s.sh.ne

You look a little sharper than when he saw you last. Maybe from changes in makeup, maybe from the subtle knife of mid-twenties aging; you are still young, but more sophisticated than you were at twenty three. Elegant. Your hair is different. You're in a pale yellow dress, foot popped, grinning at the camera, one hand flexed to show off the ring, and the other one up around the neck of your fiancé (Ryland knows his name—and even if he didn't, it's right there, on the paper, expensively inked and intertwined with yours—but he refuses to acknowledge it on principle).

Three names, on an attached slip, to RSVP. His name is last: his mom's, then Colt's, then his. He hadn't expected an invite. If he thinks about it long enough, he can still feel your hand against his cheek. He'd earned that. He hasn't earned this. But it most likely isn't a matter of earned; you had to invite his mom, and you had to invite Colt, which means you had to invite him.

He recognizes the curve of your Ys, the loop you took on sometime around the sixth grade. His name, in your hand. He brushes a thumb across the ink.

He has a suit.

He has a ticket to New York, for an academic conference he anticipates being disinvited from any day now.

He shouldn't go. To be respectful of you. To stay home with his mom. To spare himself.

He shouldn't go.

-

He skips the ceremony, abandoning any fantasy of speak now or forever hold your peace, and walks straight into the reception.

It's a beautiful venue. No real surprise there—you've always had good taste in everything but men. And lord knows you've been to more than your fair share of weddings over the years. Everywhere he looks are little familiar details (lavender centerpieces, white roses, candles on the wall), like you used all of your mom's receptions to curate exactly what you might want for yourself one day.

He's timed his entrance carefully. Late. The first dance, the garter, the toasts are all finished; the dance floor has attracted a healthy crowd; caterers buzz around the half-empty tables, clearing away glasses, swapping out dinner plates for cake. The room is a sea of people he doesn't know, friends of yours from law school and from work and from your new life. Presumably your mother and Josh are around here somewhere.

And there, across the room. Surrounded by bridesmaids. Hair pinned up. Empty seat to your left.

You.

Your dress is white, of course, white and satin and thin-strapped, and he watches one of those straps slip precipitously close to the edge of your shoulder as you laugh at something a bridesmaid said, and watches the delicate motion of your throat as you sip champagne, and watches the drag of your thumb across your lower lip as you check that your lipstick is intact, and then you look up and he's in front of you and you are here.

"Hey," he says.

You don't quite gape, but you get close. "You," you say, standing. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Hi. I wasn't." You shake your head as you come around the table. "You RSVP'd no."

"Did I?"

"I'm very familiar with the guest list, at this point. The only one who said yes was—"

"Colt, yeah. I'm Colt tonight."

"Right." You stop in front of him, and then—clasp your hands together. Like you were about to hug him, but thought better of it. "Well. Thanks for coming."

Before you can sit back down, he rushes to say, "Can we talk?"

You arch a brow, glancing back at the table. Your bridesmaids are all distracted. Talking amongst themselves. He can't really make out their individual faces. He thinks he recognizes one girl from high school, from your grade, Cathy or Kristen or something. "Uh oh."

"No, it's nothing bad. I'm just, I'm flying back tomorrow." He shrugs. "Thought it could be nice to catch up."

"Depends. Are you going to make me cry this time?" You wind an arm through his elbow, which he didn't know he had extended, and he realizes with a bone-deep relief that this is you saying yes.

"I'll try my best not to."

"You'd better," you say. He lets you lead. He's a little fuzzy on where the exits are. "I spent, like, two hours getting my makeup done. But sure. I could use the fresh air."

In the entryway, you pull your arm from his, getting ahead of him by a few steps. There is a moment where you are shadowed by the light from inside, a dark golden glow cast over your dress. Salt in the air. Waves onto sand.

He blinks, and it's gone.

The exit opens up to a garden, empty of people, filled to bursting with white roses. It must be somewhere around midnight, but the night above looks later, somehow, the hazy purple-grey of a two a.m. sky.

