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I open the door and Gray stands there, backpack in hand, and looking like death.

"When I suggested coffee, it was more that I really need one!" He smirks when I let him in. I wasn't sure when he messaged whether to let him come over, but in the spirit of us needing to get over this awkwardness, I said yes.

Hopefully, I don't regret it.

"Luckily I've already made one for you then," I reply, and lead him into the lounge where two mugs of coffee sit as far away from each other as possible. He sinks into the sofa and takes a sip instantly.

"I offered to do a few shifts in the emergency department because they're short-staffed and I've done the relevant training. But honestly, it reminds me how good I have it in the clinic. Jesus, I'm knackered," he explains. "Twelve hours non-stop without a break."

"I can imagine how, uh, different that'd be."

"Tyler at work?" he asks.

"He's working in Surrey, so he's staying there overnight."

Gray nods. "Fair. How are you two doing? I spoke to him yesterday morning and he sounded a bit pissed."

"It's fine." I shrug it off, deciding it's probably not a good idea to get Gray involved. "Just a disagreement."

"Tabs."

"Gray, it's fine. Please. You're my ex-boyfriend, I don't think it's appropriate—"

"I'm also your best friend. But I get it. If you wanna talk about it, at any point, I'm listening."

"Thank you." I smile and take a sip of my coffee, deciding it's best not to argue the point any further. "Why did you want to come here straight after work? You look exhausted, you should probably be asleep."

He pushes his glasses up his nose. "It was my last night shift. I want to stay awake until a normal hour, so I don't fuck my sleeping pattern. So, I thought I'd come over. If I go home, I risk falling asleep, you know?"

"Using me, are you?" I arch an eyebrow, but the smile gives my joke away.

"Always." He scoffs and laughs. He fumbles in his pocket and pulls his keys out. As he starts to put them in his bag, I notice something.

"Is that, is that—" My voice stops, and he pauses, showing me the makeshift keyring. Between his car key and what I assume is his house key is a keyring with a photo on it. When he shows me, I can see it's a photo of us, back when we were together. I remember the time we took it, in one of those photo booths. On one side of the keyring is us pulling stupid faces, and the other is him kissing my cheek while I'm smiling for the camera. When I turn it back over, I notice the keyring also has the small, thin ring on it that I bought him a month or two before he left.

"You kept it?" I question, brushing a finger against the ring before moving away. The heat of embarrassment moves like a Mexican wave across my face as our eyes meet.

"I can't wear it at work, so I thought I'd keep it on my keyring. I never got rid of it." He smirks as if it was a stupid question. He puts the keys in his bag and sits back to take more coffee.

"I expected you to get rid of it, you know, because it was meant to be a promise ring, and you didn't keep the promise."

The hurt flashes across his face but he quickly composes himself, "Maybe, but it still means something to me. You still mean something to me, you always will."

We fall into silence. I asked for that with my snide comment, I suppose.

I finish my drink and stand up. The conversation has taken this turn, which is exactly what I'm always afraid of. This is what Tyler is hyper-aware of... it's what I'm hyper-aware of. My confusion lies in this exact thing, and Freya has it right: Gray and I do not know how to be friends anymore. We danced over that line when I was fifteen, and when he left, we never got a chance to come back so why would we do that now?

I hear him put the mug down and stand up. When he approaches me, he plants his hand in mine and I'm forced to turn around and face him. I'm instantly looking into those tired yet sparkling blue eyes and everything melts away like butter on a hot potato.

"Gray. Don't do this."

He's going to try and get me to admit my feelings, I just know it. He knows that I know it.

There is no way for us to be friends. But there is no scenario where I can see a life without him. I lived with that hell on earth for seven years and I don't want to relive them.

But I love Tyler, I chose Tyler, and I would still choose him now. Gray knows it, I know it, Tyler knows it.

"What're you thinking?" His free hand brushes my cheek. The dull senses burst with life at the gentle contact, and I bite down on my lip to stop myself from spilling what's on my mind. "Tabs, I know you. Talk to me."

"We're not kids anymore, Gray," I whisper.

"Right, we're adults, and adults talk to each other."

"I can't... I can't give you an answer."

"Because you don't know how you feel, or you're scared to admit it?" His question is purely rhetorical, and we both know it. We both know the answer.

"I choose Tyler, and I always will."

"I know."

The one deep green wall behind him fades away, and the only thing I can see is Gray and every big moment with him in my life.

I wonder if he can see the heat of embarrassment redden against the cream walls behind me like a drop of colour.

"I'm sorry, Tabs. I get it. I'll stop—"

My hands are trembling like aspen leaves, but I reach out and touch his cheek regardless. The last time I did this was before he left, my hand traced every part of his face so I could commit it to memory – maybe it was instinct because I knew he wouldn't be coming back. This time, I'm etching him, seeing the difference. Seven years has given him new lines, and slightly rounder cheeks. The rough stubble across his cheeks and chin feels different – he never had it growing up. His hand holds my waist, pulling me closer to him. I remember the feel of his lips, they haven't changed in the past seven years, but when my finger ghosts across them, they feel fuller, different somehow.

