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“And for you.” He hands me the chocolate cake. “If my memory serves me correctly, dessert is your one true kryptonite.”

Dessert, yes. And you.No big. My heart beats faster, and I will it to calm.

I take the cake from his hands, biting back a mischievous smile. “Thank you,” I say. “But where’s the cake for you and Charlee?”

“You know,” he laughs, “I seriously considered bringing two.”

And then I laugh, too. “Kidding. I can share. I suppose.” I jokingly shrug and set the cake down on my entryway table, holding my front door open wider for him. “Come on in.”

He steps through the threshold and into my house, somehow stealing my oxygen in that one quick, seemingly ordinary move. But Greyson in my home, in my space, standing two feet away from me, is clearly not something I sufficiently prepared myself for.

I swallow thickly, clasping my fingers together to keep my hands from subtly shaking.Why am I so damn nervous?

He looks around the space, slowly taking in my living room. Turquoise suede couches, vibrant Persian rug, macramé curtains…

I watch him the entire time.

When his eyes find mine, I can immediately recognize that this moment is surreal for him, too. Heavy. A little overwhelming.

It selfishly helps ease my nerves a bit.

But I’d still like to slide my hand across his chest and feel how hard his heart is beating. See if it matches the quick pace of my own.

“We’re making pizza! Come on!” Charlee slices through our connection, refocusing our attention entirely.

“Mmm, I love pizza,” Greyson says excitedly for Charlee’s benefit, and he trails her into the kitchen with a soft smirk.

But what just happened there? That smirk? It doesn’t help my racing heart at all. And my mind has immediately latched onto the vibrato of the single sound he uttered before“I love pizza.”Andmy god,but I am in so much trouble here.

I follow them into the kitchen, clearing my throat and attempting to clear my mind, but my eyes zero-in on his left hand without my permission.

Yep. Still there.

It’s that reminder alone that settles my thoughts and emotions into an easy calm. For the most part, anyway.

“These are all our topping choices!” Charlee says, gesturing to the smorgasbord of them laid out on the counter before us. “You can put as many on your pizza as you want,” she adds, as if it’s the best kept secret on the planet, and I smile. She always insists we lay out as many topping options as possible even though she goes for pepperoni and pineapple every time, without fail.

And Charlee, as expected, decorates her pizza into a face with pepperoni eyes and a pineapple smile. I load mine with veggies and quietly watch as Greyson tops his with the same, before adding some pepperoni and pineapple at Charlee’s insistence.

I laugh under my breath. She’s a bulldozer, this one. And she already seems to be wrapping him around her tiny, six-year-old little finger like she has with the rest of us total suckers.

We throw our three pizzas into the oven and clean up our mess, and Charlee wastes no time dragging Greyson into the living room to set up for a first round of Mario Bros. 3.

Apparently, her and Greyson are going to play as a team, while I’ll be stuck as Luigi on my own. Traitors, the both of them.

I smile as I set my sponge down in the sink and rinse my hands, gazing out the window and into my backyard. I take a grounding, steadying breath, watching my overgrown grass swaying in the wind. Up and down, and up and down, like the ripples in an ocean.

It feels like this—all of it—has been a long time coming.

Inevitable, even. Years in the making. Made even more confusing and obscure by that ring on his finger.

What is he doing here?

What does this mean?To him? To me?

Does his wife know he’s here? Does he even have a wife?Ishe married?

One thought rolls into the next, and I feel suddenly impatient for the moment Greyson and I will be alone again—to air out everything between us. To finally rip the band-aid off and find a way to move on from here.