Christopher hung up his coat, brushed snow out of his hair, and dropped the familiar white bag from Melt on the coffee table, but didn’t sit down. He walked over to my easel. With only two weeks until the show, I’d begun painting whenever I had a few minutes, not bothering to put things away.

“Jesus,” he murmured, reaching fingers toward the canvas. Usually I had a momentary lurch of fear when people did that, but I knew he wouldn’t touch it.

I stood behind him. It was coming together but it definitely needed work. There was something about the folds of the shirt that was off, making them look strangely flat.

He shook his head. “That’s amazing. I don’t know how you do that.”

“Thanks,” I said.

When he turned to face me, his expression was intent and unreadable. “Can I confess something?” he asked, and my blood ran cold.

“Um. Yes?”

“I was really fucking jealous of Daniel.”

“Uhhhh.”

“Because you were so happy to see him and you made time for him, and you have all these nicknames for him. And I had this whole speech planned that I was gonna hit you with once he’d left.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “It was gonna be about how I get that you and Daniel have your whole psychic best friends thing going on and that I wasn’t trying to intrude on it or mess it up. That I’d kill to have that good of a friend. That, um, if I’m really honest, I guess I was hoping that I could have something like that with you. But that it felt like there was only one space for someone close to you in your life and Daniel was already filling it.”

He shifted uncomfortably and I stuck my thumbs through the holes they’d worn in the seam of my cuff over the years.

“And it sucks to feel like I’m yapping at the edge of the picnic blanket for scraps or something, if you don’t want me to have them.”

He was looking at the ground, and the image of him as an enthusiastic, unwanted puppy ended me. “You were going to give me that speech?”

He nodded and looked up, and his eyes were liquid gold. “When you texted me to come hang out with you guys, though, I…” He shook his head self-consciously. “Dude, I was so stoked. I felt like maybe we were really doing this? Maybe you really did have space for me. Maybe you really did want to let me in more. And then it felt so easy, hanging out with you guys. Like maybe we could have that even when Daniel wasn’t around. Possibly.”

The sheer number of maybes and possiblies from a man who was usually so confident told me how hard it was for him to say this stuff, even though he was making it look easy. I admired his bravery. I admired it so damn much.

If he was saying that he wanted with me the kind of intimacy I had with Daniel, only more, then I wanted that too. A partner in crime who was also…a partner.

The way he’d phrased it also made me think. He’d said maybe I did have space for him, as if there was only so much of me to go around. And, as I’d just spent innumerable hours insisting with United Ink, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe there was plenty of space, if I just changed the way I’d been thinking about things. If I stopped thinking that being with Christopher was taking time away from other things, and started thinking about all the ways that it was giving something to me.

And the second the idea registered, my whole viewpoint shifted, like the rotation of the camera that reveals the floor is really the ceiling.

How long had I felt like I had to pour every ounce of me into the shop and the business? Because I loved the work, of course. But also because I wanted it to succeed and I’d told myself I knew what being successful looked like. It looked like buying the business as fast as possible; having as many clients as possible; getting as much visibility as possible. Those measures of success, though… I’d thought they proved everyone wrong about my abilities. But really, hadn’t I just taken the metric my parents used to measure success and applied them to my own business?

What if I didn’t have to do it the fastest, the most? What if the true measure of success was being in charge of my own view of what success meant, of how I wanted to run my business, of what else I wanted in my life?

“Ginger?”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m having a fucking epiphany is all, one sec.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I…I’ve been doing things in a certain way for so long. And I just realized as you were talking that I haven’t been choosing them as intentionally as I thought. I—fuck, I’ve been…I’ve been thinking in a damn box and I didn’t get it until just now.”

Christopher sat on the couch, like he was ready to listen, but he didn’t press me. I sat beside him and reached for his hand. My thoughts were swirling madly, ideas and reevaluations tripping over one another too quickly to express them.

“I think I just let something go that’s been fucking with me for a long time,” I said, half in a daze. “I need to think about it some more.”

I needed to sit down and put paid to what I really wanted. What I really wanted. Not what I was doing out of twenty-five-year-old spite for my parents, or in order to have a come-back to fuckheads who dismissed me, or to hold up to myself in the mirror in moments when I felt insecure. But what I actually valued.

I was about to be thirty-five goddamned years old. It was time to let go of everything in my life that was reaction. It was time for action instead.

And the first action I had to take was clarifying things with the man in front of me. The man who was sitting, holding my hand, and patiently watching me, because he was invested in anything I had to say.

“I’ve been really scared,” I said. “Of this. I know you know that.”

Christopher nodded. “I wish I knew what I could do to make it easier for you,” he said.