"So, is actual Colt okay," you say, breaking the silence, "or…"

"Away on set."

"That's going well, then. The whole Hollywood thing."

"Yeah. He's, he's really doing it. He sends his best." He adjusts his glasses. "Mom, too, they both—they both send their best."

"She's—"

"She's been better. But she's in good spirits, all things considered. Chemo's going well. Another month until they can check if it worked. Again. And then if it works they're going to. There's this surgery. Anyway. She still has that quilt, um, the one you and your mom, from last time—"

You nod. "Yeah, I'm glad she. Not glad that she has another use for it, but, glad she has it." He feels your hand on his arm. He looks down at it. Your right hand; no ring. "It's good she has you, too."

"Yeah." He chuckles, low. Bitter. His glasses slide down his nose. "That's the one upside to a forced sabbatical. Plenty of free time."

Your hand pulls away. "I saw. UNESCO." If you still keep up with him, his work, that would mean you maybe went into medical malpractice law after all—but he doesn't know—and before he can ask, you continue, "So you're—"

"Still on staff, officially. By the time I get home, probably not."

"You never were afraid of pissing people off."

"Guess I should have been."

"Mm. You'll figure it out."

"Yeah. Maybe. I could use some advice."

"Really? From the child bride?" There's no bitterness in your voice, just a smile. Light. Teasing. The way it used to be.

"You seem to have it all figured out," he says with a shrug. "The job. The ring. Life."

You laugh. "Nobody has it all figured out. There could always be something…" The smile fades, not into a frown. Something in between.

"Better?"

You don't look at him. He watches as you play with your ring. "Different."

He stops walking. You make it a few steps ahead of him. "Are you happy?"

You turn.

He can't read your face. He isn't sure what he wants it to say. Of course he hopes he was wrong about your fiancé; he's never wanted more to be wrong about anything in his entire life. Of course he hopes he's changed. Of course he doesn't want you to be stuck with—it's just that there is a small, selfish corner of his brain, closer to the surface than he wants to admit, that almost—that almost wishes—not that—but if there was any chance at all—

"I should get back," you say. You lean up to kiss him on the cheek, once, quick. "It was good to see you, Colt."

You walk away. Two steps. Ten steps.

"Wait," he says.

You turn.

"I never actually got to see the ring. The new one."

You narrow your eyes at him. "Not much to see." But you do walk back, heels clicking, hand outstretched. "They all look the same, more or less."

He takes your hand, and looks at it.

You're right. It's nothing out of the ordinary. The simple band. The diamond above. But your hand is warm in his. Your wrist is soft where he brushes his thumb across it, your pulse delicate beneath his fingers, and, on a whim, he steps in, and tugs you closer, and brings his other hand around your waist.

Your eyes are wide as you look up at him. He swears he feels your pulse pick up, feather-light. "What are you doing?"

He takes a step back. You follow. Then to the side, then back, vaguely in rhythm with the distant sounds of music from inside, and the ocean in his ears.

"Feels like I owe you at least one dance in your life that I don't completely fuck up by the end. Think of it as a wedding gift."

Your smile is small, but warm. Relaxed. "So I shouldn't be expecting anything off the registry, then."

"I don't know. Anything on there in the soon-to-be-fired adjunct's salary range?"

You scrunch up your nose, like you're genuinely thinking about it; the corner of your mouth lets him know you're not. "Luggage tags?"

He laughs. "Okay. Luggage tags." He dips you. He feels, through the hand on your back, the way your breath catches. "I'll see what I can do."

He brings you up from the dip slow, close. He lets his eyes linger. Your mouth is an inch away from his, less, even, and he watches your lips part and then feels as you press them to his, and

-

No. You wouldn't do that.

-

He brings you up from the dip slow, close, and it's nothing, nothing at all, to lean in and kiss you.

He presses his hand into your back, and cradles your face with the other. He walks you backwards until you are pressed against a wall, and moves his mouth over yours, deep and unhurried, like he can kiss away your husband. Like he can erase the reception, and the altar, and everything that came before.

