Grayson drove straight home. He felt unsettled. He’d wanted his renewed relationship with Claire to be clean. That was the beauty of starting over. At least it should have been.

Instead he found himself worrying about things that probably didn’t mean anything.

Probably.

The downside to starting over was the other side of the coin. He expected everything to slip into place without the normal getting to know each other stage. He was finding out that even with starting over, that phase couldn’t be skipped.

It was going to take some time to blend their lives back together. That job in Pittsburgh loomed over his head. Like an angry deadline. He felt like they had to cram all the preliminary

requirements to a long-term relationship into the few weeks before he left.

That was unrealistic. He needed to get his head straight.

The next morning after class, everything went off the tracks.

He had to stay through the afternoon to help out with advising. It wasn’t his day, but being the low man on the totem pole meant he had to take up the slack. Then the department chair called a meeting at the last minute.

It baffled him that the other faculty members didn’t seem to mind the last minute request. One of the ladies even brought brownies.

The meeting did nothing but put Grayson in a foul mood. He had planned on getting home in time to clean his apartment before Claire came over. And he needed to go by the supermarket.

By five o’clock, they were still discussing the merits of changing their program requirements.

Grayson stepped out for a restroom break to send Claire a message. Stuck in a meeting. Can we reschedule for another night?

She responded quickly. No problem.

The timing on this was not good.

Claire stepped out of her heels, sat down hard on the bed, and blew her bangs out of her eyes.

“Great,” she said out loud. “Just great.”

She’d left the museum early and stopped by the Blow Dry Bar. Her hair felt light, bouncy, and straight, with just a little flip on the ends.

She wanted to be mad, but she’d had it happen too many times before. How many times had Noah’s flight been delayed? She couldn’t even remember.

She unzipped her dress, but stopped when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Another evening at home. Alone.

It seemed to be the way of things.

But the way of things didn’t have to be.

She zipped her dress back up and put her shoes back on. Grabbing her handbag, she headed back downstairs.

She didn’t have to go to New York. There was an exhibit tonight at the Natural History Museum that she’d been thinking about going to. If she left now, she could make it.

As she was backing out of her driveway, her phone buzzed. It was Martie asking her to stop by the gallery. I need help with something. If you aren’t busy.

Claire sighed. Why did Martie always think she was available? Probably because she was. She wrote back, I’ll be right there.

And why indeed was she always available? I’m a business woman first, she always told herself. The gallery was on the way to the museum. She could swing by, then head to the museum. She put her phone in her bag and set it on the seat beside her.

As she pulled onto the street, her phone buzzed again. “You’ll just have to wait, Martie,” she said out loud. “I’m on my way.”

Grayson sat in the meeting, listening to the other faculty members go on and on about things no one could possibly really care about. He checked his watch.

He’d made a promise to Claire.

No faculty meeting was worth breaking a promise to the woman he loved. What kind of message would he be sending if he didn’t show up tonight?

After the way things went last night, ditching out on her tonight was the worst possible thing he could do.

After five weeks, he would probably never even see these people again. Maybe at a conference. Maybe.

He fidgeted in his chair. Checked the time on his phone again.

He wouldn’t do it.

He wouldn’t cancel out on her like this. He didn’t have time to clean his apartment or go to the supermarket, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see each other.

He typed a message. Since I didn’t make it to the supermarket or have time to pick up my dirty socks, if I bring pizza, can I come over?

He waited. Staring at his phone as though staring at it would cause her to respond. He waited five minutes. Ten. The faculty members droned on and on. Fifteen minutes and no response.

His decision made, he got up and quietly walked out of the meeting. As the door closed behind him, he heard them still talking, not a hitch in the conversation.

He got into his car and drove straight to Claire’s house. He hated her garage. He couldn’t tell if she was home or not. Since she hadn’t answered his text, he decided not bring pizza.

He rang the doorbell. Waited.

Then he walked around to the backyard to see if there were any lights on. The house was dark. She definitely wasn’t home. Unless she was asleep.

When she was home, the house was lit up like a baseball stadium.

Walking around aimlessly, he noticed there was a garage window. It was small, and over his head, but since he was in the backyard anyway, he decided to see if he could take a peek into the garage.

He had to drag a chair over from the patio and climb into it. He imagined the trouble he would be in if Claire came home and found him lying in her back yard, mangled from falling off a chair.

