She came apart under my hands and mouth, saying my name with something close to reverence. When she came back to herself, she pulled me up to kiss her.
“Your turn,” she said against my mouth. She pushed at my shoulders until I rolled onto my back. “Let me.”
She undressed me with the same deliberate care, her hands sliding over my skin like she was memorizing me. When she took me in her hand, I had to close my eyes against the intensity of it—not just the physical sensation, but the emotional weight. The trust. The intimacy.
“Look at me,” she said softly.
I opened my eyes to find a tenderness in her eyes I’d never seen before. She kissed me, slow and deep, and I felt it everywhere. In my chest. In my throat. In the places I’d kept carefully locked away for three years.
When she straddled me, sinking down slowly, I gripped her hips and tried to remember how to breathe. She set a pace that was achingly slow, holding my gaze the entire time. Every movement deliberate. Every touch a promise.
“Connor,” she breathed. “I’m close.”
“Me too.” I pulled her down to kiss her, one hand sliding up to tangle in her hair. “I love you.”
“I love you.” She moved faster, chasing her release, and I followed her over the edge, holding her against me like I could keep this moment from ever ending.
After, we lay tangled together in the mess of boxes and half-packed clothes, her head on my chest, my hand stroking her hair.
“We should probably finish packing,” she said eventually.
“Later.” I kissed the top of her head. “Right now I just want this.”
She tilted her head. “You? Not wanting to finish the checklist? Who are you and what have you done with Connor McNamara?”
“You’ve corrupted me.”
“Good.” She settled back against my chest. “You needed corrupting.”
Hannah’s breathing evened out against my chest, and I let myself drift too, surrounded by the remnants of my past and the promise of my future. The recipe binder sat on the floor where we’d left it, Mom’s handwriting visible through the plastic sleeve.
Trust yourself,she’d written.
I'm trying, Mom,I thought.I'm trying.
Hannah
Connormovedthroughthekitchen like a ballerina, every motion deliberate as he danced to the tempo of his precise timeline.
“Do you even have time to breathe?” I asked, watching from the doorframe.
“Yes. I have it scheduled for eight o’clock tonight.” He didn’t look up from whisking the red wine jus. “But don’t worry, I have time set aside to kiss you in—” He glanced at his watch with exaggerated seriousness. “Forty-two seconds. So don’t go too far.”
I huffed a laugh. Of course he’d plan his kiss strategy down to the second.
True to his word, when his watch hit the mark, he stepped away from the stove and towards me. His hands framed my face, warm from working over the heat, and he kissed me thoroughly, like he had all the time in the world instead of eighteen different things timing out in the next hour.
“Merry Christmas, Hannah,” he whispered against my lips.
“Merry Christmas.”
He pulled back, studying my face for a moment before returning to the stove and adding butter to the jus, whisking in smooth circles.
His preparation had been going on for two days now. Yesterday morning, I’d found him standing in front of the pie cooling on the rack, eyes unfocused. When I’d touched his arm he’d startled like I’d woken him from a dream.
“It looks just like hers,” he’d said quietly. “The lattice.”
I hadn’t known what to say to that. What do you say when someone has shaped their grief into pastry to hold in their hands?