“It’s not you. Or, it is you. It’s how much I fucking like you that makes it so scary. How much I let myself feel how deep under my skin you’ve gotten. How much it would hurt now if I lost you. And then I get all messed up, and—”

Christopher used the hand he held to pull me onto his lap, his other hand in my hair, his eyes intent on my face. “You’re not going to lose me,” he said fiercely. “I’m so in this, sweetheart, I don’t even want to say because I feel like I’ll scare you off. I—I’m so fucking gone over you.”

He traced my mouth with his fingertip, then my cheekbone. His eyes were hot and he never looked away. I felt like a feather drifting over the rooftops, kept aloft by the breeze and a kind of happiness I’d never known, and I grabbed onto him, suddenly afraid I might float away.

I nodded, trying to turn my happiness into words, and failing.

“It will take some time for you to trust me,” he went on. “For us to trust each other. To feel comfortable with each other.” I nodded again. “I’m pretty patient.”

Then his eyes shadowed.

“I’m patient, but…only if I know there’s actually a chance. I’ve been thinking a lot about how it was when me and Jude were kids. Since he’s been back, you know? When we were in high school, he’d hole up in his room for days. My parents would bring him food because he wouldn’t come out to eat. They’d talk to him and he’d just kinda stare through them. But I’d, uh, I’d sit outside his door and tell him about my day sometimes, or about getting the winning goal in my soccer game. Stupid shit, just…”

He trailed off, and when he looked at me his gaze cut straight through me.

“It felt like it was okay for me to be there, to talk to him, as long as I didn’t need him to answer. As long as I didn’t need anything in return.”

It was the same memory that Jude had mentioned at the Christmas party, though the interpretation was different. The image of Christopher sitting outside his brother’s closed door and talking to it like it was a gravestone that never answered back sucker-punched me. That’s what he did. He was always still there, offering himself out of a sense of hope that maybe he could get through.

Then my stomach twisted, because I understood what he was saying.

“I can’t feel that way with you,” he said fiercely. “I can’t feel like that again. So I guess I’m saying…I know stuff with us will take time. And I’m here for that. But I need to know you’re here for it too.”

I’d joked that it’d never work out with Christopher because he was so normal and well-adjusted. But the truth was that thank fucking god he was, because it was precisely his steadiness that made it possible for me to keep being myself, with all my moodiness and variation, like he was a fixed house in the swirling blizzard.

Part of what Daniel and I depended on each other for were the ways we were similar. And at first I’d thought the fact that Christopher and I weren’t was an impediment. But now I realized its advantage: that I could throw all the shit I felt at Christopher and he had the capacity to catch it. That’s what he’d been trying to tell me. That he wanted to know me. He wanted the differences between us as well as the similarities.

And now he was telling me that he only needed one thing from me right now. He just needed to know that I was willing to try. That was all, for now.

And I was. I so was.

“I don’t want you to need nothing in return,” I said, squeezing his wrists tighter. “And I am. Yes. Here. For this, I mean. You. Us. Thing.”

My voice was choked with held-back tears and shame that it’d taken me so long to realize it. And though that hadn’t come out how I meant it, he smiled faintly, and nodded, and I tried again.

“I like you so much. Like, more than crush-like you, ya know? Wow, I sound twelve. Just, I get this geeky, giddy feeling when I know I’m gonna see you, and I love the way you smell, and how you call me on shit, and the way you nuzzle into my hair when you’re sleeping even though then it gets in your mouth and you wake up all annoyed like ‘Ugh, hair in my mouth,’ and fuck! I like so much about you.”

Now he was grinning and twisting his fingers into my hair.

“I’m just… I depend on myself, you know. I…everything I have, I got on my own. I make my own decisions, solve my own problems, and—”

“I’m not trying to—”

“No, no, I know. It’s just…” I took a deep breath. “It scares me how much I’ve been thinking about you lately. Taking you into account. Because what if I make these choices and then you’re not around anymore and…”

“Why wouldn’t I be around?” he asked gently.

I shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not necessarily the easiest person sometimes, I know.” Christopher snorted and my eyes flew to his, because I was being totally serious.

“Babe, you don’t think I am well aware of that fact already? Don’t you think if that was something that bothered me I’d’ve split a long way back?”

Well. That was…something. I felt raw and scared and just a bit hopeful, and embarrassed because hope felt like a lightning rod for disaster.