While peeking into her garage.

Of course, it could be days before she found him. He’d never known her to go outside much. She might notice him one day when she was taking out the trash.

At any rate, she wasn’t home. The garage was empty.

Climbing down without mishap, he dragged the chair back to its rightful place.

He should go home. And try to call again tomorrow.

He wandered back around to the front of the house.

He would wait.

Since he was parked in her driveway, he realized she would know he was there. That was a relief. At least if he’d fallen in her backyard, she’d have known to go looking for him.

He went to the front steps of the house, sat down, and waited.

His stomach growled. Maybe he should have gotten the pizza after all. At least, then he would have something to eat. He thought about having something delivered, but somehow it seemed that would dilute the whole gesture of waiting for her.

He checked his phone. Answered some more emails. Did they never end? He sent one word answers – yes and no. At least they couldn’t complain that he didn’t answer in a timely manner, even on a Friday night.

He was reminded of one of his professors in graduate school, an older man nearing retirement who proclaimed email to be evil and the Internet to be the downfall of civilization. At the time he’d pitied the man. Now he understood completely. Unfortunately, the professor had been forced into retirement when he refused to teach online classes.

He reclined against the steps, his elbows propped behind him, his legs stretched out. He decided he should use the time to think about what he would say to Claire when she got home instead of worrying about old professors or student emails.

As the sun set and darkness settled over him, Grayson decided that grand gestures were sorely overrated.

He’d promised he wouldn’t show up without calling first.

Perhaps he should try calling.

He quickly dismissed that idea and decided to stay the course. It would be much harder to ignore him if he was standing in front of her. Besides, there were exceptions to every promise.

By the time Claire had resolved Martie’s dilemma, it was too late to make it to the museum.

Martie rarely had a dilemma she couldn’t handle, but when one of the paintings had arrived with a rip in the top right-hand corner, she’d panicked.

“What do we do?” Martie asked, searching Claire’s face.

“Did you call the artist?” Claire asked.

Martie’s eyes widened with another wave of panic. “No way,” she said.

“I’ll call her,” Claire decided.

When Claire got off the phone with the artist thirty minutes later, they’d decided to meet in the morning to assess whether the painting could be salvaged.

“Was she upset?” Martie asked.

“No, I mean, sure a little,” Claire said, “but she understood that it wasn’t anyone’s fault. These things happen.”

“It just had to happen to us.”

Claire laughed. “Yes. It figures, doesn’t it?”

It was getting late, so they locked up together, and Claire headed home.

When she pulled into her driveway, she had to slam on her brakes to keep from hitting the car parked in her driveway.

It looked like Grayson’s car. Her heart did a little flip of anticipation, followed by a spurt of trepidation. Grayson said he was working late tonight. He wouldn’t be here if he was working late.

The next thought was Danielle. She was supposed to be at her grandmother’s house.

Claire dug her phone out of her bag and saw that she only had the one message. The one she had thought was from Martie.

Which she now saw was from Grayson. Something about dirty socks and pizza.

She lifted her eyes from his message and saw him standing on her front porch.

How long had he been waiting?

She got out of her car and walked toward him. He slowly walked down the stairs, his hands in his pockets. As she got closer, she could see that he looked tired. And a little frustrated.

She would be frustrated, too, if she’d spent the evening waiting on someone’s front porch.

They didn’t say anything as they walked toward each other. Then his arms were around her, her face buried against his chest.

This. This was what she’d been searching for.

It was Grayson all along.

Not just today. Or last week.

But twenty years.

Since the night he’d kissed her and left her in her own bed to sneak down the hallway and out the back of her parent’s house.

She remembered lying in the bed, her heart breaking. She’d cried that night. She’d cried like she’d never cried before while her body ached with new sensations.

After she’d finished crying, she’d focused on the promises he’d made. Promises to write. And call on the phone.

They’d be together again soon. He’d see her on leave.

That was the last time she’d heard from him for twenty years.

It hadn’t been his fault. She knew that now. But even knowing it, the sting was still there.

Now with his arms around her, some of that sting was beginning to heal. His touch soothed and comforted hurts that were buried so deep, they’d become part of her.

“I love you,” he said against her ear.

She gripped him tighter, her hands fisting in his shirt and blinked back the tears, but she couldn’t hold them back. The tears fell silently, dampening his shirt.