You seem surprised at first, suspended for a moment, only a moment, before you thaw to his touch. Your hands rise to his chest; his face; they wind up around his neck, your head tipping back against the brick behind you. You open your mouth first. When he mirrors the movement, when his tongue finds to yours, you make a sound, into his mouth. A soft one. A small one.

He pulls you closer.

Your hands are in his hair. He can feel the heat of your body through your dress, the whole length of it, and the dress goes down to your ankles but that doesn't stop him from reaching down, reaching under, those expensive shoes of yours giving you enough height that he is able to run a hand up between your knees and your thighs and. And.

"Fuck." He breaks away to say it. You're wet already, enough that it's soaked through your underwear, which is so delicate to the touch it might as well not be there at all. White lace, he assumes. He wants to pull it off you with his teeth. "Is this for him or for me?"

Instead of answering, you close the distance, letting him taste the champagne on your tongue again.

He thinks about that, that non-answer, thinks about it over and over as he pulls your underwear to the side and presses his fingers into you, or

-

"Is this for him or for me?"

Instead of answering, you lean in—but he pulls back, keeping the distance between his lips and yours. "Come on," he says, his voice low. "Use your words."

"I." He pulls those stupid lacy panties to the side, teasing his fingers at your entrance, and you make the softest sound, less whimper than sob. "Please don't make me answer that."

And then you kiss him, and he's so stunned he lets you, or

-

"For him or for me?"

You lean in, he pulls back—but not so far. Not even enough to see you, really, just far away enough that he can talk without you swallowing the sound.

"Please," he says, letting his forehead rest against yours. "Please just say it."

You hesitate, or

-

"Please," he says, "I know I don't deserve it, but—I need to hear it. Even if it's not true. Please."

You press back. He lets himself meet your gaze. There is a light shimmer across your eyelids, or else nothing at all; your lipstick is a mess, or perfectly intact; your eyes are a little glossy. A little red.

"You," you finally say. "You. Always you."

He kisses you again at the same time he slides a finger into you, so that he can taste the gasp you let out. You are hot around him, hot and soft and wet, and he drags his thumb up, looking for your clit, and he knows he's found it because he can feel the exact moment you start to have trouble kissing him back.

"You're so beautiful," he says, and he feels the way you throb around him at the words.

"Ryland—"

"You are," he says, and you just said his name with his fingers inside you and he is going to be cool about it, he is not going to get distracted, he is going to be so focused and so normal. "You are, you always are, I should have told you—I've thought about this for so long—"

He gets his other hand up to your torso, letting one strap slip off your shoulder so that he can cup your chest, dragging a thumb over a nipple and smiling against your mouth when you arch into the touch.

"Me too," you say. The words slip out of you, ragged, like they're something you weren't expecting, or weren't supposed to say aloud. You're clinging to his shoulders, nails digging into his back as your fingers twitch, as you try to keep upright, try to keep from falling apart—but he can feel the way your breath catches. He can feel the flutter of your walls around him, and he knows, he knows he can get you there, knows moments before it happens that he is going to make you fall apart here, now, against a garden wall, thirty feet away from your own wedding reception.

He breaks away to kiss up your neck, below your ear. "Come on," he says, and the sound you make is so devastating that he has no choice but to return his mouth to yours. "Come for me. Come for me, please—it's you, it's you, too, it's always been you—"

He wants to watch your face, but you kiss him desperately, one hand pulling him closer by the hair like you're trying to muffle yourself, and so he settles for the feel of you, your mouth and your moans and the way they vibrate through you both as you finish around his fingers.

He keeps kissing you through the whole thing.

Softer, when the aftershocks begin. Gentle against your lips; then, when the hand on the back of his head loosens, he moves to your cheek, your eyelids, your temple. Your forehead.

When he pulls his fingers out of you, you let out one last sound—more sigh than anything else. Leg returning to the ground. He narrowly resists the urge to take his own fingers, the fingers still wet with you, into his mouth. Instead, with his other hand, he helps fix your strap, and takes a step back to look at you as you lean against the wall.

