“How was work?” I put Chris’s dinner on the table in front of him—meat, potatoes, and two vegetables, like his mother used to make. The heavy oak kitchen table my mom bought for us when we told her we wanted to have at least two kids seems particularly big today, the space between us almost too far to be breached. Our two-bedroom townhouse is small, but I tried hard to make it cozy, decorating in shades of brown and cream with soft, fluffy pillows on the leather couch and a thick, beige area rug on the living room floor. The oak table doesn’t really go with the sleek, modern kitchen, but I love it because of the hopes and dreams that it represents.

“Fine.” He stares at his phone as he spears a piece of steamed broccoli.

“Were you out during the storm?”

“Pete gave us an early lunch so we could wait it out.” He doesn’t even look up, but then he rarely does, and I spend most dinners watching the way the evening sun glints off his hair, turning the thick blond strands to gold. The first time Chris kissed me, I ran my hands through his hair the way I’d imagined doing the day we met when I ran smack into him in a frantic sprint to catch the bus.

“I sewed the hole in your spare set of coveralls last night. They’re washed and on the dryer.”

“Mmmm.”

I push my roast beef around the plate and lean back in my chair, drowning in the silence. Before he was laid off, Chris would pick a playlist before dinner and we would debate his choices while we ate, tease each other for our musical choices. Chris used to love upbeat pop songs, and I have always loved jazz. Sometimes we sat at the table for hours laughing and sharing songs. Now he rarely talks at dinnertime. On the nights I’m not working, I eat to the soft sound of his breaths, the jarring scrape of his fork on his plate, and the memories of laughter as I will him to look up and see me again. Really see me.

Like Dr. Steadman saw me this afternoon.

“I think you missed a package, Lily.” He takes a quick glance around and gestures to the back room. “Why don’t I come back with you and help you find it.”

He doesn’t wait for a response. Instead, he rounds the counter and, with a firm hand on my lower back, ushers me into the darkness and closes the door.

“Dr. Steadman.” My breaths come in short pants. “I won’t be able to find your package.”

“There’s only one package you need to find, Lily.” He clasps my hand and presses it over the substantial bulge in his jeans. “It’s right here. Special delivery. Just for you.”

I look up, but it isn’t Dr. Steadman holding my hand against his pants. It’s Chris.

The high-pitched scrape of Chris’s knife on his plate pulls me out of my fantasy. For the first time in forever, I felt alive today, and it makes me feel my loneliness even more acutely tonight.

“Dr. Steadman came into the post office,” I say, daring to break the silence. “He said you’d been to see him for your checkup. How did it go?”

“Fine.” Chris chews his roast beef and stares at his phone.

“He said you didn’t know my work shifts so you couldn’t make an appointment for me.”

“They keep changing. Can’t keep up.”

My heart gives a little lurch. “I’ve been doing the eight-to-four shift for three years. Nine to two on Saturdays. And every night seven to one at the bar with Alexis except Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. That’s why I’m home tonight.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have paid more attention.”

A black hole opens in my chest, and I fight back the urge to scream, to shout, to throw my plate across the room. Alexis has told me again and again that it’s time to leave him. Chris checked out of our marriage after he was laid off, and it’s clear he isn’t coming back. If I want to have kids before it’s too late, I need to move on. It’s been over a year since he lost his job, but how can I leave when that “sweetheart” tells me my Chris is still there?

“I got a call from Dr. Richardson’s office.” My pulse kicks up a notch. I set up an appointment for Chris to see a counselor, although I was pretty sure he wouldn’t go. “They said you didn’t show up.”

His thumb freezes on the screen, and he finally lifts his gaze. “I don’t need to see a shrink. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“I thought . . . you’ve been . . . depressed.”

“Christ, Lily.” He slams his phone on the table. “Can’t a man enjoy his dinner after a hard day of work? Just because I don’t feel the need to talk about every minute of my day doesn’t mean I’m depressed.”

“I was trying to help.” I used to feel angry when he shouted like that, resentful. Now, I feel sad. One of the things I found so attractive about Chris when we first met was his calm, even temperament, a studied contrast to my emotionally volatile dad. No matter how bad things got, Chris always kept his cool.

Not so now.

Chris sighs and scrubs his face with his hands. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s been a long day.”