“Easy isn’t really a quality that interests me much,” he said. He kissed me and grabbed my hands. “Listen, the stuff with my brother? I didn’t tell you that because I was trying to make the point that it’s really shitty to have someone you love shut you out. I mean, it is. But I told you because I would have given anything—anything, Ginger—if Jude would have told me what was going on with him.” His voice was choked. “I would have done anything if I could have shouldered some of his burden. I would have a thousand times preferred hearing his darkest, scariest thoughts to silence. Even if I couldn’t change it. Even if all I could do was bear witness to them. There’s nothing he could have said to me that would have made me love him less, respect him less. But he—he couldn’t. I know that. He was actually unable to say those things to me.”

His voice was a mess. He was a mess.

“But you…I think maybe you could. And sometimes I can see you choose not to. Which is your right. Still, I want to go on record as saying I wish you would. I wish you would choose to tell me. Eventually.”

A tear ran down his cheek, and he didn’t move to wipe it away.

“I was so angry at Jude,” he whispered. He wasn’t looking at me anymore but somewhere deep inside, his gaze over my shoulder, his eyes luminous. “And he was a thousand times angrier at himself than I ever could be. You should hear him play some time, Ginger.” He looked back at me, his eyes glowing with pride. “He’s extraordinary.”

“I’d love to hear him.”

Christopher nodded and then just looked at me for a long moment. “In cooking, you can swap out one ingredient for another. Sometimes it doesn’t change much, like oil for eggs in a cake. Sometimes it changes everything, like salt for sugar. The way I feel about you? It’s not like a recipe. I don’t want to swap out your moodiness for a smile, or your temper for a laugh. It’s like…alchemy or something. The way people come together, and it’s just…” He shrugged, and gave me a foxy smile. “Magic.”

He was gorgeous, all broad shoulders, glinting hair, and that fucking grin.

Then he swooped down and kissed me, pulling me to him, joy turned to desire.

His mouth was hot against mine and I could feel his erection through his jeans. He sucked in a breath as I pressed against him. I felt flushed and shaky with desire.

I reached between us to feel him and his eyelids fluttered. “You make me hard all the time,” he muttered against my mouth.

I gritted my teeth against the wave of desire that washed through me. Being wanted, knowing this gorgeous man wanted me as much as I wanted him, made me lightheaded. “Tell me why?” I gasped out, embarrassed, but I needed to know it was real. “Please?”

Christopher rubbed the pad of his thumb over my lower lip and my eyes slid closed. He spoke low into my ear. “It turns me on to watch you tattoo. To see you concentrating, marking someone, changing them. The way you walk fucking gets to me. You stalk around, with your hands on your hips and your chin up, and your gorgeous ass out.” I snorted and he grabbed the ass in question. “It’s like you’re constantly about to fuck someone or fuck them up.”

He nipped at my neck and I writhed.

“What else?” I gasped as he pressed his hips up, letting me feel the erection straining his jeans.

“Your voice,” he said. “So hot. And I’m serious about the swearing. I don’t know why it turns me on, but it does. It’s like…I don’t know, like you’ve got so much passion simmering away that normal words aren’t strong enough. Or maybe I just like it because your mouth’s so gorgeous that dirty words make me think about other dirty things…”

His hands trailed slowly down my ribs, then he pinched my nipples, sending jolts through me, the piercings turning the pleasure to pain and back again. I swore and bit his ear and he groaned, pulling my hips down and squeezing my ass.

Then he kissed me, our tongues tangling furiously and I moaned into his mouth, never wanting the kiss to end. We kissed until we were breathless, his hips lifting off the couch, mine grinding down, seeking friction.

I was hot and flushed with contact, my lips buzzed from kissing. Christopher’s eyelids were heavy as I leaned in and kissed the freckles across his cheekbones, then the ones I knew were on his chin, hidden once more beneath his usual stubble. He made a small sound and his hand slid up my back as he shuddered.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” I murmured against his neck. “You’re all hot and—mmm, thick.” I squeezed his thighs. “Lie down.” I kissed the other side of his neck as he struggled to lie down without dumping me onto the floor.

“Damn couch is too small,” he muttered.

“You’re too tall,” I said and pulled him onto the floor. But it wasn’t true. I loved how big he was, how when he wrapped his arms around me I felt completely enveloped in his warmth. “I wanna look at you for a minute,” I murmured.

I stripped his shirt the rest of the way off, balancing on his lap, and traced patterns in the scattered freckles on his chest and stomach. I wrote my name in his freckles, like I was marking him for my own, an invisible tattoo that only I knew was there.

Keeping my touch light, I watched the flush of arousal spread from his cheeks, down his neck to his chest; watched his nipples harden as I traced circles around them then squeezed.

He groaned, the flush spreading down his stomach. I dipped a finger into his navel, and stroked the line of hair that disappeared into his underwear. He was delicious, laid out before me, ruddy and strong, muscles straining under my touch, skin heating to it.