You press a thumb beneath each eye, wiping gently. "You promised you wouldn't ruin my makeup."

"I said I wouldn't make you cry," he says. You reward him with a laugh that is tiny and gorgeous and a knife to his heart. "Come back with me."

You pause. "What?"

"Don't go back in there. I have a hotel room, Colt's hotel room. We can—"

"No." You step away from him. "I can't. This was." Your hands run over your dress, trying to smooth new wrinkles out of the fabric. "Shit. We shouldn't have. I shouldn't have. I just stood up in front of everyone and said—I promised—"

"Seems like an empty fucking promise, at this point."

"It's not. It's not." You shake your head frantically. "This was just a mistake. I'm married."

"Sure." He feels like he's about to throw up. "You've got husband number one under your belt. Family tradition, right?"

You go still. Your eyes flick up to meet his, and he feels it in his throat. "Glad to see you haven't changed," you say. Then it's back to business—tucking up a strand of hair, checking your lipstick, not even looking at him as you walk away.

He watches you go, or

-

"Come back with me," he says. "I'm sure there are tickets left, on the same flight. Or we can wait for the next one. Come home."

"This is home, for me." There's a tiny divot between your brows, the one you always get when you are confused, or irritated, or infuriated, and it's there now and he wants to press his lips to it but you are out of reach. "My whole life is here. My apartment, my friends, my marriage."

"What about me? I'm here. I'm here now."

"Yeah." You press two careful hands to your face. There are tears there. He wants to wipe them away, but when he steps forward, you counter with a step back. "I think I was a little better off when you weren't."

You turn, or

-

"Come back with me. Or, or, or I can miss my flight. I can stay."

"I'm married. I have a husband."

"He doesn't have to know. We don't have to tell anyone, we can. Just tonight, or—"

You shake your head, or

-

"Come back with me. Please." You are starting to blur before him, and he doesn't know if it's tears or memory or three years of distance, and he does not care. "Everything is a mess. All of it. I have no idea what I'm doing. Most days I don't—I can't—I don't know anything, but I know that I have been in love with you for ten years, and you have to. You have to at least let me tell you that. You have to know."

You are farther away than before. You are very still.

"You haven't been in love with me for ten years," you say quietly. "You haven't even seen me since—" Your face is calm. The dampness on your cheeks, the red-rimmed eyes, all gone. "You don't know me anymore."

"I do know you." He steps forward. It doesn't bring him any closer. "I do."

"No, Ryland." The kindness in your voice is the cruelest thing he's ever heard. "You don't."

"No?"

"No."

-

No.

-

It's no use.

He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, looking at the blue envelope. The yellow dress. The loop-tailed y.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. His career is over and his mother is dying and all he can do is sit here, in an empty house, staring and staring and staring, and no matter how many times he runs the simulation, adjusts the variables, charts and recharts the data, the verdict is the same: there is no sensible world in which you would choose him over a man who was smart enough to kiss you and brave enough to be honest about the reason why.

He looks at the photo again.

You look happy.

He marks three Not Attendings, putting the card aside to bring to the hospital. The registry site remains open on his laptop. He'll pick something off of it, labeled with his mom's name. His mom's, and Colt's. The best thing he can do for you, he understands now, is leave you alone.

-

Months later, in a classroom, scrolling over a break, he sees a post from your brother. A photo album. Green centerpieces on the tables; sunflowers; your hair hanging loose and your smile radiant as your new husband dips you.

Your reception dress was short, not floor-length. Fringed, not satin.

The original drabble/concept: "deciding you're sick of dating and just want to do the single mom thing, except sperm is expensive (and you're slightly terrified at the idea of not knowing the person whose dna you're about to combine with yours) so you ask your longtime friend and crush ryland grace if he'll donate. and instead if saying no he makes a joke about what, with a turkey baster? and you joke back, sure. or the old fashioned way, to which he replies that he's always been a sucker for tradition, and this goes on for a little bit until you realize maybe neither of you is joking anymore."