He always apologizes, because he’s Chris, and at heart he’s a good man. But nothing ever changes, and tomorrow something else will set him off and we’ll be on the merry-go-round all over again.

A sob rises in my throat. Alexis is right. It’s over. I can’t do this anymore. The only reason I’ve stayed this long is because somewhere beneath the anger and sadness is the man I fell in love with, who returned to the bus stop morning after morning with a red rose until he saw me again.

Unable to finish my dinner, I take my plate into the kitchen and tidy up. Dr. Steadman’s package is still on the counter where I left it. I had hoped Chris might be curious about it when he came in to grab a beer, but the dented, damaged box hasn’t been touched.

And doesn’t that say everything. The Chris I knew was driven by curiosity. When we first got together, he wanted to know everything about me, from my first memory to the contents of my purse. He was always taking things apart to see how they worked, following crowds to see what was going on, and driving down random side roads to see where they went. Sometimes his curiosity got him into trouble, but usually we had wonderful adventures, experiencing things I would never have dared try on my own.

But that Chris disappeared behind piles of papers, unmanageable deadlines, and a job that sucked the life right out of him. Chris was never the kind of man who should have been chained behind a desk, but he took the job so we could have a home and family. He took it for me.

I make myself a cup of tea and pick up the box. It’s big enough to fit a small toaster oven, but not nearly as heavy. Hopefully, whatever was inside didn’t break when I dropped it on the ground. I always hated my clumsiness until it brought me straight into Chris’s arms.

“Whoa. Where are you going in such a hurry, sunshine?” Strong arms wrap around me as I barrel straight into a broad chest.

“Bus,” I wheeze, pointing at the red taillights of the departing 401.

“Looks like you missed it.”

“Damn.” I sag against the stranger. Only twenty years old, there is still enough small town in me not to be afraid of every man I meet in the big city. “Now I’ll lose my job. I’ve been late twice this week already.”

“You want me to come and tell them it was my fault?” His deep voice rumbles through my body, sending a wave of heat straight to my core. “I did get in your way.”

I look up and for a moment I am lost in the depths of eyes as blue and deep as edge of the sky. Pulling back in the circle of his strong arms, I study his face, handsome in a rugged way, the golden stubble on his chiseled jaw, the lion-like mane of hair that brushes his collar. And then I register his body pressed against mine. The heat. The hardness. The sheer size of the man.

A man I don’t know.

“I’m sorry.” I pull away, almost disappointed that he lets me go. “I didn’t mean to run into you.”

“I was hoping you did.” His face softens. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“You’re soft, and I mean that in a good way.”

My skin heats and I feel a curious ache between my thighs. Maybe those few extra pounds I gained since the holidays aren’t so bad.

“I’ve embarrassed you.” He strokes a finger over my cheek, and I feel the sensation arc straight to my clit.

“I was already embarrassed so it doesn’t matter. There aren’t degrees of embarrassment. It’s like skydiving. Once you jump, you’re committed.”

He laughs, a deep, rich, beautiful sound. “You’re committed to being embarrassed?”

“It’s my natural state of being.”

He tips his head to the side and studies me, considering. “Have you ever been skydiving?”

“God, no. I’m a two-feet-on-the-ground kind of person.”

“Your feet weren’t on the ground a minute ago,” he teases.

I drop my gaze and stare at his feet. He’s wearing a worn pair of Kicks that look like they have a world of stories to tell. “That’s because you lifted me up.”

“I’m going to tell people you jumped into my arms.”

“What people?” I look up to see if he’s teasing again, but this time he looks dead serious.

“The people at our wedding.”

This time it’s my turn to laugh. “We don’t even know each other.”

The squeak of brakes startles me. By some miracle, another 401 pulls up beside us. “I have to go,” I say, turning away. “I might actually not get fired today.”

“What’s your favorite flower?” He follows me to the door.

“Roses. Why?”

He gives me a cheeky grin. “Curious.”

I grab the overhead rail as the bus pulls away, wondering why he wanted to know about flowers instead of asking my name.

I tug on the paper wrapped around the package and guilt gnaws at my chest. Dr. Steadman said this was something Chris and I might enjoy—something naughty. Even though I’ve never felt further from Chris than I do now, I can’t open the package alone. Despite everything that has gone on between us, I’m still a two-feet-on-the-ground kind of girl.