I fed on his reactions, as if every inch of skin my eyes caressed belonged to me. I ran possessive hands over his ribs, and ran my short nails down his muscular arms, encircling his wrists, with those bones that I couldn’t stop staring at whenever his sleeves rode up.

He was gazing up at me with lust-lowered eyelids, his mouth swollen from my kisses. I could feel the sting of stubble burn around my lips, and I loved the idea that he could see evidence of our passion on my face.

I looked right into his eyes, rucked my skirt up around my hips and reached between us, adjusting him through his pants so that his erection pointed up to his belly. He groaned and sucked in his stomach so I could reach his skin but I shook my head. Positioning myself on top of him, I ground against him so the ridge of his erection stroked against my wet cleft through my underwear. The dirtiness of it lit me on fire—grinding against each other on the floor, hips straining together as we stared into each other’s eyes.

I knew I could come this way, tightening my internal muscles and clenching my ass, and I wanted to see Christopher lose it, helpless beneath me. I wanted the sensation of us using each other’s bodies just like this.

“I—fuck—that’s—” he groaned as I found the perfect angle.

He was practically vibrating with the effort to lie still, and I licked a line up his neck. I wanted to live with my mouth on his throat, our hips straining together, his hands tangled in my hair.

He locked his arms around me and kissed me so hard I was gasping into his mouth. Then I broke the kiss and slid back down. He sat halfway up, stomach muscles contracting, so he could watch as we ground together.

“Oh, fuck,” I said and he grabbed my ass with both hands, pressing us tighter together. My whole body hummed with heat, my skin buzzing with arousal. As I strained against him I felt his erection swell even more, and I braced myself on his shoulders so I could drive us more fully together.

“Oh, shit,” he said, eyelids fluttering shut and hips pulsing up as he squeezed my ass, fingers sliding into my crease. “Shit.”

I reached between his legs and squeezed his balls as I moved faster, and Christopher cried out. He bent his knees and bucked up against me like he’d lost control, pressing me into him as he came in his pants. His head was thrown back, tendons in his neck straining, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight. He panted and then moaned. He was so fucking beautiful I almost couldn’t stand it.

I was burning up with lust for him, and when he opened his eyes they were laser focused on me. I could feel where his gaze hit: my neck, my collarbones, my stomach, my straining hips. His hands were locked on my ass, and I thrust against him, slow and hard. I was so close, my muscles clenching and releasing faster and faster.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured worshipfully, and reached one shaking hand to my shoulder.

I was breathing hard, right on the edge, and I spread my legs wider and tightened every muscle, thrusting hard as he caressed my ass. And there it was—a spark deep inside that radiated through me in pulses of pleasure like a pebble dropped into a lake. I groaned as I came, my whole body gone rigid and hot like an exploding star. Then I collapsed on top of Christopher and hooked my chin over his shoulder.

“Jesus, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, pushing my hair back from my sweaty neck.

My face was hot, my hips still tensed, my ass and thighs trembling, and my core still pulsing with pleasure. I let myself kiss his neck, breathe in the smell of his skin and his hair. We lay there for a while before Christopher started shifting uncomfortably, and I moved off him so he could clean up in the bathroom.

As I got up, I saw the familiar white paper bag from Melt on the coffee table and realized I’d never even looked to see what kind of sandwich Christopher had brought me. I snagged the corner of the bag before collapsing onto the couch, and Christopher smiled as he came back into the room in just his underwear.

“I forgot it,” I said, holding up the bag gleefully.

He sat on the couch and pulled my legs over his thighs. “It’s an experiment. By now it might be a rock, but you can weigh in on the idea, anyway. It’s a s’more sandwich. It’s marshmallow fluff and chocolate—I put espresso powder in the chocolate spread, since it was for you—and then I made this bread with graham flour so it’d be kind of like a graham cracker. I’m still working on it though.”

“That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, leaning in to kiss him. The sandwich had gone kind of hard, yes, but one whiff and I might as well have been next to a campfire. Christopher watched me intently as I bit in.

The graham cracker bread tasted like being a little kid, and the chocolate spread was dark and rich, the marshmallow toasty and sweet, though it’d turned gummy from the cold.

“It’s amazing,” I said, crumbs sticking to my lips. “So fucking good. You’re a sandwich artist. Not in the sense of a Subway employee, I don’t mean.” I shoved another bite of sandwich into my mouth to shut myself up and offered the other half to Christopher.

We ate in silence. Then, in silent agreement, we went back to kissing and it tasted like we were making out in front of a roaring fire.