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Then I see him, walking over to us, and I simply stare. Apparently, I find explaining to your kid how to handle people who are different extremely attractive, because all I want to do is shove my tongue down his throat the moment he’s next to me.

Huck squeezes my hand, reminding me we aren’t alone, and I give him a nod. He looks at Lucy and smiles. She starts running with a shrill, “This way!” and he follows.

Then it’s just me, Bo, and my cooler facing his cabin.

“It looks better in the pictures,” I say, picking up the cooler, which he immediately takes from me.

“Photoshop can do wonders these days.” He looks at me, letting his eyes wander from my head to my toes without care as he rolls a toothpick across his lips. “And you’re beautiful.”

The thank you I say is a flustered mumble as we climb the steps of the porch.

He sets the cooler down outside the front door and looks at me. Gentle yet serious. “I’m leaving this out here, but if you want any of it, I’ll come get it and I won’t be upset.”

I nod. He means it. If I run out here and pull all of my food out and heat it on his stove while they eat pizza, he won’t be mad. The relief that knowledge gives me is a freeing gift I’m not sure he knows the value of.

He opens the door, we step inside, and I see three things at once.

One, the house is gorgeous. It’s all exposed wood and black iron and windows. The walls are mostly bare, showing off the logs they’re made of, but there are also pictures hanging too. Lucy. Veda and her late husband. Cabins he’s built. Snapshots, nothing fancy. He has exactly one plant in the space, and it sits in a pot that his gran made. Artwork that Lucy has made covers the fridge.

As if it wasn’t already obvious, it confirms that Bo is as sentimental as they come.

Two, the large island countertop is made of two slabs of irregular wood with a center filling, known as a river. But it’s not just any river—which is usually epoxy—it’s concrete. I know the counter as well as my own face. I run my fingertips across it, familiarity tingling my skin. My dad made it, and I spent many of our Thursday night dinners standing around it in his shop as he talked me through the steps.

This means, without a doubt, Bo knows my dad. He’s been to the home I grew up in and the shop my dad and I figured out how to be a different kind of family in after my mom died. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but for some reason—this feels like it. Like Bo having this piece of me in his house means every list, rule, and safeguard in the world couldn’t have prevented me from meeting him.

It’s not the sheer beauty of the house, nor the fact Bo owns something my dad made that steals the breath right out of my lungs: it’s number three. The food. All the ingredients are lined up on one counter, labels facing toward us. There are four balls of dough, all colored red, and bowls of shredded cheese—organic and pasture-raised per the label that’s next to them—all dyed the same color. Red cheese, red dough. Marinara sauce simmers on the stove sending the smell of tomatoes and garlic swirling through the air.

Bo could be next to me as much as in a rocket ship heading to the moon; the food is the only thing I see. Hand to my mouth, I walk around the counter and read every label. They are brands I usually buy, that he’s watched me buy in our hours in the grocery store. Even more, the coloring, with natural dye, is for Huck.

He bought food he never would have and colored it a ridiculous color so we would be comfortable inhishouse.

Standing in Bo’s kitchen is like watching my life change and I’m gobsmacked by it.

Finally, my eyes find his, and I can barely swallow.

“Does it pass the Birdie ingredient inspection?” he asks, hands shoved in the front pockets of his jeans.

There are a million and one things I want to say.Thank you! Veda raised you right! This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me! Mabel is going to die when she hears this!But all I can make my mouth say is, “Your wife is a damn fool.”

A laugh bursts out of him at the same time he bumps my shoulder with his. “Her loss is your gain, I guess.” And, though he saysthe words in my ear, they spread through my body and imbed themselves in my bones. Fossilizing himself into me.

When the kids come downstairs, we roll the dough. Huck won’t touch it, but he likes using the rolling pin. Then come the toppings and putting them in the oven. Lucy sings the whole time, and Huck laughs. Bo and I drink a glass of wine—one he drove all the way to Asheville to get because it’s organic.

His thoughtfulness is a boundless thing, and every single detail he’s included feels like him reaching a hand into my chest and plucking another sliver of my heart out that will forever belong to him.

I’ve never had a meal like this planned for me before. Every guy I’ve dated simply bought bags of salad that were really just hunks of iceberg lettuce and called it health food. Hell, even the grass-fed steak my dad feeds me on Thursday nights come from a butcher I order from.

When dinner is over and the kids sit at the table playing Connect 4, it’s a sort of comfortable feeling I’ve never known as Bo and I sit together on the couch and watch them.

“Thank you for this. Again. And again.” I stretch my legs across his lap. With his dark hair tucked behind his ears, worn Monroe Cabins T-shirt clinging to his chest, and bare feet sticking out from the bottom of his jeans as they prop up on his coffee table, it’s such an easy scene it almost hurts. A temporary glimpse of something beautiful that can’t be mine. A life for people who have more time.

He slides a hand under my skirt and squeezes my calf, saying, “Bet you wish you would have said yes sooner,” with a grin.

“Ha!” I lift my wineglass to my lips, saying over the rim, “Joke’s on you! Why do you think I let you come grocery shopping with me? You never would have known how to do this.”

“All this time I thought I was the only one using psychological warfare tactics.” Another squeeze on my calf then he runs his palm along my shin. What he’s doing isn’t even remotely sexual, but the heat from it slinks right up my legs and hits between my thighs where it simmers. Lingers. Thoughts catapulting to my near flowergasm from last night, raising my body temperature by degrees.

Get your shit together, Birdie.