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I’m not supposed to be single. Of course, no one gets married thinking they’ll eventually end up single again.

But I’ve never really been single. I met the love of my life at sixteen.

And now here I am at twenty-eight, a faint tan line still haunting my ring finger, being hit on by a man who’s pretending he doesn’t notice it.

“What are you drinking?”

That’s the best he could come up with?

I fight to keep my eyes from rolling as he examines me from the barstool next to mine.

The one that was blissfully empty until just moments ago.

Until he slid into it, a thick thigh bumping against mine.

I was hoping that would be the last of our interactions for the night, but unfortunately, I was wrong.

Swiveling my lightly spinning head in his direction, I let my gaze rove over his features.

He’s blond with eyes as blue as the icy lake outside.

A haircut that probably costs more than I’ll make in a week at my new job as a dance teacher.

He screams trust fund , which means he’s a tourist, likely here to ski on the slopes that this area of Montana is known for.

We usually don’t get tourists this far out, in my sleepy little hometown, but I can envision him in his hotel room searching Yelp for where the locals like to drink.

There’s not a single bone in my body itching to speak to this man, but I’m too tired to explain to him that yes, in fact, I am going to be the first woman he’s encountered to ignore his advances. I may be lonely, but I’m not desperate.

“Tequila,” I answer.

His brows shoot up, a disbelieving smirk that he probably assumes is charming playing at his lips. “Straight?”

I motion to the bartender that I want another.

She’s been shooting me dirty looks all night because this is the smallest town in the world and she knows exactly why I’m here drinking tonight.

But even she eyes the man next me, looking hesitant to serve me more.

When I give her a slight shake of my head, she seems to deem me clear-headed enough and refills my glass without making eye contact.

That’s what it’s been like the last few months—no outright hostility, just cold indifference. I think I’d rather they chewed me out.

I shake the thought away and turn back to the man beside me.

“Straight,” I confirm. I tip back the shot, loving the way it feels as it burns down my throat.

It hurts, but that, at least, is something when I’ve spent months feeling nothing .

I can sense the guy’s gaze on me as I swallow, and I let my eyes slide over to him. “It’s been a rough few months.”

His expression softens with empathy, and for a moment, I consider that maybe I judged him too harshly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I shrug and grip the edge of the sticky wooden counter as the tequila moves its way through my body. It makes the edges of my vision pleasantly soft, and the tension that’s held on to my shoulders for dear life for the last nine months begins to loosen its grip.

“Want to talk about it?” the guy asks, his gaze never straying from me. I hate that it feels good to have him look at me like that, to feel the warmth of his attention and know he likes what he sees. I hate how good it feels to feel interesting again.

I really, really don’t want to talk about it, but the alcohol is loosening my tongue and my inhibitions, so I shrug again and lean in until our shoulders are brushing, my knee bumping his beneath the bar top.

“I was a ballerina—a good one.”

He leans into me too then, icy blue eyes suddenly looking warmer with interest. The edges of his full lips curl into what is a rather good-looking smile. “I feel like this is going to be a long story.”

A sigh slips out of me, ruffling the fringe of my bangs, the poorly planned ones I got the day after I told my husband to move out.

They’re longer now, an awkward length somewhere in between purposeful and hack job.

The feeling of them against my temples makes that familiar weight settle in my stomach once more, heavy and unwelcome. “It’s not short.”

“Maybe,” he says, and the word feels fraught with meaning, “we should go somewhere more comfortable to talk.”

I blink, the last of the pleasurable alcohol haze clearing enough for his words to settle in.

Warm, sticky air from the jumble of bodies cramped into this too-small bar rushes between us as I back up, head spinning.

A sick feeling settles in the pit of my stomach, and nausea claws at my insides.

The way he’s looking at me no longer feels nice at all.

I’m just about to firmly tell him no, thank you , when an achingly familiar scent surrounds me. Leather and sunshine and freshly fallen snow.

“I don’t think so,” a deep, raspy voice says.

One I’ve heard millions of times—yelled over the applause at the end of a ballet performance, whispered in my ear as our bodies tangled in sheets that stuck to our skin, murmured directly to me like no one else was watching as we recited our wedding vows.