With the package and a pair of scissors in my arms, I head back to the dining room. How will he react if I disturb him again? If it’s a set of his and hers toothbrushes or a year’s supply of floss, he’ll probably lose it, although the Chris I used to know would laugh. But so what? Things can’t get worse than they are now, and the thought of opening a mysterious package stokes the fire in me that has been smoldering since this afternoon. Chris might have checked out of the small pleasures of life, but that doesn’t mean I have to check out, too.

“Is that dessert?” he says, as if he hadn’t snapped at me only ten minutes ago, breaking the last straw on this camel’s back. If not for the package, I might have finally walked out the door.

“No.” I place the box on the table in the vast empty space between our two seats. “It was a gift.”

His brow creases in a frown. “It’s not your birthday.”

My stomach twists all over again. Alexis’s husband never remembered her birthday, but even this year, in his darkest days, Chris didn’t forget.

Usually Chris comes up with something creative, but this year he gave me a gift without any of the usual fanfare. No little clues for me to follow to find his hidden present. No crazy experiences he’d arranged for me to try. No rose petal trail to a bath surrounded in candles. No hours celebrating in bed. Instead, he handed me a small cardboard box with a necklace inside. I’m not really a jewelry person, and on the rare occasion I do dress up, I would never wear anything quite as showy as the string of deep red beads he gave me. Although I thanked him and told him it was lovely, the necklace made me wonder if we had grown so far apart that we would never find our way together again.

“Dr. Steadman gave it to us. He said it was something we would enjoy. Together.” I decide against mentioning that he gave us the package because I’d been my usual clumsy self and damaged it. Nothing I do is right anymore, and I don’t want to add to Chris’s litany of complaints.

“Why didn’t he give it to me at his office?”

“It only arrived at the post office this afternoon.”

Chris studies the parcel from his chair. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why us?”

“I don’t know.” I give a noncommittal shrug, although my heart is pounding. This is the longest conversation we’ve had in months, the most engaged Chris has been, save for the front he puts on when we have to attend company parties. “We were busy this afternoon so there wasn’t much time to talk. He picked up his parcels and gave this one to me.”

“It’s damaged.” Chris puts his phone down and comes around the table to stand beside me, pointing at the smashed corner. “Look here. Does he know someone tampered with the box?”

“Yes. He said it would be fine.”

My pulse kicks up a notch as he pulls the package toward him, his long-dormant curiosity piqued by the dentist’s mysterious present. He is so close I can feel the heat of his body, breathe in his scent. If I move an inch to the side, I will feel his skin on mine.

I ache for his touch so much it hurts.

Chris stopped touching me shortly after he was laid off. He lay on his side of the bed and I lay on mine, and every time I tried to cross the barrier between us, he would gently move my hand away, telling me he was tired or ill or not in the mood. Although I never confronted him, I knew the excuses for the lies they were, and I relive them each night when I lie on my side of the bed alone.

“Let’s check it out.” I hand him the scissors and he cuts the twine around the package.

“It’s probably dental supplies,” he says, his gaze flicking to the television.

“He said it was naughty,” I offer, trying not to sound desperate.

“Naughty?” His eyes widen. “What did he mean by that? I’ve heard the rumors. Dan told me about him the other night at the bar.”

Dan is a partner at Revival’s biggest law firm, and the husband of Kylie, who works in admin at the local hospital. They have two boys, who are big into hockey, and she and Alexis are hockey mom besties. After Dr. Steadman moved to town, Kylie encouraged Alexis to visit his office and get her “teeth cleaned.” Unfortunately, despite eating vast quantities of tooth-decay-causing sugar in the weeks before her appointment, all Alexis got was a polish.

Who says small towns are boring? Chris never thought so, which was why he was happy to move back to Revival with me after we got married.

“What did he say?” I almost wish I had Alexis on the phone, because I know she’s going to make me repeat the conversation word for word. She thrives on gossip, especially anything to do with Revival's hottest dentist.

Chris gives an exasperated sigh, but he snips the tape. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“But it had something to do with naughtiness?”

“Actually . . . ” He tears the paper away. “It had to do with kink.”