stuff they like — this is all new to him.

I help Eli in the kitchen as he makes veal with capers, angel pasta, and a garden salad. He’s got the veal and pasta under control, and I’m in charge of the salad and setting the table. I love these intimate dinners, just the two of us — no servers, no people, just Floyd. I can’t remember the last time John and I had an intimate dinner at home, just the two of us. It must have been before the kids were born. No wonder we lost our way.

Eli strikes me as a homebody which I love because I am too. Or maybe he just can’t afford restaurants. “I love these candle holders,” I tell him, admiring the blown glass.

“Yes, they were a gift to Clara,” he tells me with sad eyes. “I made them for her on our first anniversary. She left them when we split up.”

“She didn’t take them with her?” I say, baffled. “She forgot them?”

He’s still hovering over the stove. “I guess.”

I would never forget something as beautiful as these, I think to myself. Maybe she just didn’t want the reminder. I know if I were ever with him, and he were no longer mine, I wouldn’t want to remember — it would hurt too much.

The thought doesn’t leave me as I ease myself into one of the modern curved chairs at the kitchen table. I’m with him right now. He’s all mine, if only for a week. When I say goodbye, he’ll no longer be mine. I know it will hurt so much. I try not to think about it.

Dinner is delicious. I’ve left my phone in Eli’s bedroom and haven’t looked at it all day. I don’t want any more messages from John. I know it might not quite be responsible but just for a few hours, I want this time with Eli. I don’t want to think about my other life. I know I’m being incredibly selfish, and it’s not in my nature to be so. I’ve always put others before me. But maybe it’s time to be a little selfish.

Following dinner, we play a quick game of Scrabble and I kick Eli’s behind, and we argue over whether ‘quartzy’ is a word. I say it is, and he says it isn’t. It wins me the game.

I’m perusing his DVD collection when I spot one of my favorite movies ever. “I can’t believe you have this movie.” I’m giddy. I smile at the sight of the dog on roller skates, and Uma Thurman tangled up in his leash. Oddly, Ben Chaplin doesn’t seem as dreamy as he used to be.

He’s finishing up in the kitchen — the sight of him with a dish towel is sexier than words can describe. I love a man in the kitchen. “Which one?” he asks.

“The Truth about Cats and Dogs,” I tell him. “It’s one of my favorites. I love Janeane Garofalo.”

He smiles. “Oh that…” He smiles. “That was one of Clara’s. I guess she forgot that too.”

“Did you ever watch it?”

“Will you judge me if I say I did?”

I laugh. “I’ll judge you positively.”

“Well, in that case,” he says, inching closer to me. “I loved it.”

I pull him in to me and reach for a kiss.

“Really!” he says. “I actually did like it. Maybe it was the dog.”

“Yeah, that big lug’s pretty cute,” I say. “Kinda reminds me of Floyd.”

“You wanna watch it?” he asks. “I can make some popcorn.”

“I’d rather ice cream.” I tell him because I know he has some in his freezer — I peeked.

“What the lady desires, the lady gets,” he says. I’m excited. Never in a million years, could I ever imagine watching a romantic comedy and eating ice cream with John. He’s way too health conscious. Typically, we watch the latest Marvel movie, eat Kale chips, and drink foreign beer. I don’t even like beer that much.

We cuddle on the sofa, the three of us; Eli wrapped around me, and Floyd at my feet. I’m deliriously happy. I’m not myself. I’m not Gabriella Moore, wife and mother of two. I’ve tucked Gabriella Moore in a little box and closed the lid. She doesn’t exist. I’ll open the box again in a few days when I go back home. I don’t know who I am, but I feel alive. I don’t know how old I am, but I feel young. I’m not sure where I’m going, not sure what tomorrow will bring. I have no responsibilities, no reality. My life is a dream.

And I’m in love.

“They remind me of us,” I say to Eli. “They don’t meet for the longest time. They fall in love with each other’s minds first.”

He holds me tighter. “Well, it’s not quite the same, but I see what you mean.”

“She totally catfished him though.”

We’re at the scene where they’re chatting in the bathtub. “This scene is so sexy,” I say. “It’s my favorite scene.”

He laughs and I turn to him. He kisses me, sweetly and softly. “Remember when we chatted in the bath?”

“How can I forget?” I say, remembering that night. I was so aroused, I was all thumbs. I kept making typos and having to backtrack. I couldn’t tap on my phone fast enough.

“What were we chatting about again?”

“The pros and cons of baths versus showers,” he tells me with a laugh. “And then we had quite the extensive conversation about the joys of slow cookers and bread makers. Remember, you were trying to convince me to buy a bread maker?”

I laugh so loud, Floyd startles. “Oh my god, that conversation was so not sexy.”

“But I was picturing you naked in the bath the whole time,” he confesses.

“Me too, totally. And there was no bubble bath, if you know what I mean.”

He bites his lip, and I want to jump him right there. “Was I hard,” he asks with dark eyes, “when you imagined me?”

Damn.

“Yes.”

“And does reality live up to expectations?”

I reach for his mouth, bite his bottom lip gently, and slowly let go. “And then some.”

We kiss for the longest time, and it tastes so sweet, I never want to stop. I reluctantly pull away. “We’re missing the movie,” I whisper.

He smiles. “You’re cruel.”

I’m almost asleep when the movie ends. He strokes my hair, and Floyd snores. The last thing I remember is that blissful feeling and thinking, I never want this moment to end.

I’m still sleepy when I wake. The sun is streaming through the edges of the curtains. I could stay in this bed forever, for eternity. It feels so delicious to sleep in, to not have a single thing to do but enjoy life, to not have to adult for once. The feeling is completely foreign to me. I think about the kids — I miss them so much. My heart hurts at the thought that they might miss me too. I tell myself that they’re probably too busy to miss me. They’re sleeping right now. I grab my phone and send a quick ‘I love you’ to Emma.

Then I send them a photo of a bakery shop window I saw — the most gorgeous cakes known to mankind.

I check all my messages. There’s another one from John.

My heart sinks. I can’t deal with him right now. I don’t want to tell him the truth, but I need to. It’s the right thing to do.

There are also two messages from Maeve and Corrie. I smile when I read Corrie’s.

I send Maeve a few pics of the city, and a selfie of Eli and me. I hear a soft knock at the door. “Come in,” I call out.

Eli is all smiles. Even Floyd seems like he’s smiling, but maybe that’s just his normal Golden Retriever look. He’s wagging his tail so I know he’s happy to see me. When Eli bounces on the bed to kiss me, so does Floyd. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he says, and Floyd climbs all over me, and licks my face, not quite the kind of wake-up I’m used to, but I love it.

Eli is laughing his head off. “Sorry, he just really likes you.”

The dog is suffocating me, and I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying. Eli finally pulls Floyd off me, and walks him out of the bedroom with much fuss. I pout when he comes back. “Why’d you do that?!”

I can hear Floyd whine on the other side of the door. “Bring him back,” I demand.

“Wait for it,” he says. We both stay quiet for a few seconds, and Floyd’s whining quickly dies down.

After a beat, Eli shoots me a playful smile as he closes the distance between us. He’s shirtless, and wearing grey sweats. His three-day-old beard looks tempting, and his mussed up hair is adorable. “Sorry, I wanted you all to myself.”