A hand falls to my waist, heavy and easily recognizable, finding the same place it always has, right where my hip flares, landing dangerously close to the curve of my ass. Even now, the touch doesn’t fail to send a thrill down my spine, landing in the place right behind my belly button.

“My wife will be coming home with me.”

The last vestiges of the tequila buzz wear off the second Beau pulls me outside, the bitter cold slicing through my thin coat.

It’s dark outside and has been for hours.

A dim streetlamp flickers overhead, illuminating the wintry wonderland beyond us as he stops in the middle of the sidewalk and spins to face me, dark messy hair catching in the chilly wind.

His eyes, a familiar chocolate brown, a color I’ve never been able to keep myself from getting lost in, spark with anger.

It’s an emotion I’ve rarely seen from him.

It feels so much better than the hurt I’ve seen there in the last few months.

But beneath the anger, I see that familiar hurt, and it slices me to the core.

The kind of pain that leaves me breathless.

Everything inside of me itches to push back that stray wave that always falls over his forehead, to press a kiss to his cheek, and to tell him that everything is okay.

But everything is not okay. In fact, everything is very, very wrong, and the weight of it crushes me. The yawning emptiness I was trying to avoid by braving the cold to come out tonight threatens to consume me once more.

Letting out a sigh heavy enough to pull me under, I say, “I wasn’t going to leave with him, Beau.”

His eyes hold on mine, examining my face for answers he won’t find. I see the moment he gives up, hurt and anger warring for dominance in his expression. Right now, he looks like he’s at the end of his rope. “Are you serious right now, Elsie?”

For a moment, all I can do is blink. I think maybe I imagined it in my tequila haze, the harsh tone of his voice, but when I see the ticking of his jaw, the way his body is coiled tight like one single press of his buttons would make him erupt, I know I didn’t.

Maybe it should frighten me, but it doesn’t. This is Beau, my husband , and even if we’ve been apart for the last few months, there’s still no one I trust more.

I hate that I’ve hurt him again, that after all this time, I don’t know how to stop. It feels like another piece of my soul shrivels and dies. Even to my own ears, my voice sounds dull, lifeless. “I just told you I wasn’t leaving with him. What else do you want from me?”

The words and my tone only seem to anger him more.

“I want you to use your head, Elsie,” he says, voice low, breath puffing in the cold air around us.

He’s practically pleading, and something about it stokes a fire deep in my belly, in a place that has gone unnoticed for much too long.

The feeling sustains me, makes me want to keep standing here forever in the freezing night air, with snow dancing all around us.

“I can take care of myself, Beau.” I say.

His jaw tenses further, hard enough to crack a tooth. “Of course you can,” he says with a tired laugh, looking into the black sky above us as if he’s asking God for patience.

His disbelief pulls my spine straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Concern edges past the anger in his eyes. “You couldn’t even sit up straight in your chair. How were you supposed to drive yourself home? You didn’t even notice when I walked in.”

My gaze narrows on his. There are snowflakes in his eyelashes.

I’m not sure how they’re not burning up on contact with the angry heat pouring off him.

His hair is tousled by the night air, and his skin looks flushed from the cold, the tips of his ears and nose red beneath the streetlight.

He’s always had stubble, but sometime in the last two months, he’s grown a mustache too, and it looks good on him.

I don’t want to notice these things about him, but I’ve never been able to ignore him.

Even when we were in high school, my eyes would somehow always find him in a crowd, like he was a homing device made just for me.

It’s why I notice exactly the way his nostrils flare and his shoulders straighten when I say, “So that’s what this is about, then?”

“What?” he asks, breath puffing in the cold.

“You’re mad I didn’t notice you,” I say. It’s the truth. I feel it deep in my bones. It makes that ache inside me yawn a little wider.

His jaw ticks, drawing my attention. I want to put my thumb there, feel it flicker against my skin.

It’s been so long since I’ve touched him, and suddenly, I need to do it again.

To banish the aching guilt bubbling beneath my skin.

I want him to take that anger and turn it into passion. Direct it right at me.