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“Sooooo...” Mona lifted her coffee mug toward her red pursed lips, pausing as she leveled her gaze at Gracie. “How exactly did you end up taking a bubble bath with your ex-husband?”

Outside the kitchen window, gray clouds gathered. Gracie spooned a heap of sugar into her tea. She should’ve known the only reason Mona dropped by this afternoon after finally getting back to town late last night was to give her a hard time. “Can we not talk about that right now?”

“Hey, I’m not judging.” Mona blew on her coffee. “I mean, why would I judge? Noah’s a handsome man, you two have a lot of history together, and let’s face it—there’s just some areas you cannot reach on your own. Now me, personally, I use one of those loofahs on a stick, but—”

“Enough.” Gracie was stirring her tea into a whirlpool. “I don’t need this. Not from you. You who’s been gone the entire last week. You who didn’t check on me once. You who has no idea what I’m up against right now. A deadline. A terminally ill father I haven’t visited in over a week. An annoying husband I can’t get away from. Ex-husband! I haven’t slept in... I don’t know. I can’t even do the math anymore. Is today still Saturday?”

“Yes. And quick question. Does any of what you’re talking about have to do with why there’s a typewriter sitting on a desk next to the oven right now?”

“He shaved, Mona. He shaved. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on writing a funny, zingy story when your smooth-shaven ex-husband won’t stop getting into your personal space and smelling like a warm, buttery cinnamon roll?”

Some of Gracie’s tea had sloshed over the rim. She reached for a napkin to wipe off the kitchen table. “Which is probably why somehow in the past twelve hours my manuscript has turned into a time travel story. That’s right. Instead of witty banter, my hero is now giving a seven-page lecture in chapter eight about the theoretical physics that make time travel possible. Why, you ask?”

“I’m mostly just curious about why there’s a desk next to the oven.”

“So that he can go back and prevent the heroine from getting into that accident that caused her to lose function in her legs prior to chapter four, of course. But wait, Gracie. Won’t that completely screw up your entire story that’s due in a matter of days, you ask?”

Gracie waved her spoon at Mona. “Why yes, Mona, it will. It has. But I guess I’d rather destroy my story, possibly my entire writing career, by focusing on the quantum mechanics of time travel instead of how close my ex-husband came to kissing me in the bathtub, and more importantly, how close I came to kissing that stupid, handsome face back.”

Mona, her mug frozen a few inches below her lips, stared back at Gracie. “Wow.”

Yes. Wow. Because it would’ve been a great kiss too. Just like every other kiss she and Noah had ever shared in that giant ridiculous tub.

But apparently it wasn’t thoughts of kissing Noah that had caused the wow factor for Mona. She lowered her mug to the table. “You stood. You’re standing. Gracie, you’re standing all on your own.”

“I am?” Gracie looked down. “I am.”

Her tea-sloshing monologue had somehow launched her onto her feet. Without help. Without thought. Without... pain?

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. Winced. Okay, a little bit of pain. Especially when she lowered herself back to the chair with an ungraceful plop, which rattled the table.

Mona dabbed at the splash of coffee running down the side of her mug. They were going to be out of clean napkins before a trace of beverage made it past their lips at the rate they were going.

“Listen.” Mona finished cleaning off her mug and wadded her napkin. “One of the reasons I came over this afternoon was because I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

“You are?” That was a new one from her sister.

Mona plunked her mug down, splattering more liquid onto the table. “Well, not really.”

And there was the Mona she knew.

“How dare you not tell me you’ve been fooling around with your ex? I had to hear about it from Lizzy when I swung by the Pumpkin Festival to see Matt earlier, and she didn’t even have the details right. She said you and Noah were fooling around in the shower.”

“We weren’t fooling around anywhere. How did Lizzy even know anything had happened at all?”

“Have you forgotten where we live? There are no secrets. Plus, I’m pretty sure that FedEx lady has a big mouth. She seems to know an awful lot just from delivering packages. Anyway”— Mona picked up her coffee mug and ran another napkin over the table—“you need to tell me these things. It really caught me off guard.”

“How do you think I feel?”

Mona’s red lips twitched as she slurped a drink, then quirked an eyebrow. “Clean?”

Not with the image of Luke standing in the doorway seared in her brain, she didn’t. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. The whole thing’s starting to feel like a love triangle, and you know how much I hate that trope.”

If Gracie never included one in her fictional stories, she wasn’t about to entertain one in real life.

“Did you at least try explaining things to him?” Mona asked.