She didn’t think it was possible, but he held her even more tightly against him.

Then he reached down and, putting an arm beneath her knees, picked her up and carried her up the front stairs of her house.

When they reached the door, he slid her to her feet. She reached out and touched the door knob to unlock it. He pushed it open and followed her inside. And waited while she locked the door from the inside.

Then he took her hand and led her to the sofa. He sat and pulled her into his lap. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, then the corner of her mouth.

Then his lips were on hers and everything else faded away – yesterday and tomorrow. There was only right now. In this moment.

When they came up for air some time later, Grayson said, “I’m starving. Do you have anything to eat?”

Claire laughed. “I’m starving, too. Let’s check the refrigerator.”

Claire sat on a stool at her kitchen counter while Grayson grilled egg, cheese, and tomato sandwiches.

“It’s a cross between an egg sandwich and a grilled cheese,” he said.

“I think I have some potato chips,” she said, going to the check the pantry.

“Not exactly vegan food,” he said.

“As long as it’s vegetarian, I’m good,” she said.

He flipped the sandwiches over, then stepped over to kiss her on the nose. The gesture made her smile.

He was the only person who had ever kissed her on the nose. She remembered the first time. He was a football place kicker and she’d been a majorette. It was during a particularly close Friday night game.

She’d been standing on the sidelines in her little red uniform. The crowd was cheering as Grayson kicked and made the field goal, leading their team to a last minute victory. Grayson had walked across the field straight to where she was standing and in front of the crowd, cheering for his winning field goal, he’d kissed her right there on the tip of her nose.

The crowd had gone wild.

That kiss had been a famous moment at their high school. Someone had taken a picture and it had been displayed in the high school office. As far as she knew, it was still there. The tall football player and the petite majorette had a made a touching picture of high school sports and innocent young love.

“Do they still have the picture up?” Grayson asked as he pulled two plates from the cabinet.

Apparently, his thoughts had gone down the same path as hers.

“As far as I know.”

“We were supposed to get married and have a house-full of kids,” he said.

“I know,” she said, “everyone thought it.”

He took their plates to the table. As they sat next to each other, his eyes locked onto hers. “It’s not too late,” he said.

“What?” She laughed and took a bite of her sandwich.

“It’s not too late.”

“Really? You want to have a house full of kids? Now?”

“Well,” he said. “Maybe not a house full. But I wouldn’t mind having maybe one.” He bit into a potato chip. “Or two. Or maybe three.”

“Ha. Obviously, you’ve never been through childbirth.”

“I never wanted children with anyone else.”

She searched his eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes. And was speechless.

He shrugged and bit into his sandwich. “I’m just saying,” he said a few seconds later.

“You’re serious,” she breathed.

“Eat. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Oh no. You can’t say something like that, then just let it sit there,” she said, but bit into her sandwich anyway. “Yum,” she said. “This is really good.”

He now had a smug look on his face. “I’m a really good cook,” he said. “And as my sister can attest, I can change diapers, too. And I do so willingly.”

“Are you auditioning?” she asked, amusement playing about her lips.

“Just watering some of those seeds,” he said.

“What seeds?”

“Those seeds I planted back in the day. When I was a hot football star and you were a sexy little majorette.”

She grinned. “You’re still pretty hot.”

“And you’re still pretty sexy.”

They finished eating and cleaned the kitchen together.

“What did you do with Danielle and Charlie?” he asked.

“Danielle is spending some time with her grandmother and she took Charlie with her. I may to get another cat to keep me company when she’s not here.”

He dried his hands on the kitchen towel and pulled her to him. “I can keep you company.”

She laughed as he kissed her ear.

“You are trouble, Grayson Moore.”

“You like trouble.”

“I must,” she said.

“Then you’re saying you like me,” he said, kissing her face.

“Yes,” she giggled. “I like you.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, kissing her on the lips now. “I should go,” he said.

“Uh huh,” she said but he had her off balance and she couldn’t think.

He took her hand and led her toward the door.

“Danielle is still going to the game with us tomorrow?”

“She wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said.

“Good. I’ll pick you up at five.”

“Make it four so we can pick up Danielle,” she said.

He kissed her again and walked out the door.

Before she could lock the door, he was back.

Her face broke into a smile as he kissed her.

“I have to move your car,” he said. So much for romantic notions.