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His forehead scrunches up. “Your ex-fiancé. Until three weeks ago.”

I nod.

He relaxes into the corner of the sofa. “Tell me a little more about what happened. Between you two.”

I take a couple of deep breaths. Joe’s pose makes me feel a little more relaxed, too. “Jake came back from a work trip and said he’d been having second thoughts. That he’s not sure we should be getting married. Obviously, it was a shock. Then I asked how long he’d been feeling this way. He said, ‘A while.’ I pressed him, and he said pretty much since we’d gotten engaged. Two years ago.”

Joe’s eyebrows shot up. “Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit is right,” I say. “But I felt this strange calm wash over me, like things were finally starting to make sense, you know? Like I was finally seeing things clearly. I got up, thanked him for being honest with me, and asked him if he could please leave now and come back in half an hour so I could collect my thoughts.”

Joe keeps looking at me with unbridled incredulity.

“I shoved my laptop and personal items into a couple of duffel bags, left my engagement ring and the keys to our apartment—his apartment, actually—on the table, got into my car and started driving. Several hours later, I was in Madison.”

A few moments pass before Joe speaks. “Damn, Liz.”

I shrug. “Yeah, well. So, here I am now. Stayed with my cousin for a few days, then it turned out a friend of hers needed someone to sublet her place, so it worked out well.”

Joe’s expression is a mix of curiosity and concern. “So what’s the plan?” he asks.

“Honestly, until today, I’ve just been hiding at my place. I’ve only gone out to get groceries, but otherwise I’ve been inside, looking at job ads. Technically, I’m still on vacation from my Minnesota job. I could still go back.”

He swallows hard. “Do you think you will?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t want to.” I reach over to the coffee table, take my soda can, and drink up. “You know what the weirdest thing has been?”

Joe shakes his head, eyes never leaving mine now.

“The weirdest thing is that I haven’t cried yet. Not once. And I haven’t actually missed Jake at all.”

Joe looks thoughtful, his eyes scanning my face. “That makes sense, I guess. Maybe you’re just feeling numb.”

“Sure, a little. But I’ve missed my parents. I’ve missed my brothers. So much, in fact, that I went to watch football at a bar by myself because I missed them so much. I needed to be surrounded by people, even if it wasn’t them.”

Joe gets off his end of the couch, sits next to me so he’s facing my side and one of his knees rests between us, and leans over to wrap his arms around me. “You looked like you needed a hug,” he says.

We stay like that for a while and he doesn’t move to do anything else. Then he unwraps me, slowly, carefully, but doesn’t move away.

I grab his hand. Not sure why, but the touch feels so necessary. “Here, with you, is the most like myself I’ve felt since I arrived in Madison. How is that possible? I’ve only just met you.”

He starts to play with my fingers. “I don’t know how, but I know what you mean. It feels like we’ve always known each other.”

He pulls that hand toward himself and kisses the middle of my palm, like he did back when we were outside the bar, only this time his lips move to the inside of my wrist, and slowly, very slowly, he pushes up the sleeve. His beard tickles the sensitive skin inside my arm, and I feel those bristles as if they’re all over my body.

“Joe—”

“It’s okay. I don’t expect anything,” he says as he removes my arm from his lips and puts it back down between us. “I couldn’t help it. I love your skin.”

I swallow hard and try to control my breathing. “You know, me, being here with you after we’ve just met is completely out of character for me,” I say.

Joe shakes his head, grinning. “Believe me, I’m not judging you. I’m just happy you’re here. This evening has been the most fun I’ve had in literal years.”

“What, you don’t have a parade of women coming through your bachelor pad?”

He snorts. “That is so far from the truth it’s almost comical. Almost. Mostly it’s tragic.”

“Tragic?”