“Who, Luke? Of course. He doesn’t want to talk about it either.” Maybe. After never finding the courage to send him a text message that night, Gracie had worked up the courage to call him the next morning—then lost all courage to leave him a voicemail when he didn’t answer.

“So you two just aren’t going to talk about it? Very adult-ish. Worked out so well for your relationship with Noah five years ago.”

“You do realize Luke and I are not in any sort of committed relationship.”

“Well, you’re certainly not now.”

“We’re friends. That’s all. I made it clear from the start that I probably wasn’t ready for anything serious.”

“Not if you’re still taking baths with your ex-husband, that’s for sure.”

“Was there another reason you stopped by other than to tease me about Noah? Because I’ve got a hero who accidentally time traveled ten centuries back too far, and I really need to figure out how to break him free from a dungeon before he dies of general malnutrition and dehydration.”

“Wow. You’ve really lost control of your story, haven’t you?”

On the page and in real life.

Mona flapped her hands. “Fine. I’m leaving. But before I go, can I just say one other thing? Something I can’t even believe I’m saying?”

“Why do I already know I’m going to hate this?”

“Would it be so bad if you and Noah got back together?”

“Oh my word. Are you suffering from malnutrition and dehydration?”

“All I’m saying is Luke’s perfect. You’d be crazy not to snatch up a guy like him. And you’re not crazy, Gracie. I mean, you’re crazy.” Mona pointed to the desk next to the oven. “But you’re not crazy crazy. Which makes me think the reason you’re not snatching Luke up is because you’ve never gotten over Noah. And if you’ve never gotten over Noah, then maybe—”

“You want to know what I’ve never gotten over?” Gracie fisted her napkin. Rain began pelting the windows. “The number of times he put baseball first. Before me. Before the family we wanted to start. Before the future we dreamed of.”

“Gracie—”

“No, listen. I get it. That’s what the baseball life is. I knew going into it that there was going to be a lot of uncertainty, a lot of traveling, a lot of moving, a lot of separation. And all that was fine at the beginning. In our twenties. Even for the first half of our thirties. But eventually there came a time when I needed him, Mona. I needed him to be here. Not there. On the road. At another stupid game.”

“I understand, but—”

“Just once I needed to be the priority.” Now that she’d started, she wasn’t stopping until she got it all out. “I needed him to drop everything and come hold me after I sat in an ultrasound room all by myself, listening to a doctor explain that she couldn’t find a heartbeat and how sometimes these things just happen.”

Mona didn’t even try to interrupt this time. She pressed her lips together and clutched her soggy, coffee-stained napkin.

“All along everyone kept saying to just give it time. Just give it time. But I was running out of time. And we’d already tried everything. Spent so much money. So many tests. So many shots. And just when I thought it had finally happened... You have no idea...”

Mona darted glances around the kitchen, no doubt for escape. She’d never known how to handle Gracie’s emotions. Which is why Gracie had stopped confiding in her years ago. If Mona had a theme song, it’d be Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life.”

But after five years of never confiding in anyone, Gracie just needed someone, anyone, to listen. And right now that someone, anyone, was Mona. Sorry, Sis.

“Did you know when I walked out of there, I couldn’t even remember where I’d parked? Some nurse on a smoke break from one of the other clinics found me wandering around an hour after my appointment had ended. She asked if I needed to call someone. But I’d been so nervous before the appointment that I’d forgotten my phone at home. I was a wreck. An absolute wreck. Somehow I made it back to the house.”

The rain pelting the window sounded heavier now. More like sleet.

“Want to guess what Noah said after I called him and told him the news? Think he was wrecked? No. He wasn’t wrecked. He said, ‘Guess it’s not meant to be, babe,’ then went on to pitch the best game of his life. Spent the rest of his night smiling. Celebrating. Getting a cooler dumped on his head. Worst day of my life, and he acted like it didn’t matter at all.”

“I...” Mona rose from her chair. “I think I should go.”

Gracie nodded. Sure. Thanks for stopping by. Sorry to slosh my feelings all over the table in front of you. Gracie may as well have gone and spilled her guts to one of the dogs at Matt’s animal shelter.

Mona escaped from the kitchen and out the front door. When nothing but the sound of the ice maker churning inside the freezer filled the silence, Gracie reached for the last napkin in the holder to dry off her face.

And that’s when Noah’s voice, hardly above a whisper, reached to her from behind.

“It mattered. I just didn’t know how to deal with it. Maybe I still don’t.”