"Tabs—"

"Sh," I cut him off. The reality is, is that I don't want this moment ruined by his voice. He does as he's asked – for once in his life – and my hands move to his chest. I glide across his shirt, feeling the same body I knew every inch of seven years ago. It's like I've taken a break from driving the same road and I'm suddenly back there – it's familiar but so different at the same time.

His free hand reaches for my face. I don't stop him when he traces my jawline, leaving fire across my skin. The same heat I was craving for so long, missing for seven years. He finally reaches my lips with his finger, ghosting my skin with his magic.

Gray has known how to perform this spell on me since I was fifteen, and although he lost it for seven years, somehow the magic has come back.

"I missed you so much," he whispers. His words are the spell, and he knows it because I close my eyes the moment he's done. Ever so silently, his words fall like petals around me until his lips are on mine.

My mind yells at me, fighting a battle in my mind: Tyler against Gray, past against present, love against habit.

My body relaxes and it's an invitation for him; he pulls me closer, gripping my waist. My arms snake around his neck. I'm kissing a coffee-flavoured cloud, all my senses spring to life when his hand roams under my top. The same hands that used to know every centimetre of my body inside and out have finally come home.

I fumble with his shirt buttons until it falls open. My hands roam his skin – more defined than I remember, harder yet all too familiar.

He nips at my bottom lip and his hands pull me towards the sofa. I finally break the kiss to find his desperate, hungry eyes staring into mine. I take a glance down at his skin, seven years have aged him, but I recognise every inch of his chest, of his face. As he silently pulls and tugs until we're skin to skin and desire against desire, I realise that seven years might be a long time when you're missing someone, it means nothing when you finally reunite.

"Gray—" My voice stops when he fills my mouth with his, my protests getting lost in the war of our feelings for each other.

The moment our clothes are off, I find myself in familiar territory. Everything I knew about him, and his body, comes back like a boomerang. I remember how to touch him, where to touch him, how best to make him moan with pleasure. Seven years might be a long time, but these things won't change.

Gray still knows the way to make me surrender and shudder, where to put his fingers, how to use his tongue to send me into the depths of sinful passion.

He sits on the sofa, his face softened with desire, yet firing determination and triumph at me. We both knew this was going to happen at some point. Even as I lower myself onto him like we used to all the time, I find myself moaning out in both pleasure and annoyance.

I don't want this, but as he grunts from underneath me, I know I do want and need this at the same time.

He shifts forward a little and our lips meet so our bodies are connected in the most two intimate ways they can be. His hands grip my skin, clinging on for dear life as he gestures for me to bounce quicker. The sensation starts swelling, building up with every movement. He leans his head back and sighs when I start moving slower, savouring the moment. I'm already here, in this forbidden moment, we might as well take our time.

His hands squeeze my hip twice, meaning he wants to change position.

Surely this is the time for me to stop this madness, and leave it behind, but before I know where I am, he's shifted me underneath him. His hands run up my body, leaving fire in his wake. He hooks my arms above my head as he settles back into a rhythm inside me. My mouth drops open but quickly gets filled with his, and I drink up everything from the past, the present and everything he feels.

This is how it used to be before he left: passionate and fiery, and I don't want it to stop. I let Gray take full control, my hands pinned above my head, as I feel my climax arriving.

As the peak starts to wash over me, he starts letting himself reach his. I let go and everything dissipates around me in a burst of regret, affection, anger, love, and annoyance.

His moans fill my ears as I come back from the brink. To quieten him down, I pull him closer and kiss him, drinking in every groan as he climaxes.

Though I can still hear and feel him, the silence between us says everything, and I can tell once we're both back in reality, things will become real. But for now, the high is where we're staying.



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Cuddling releases oxytocin, which is a feel-good hormone. Touching someone can release dopamine which can make you feel closer to someone because it helps with arousal. Maybe that's why I don't argue when Gray folds a blanket over us afterwards and after seven years, becomes the big spoon to my little one. So many days we would spend spooning, fully clothed under a blanket and eventually after I turned sixteen, we'd spend lazy afternoons naked, spooning after having sex.

His hand traces patterns on my arm, leaving my nerves firing a new wave of desire.

I turn around and press a kiss on his lips. This bubble where we're still seventeen and eighteen and nothing happened can stay for just another moment. There's no one else, there's nothing else.

His hand cups my neck, his fingers under my ear, and he kisses me hard and wholly. I can feel his desperation, the way he doesn't want this to end. I kiss him back with the same amount of passion because I don't want this to end, either.

My eyes refuse to open, because I know if they do then I'll have to face reality. It's already teetering at the top of the drop like a roller coaster, and as soon as I open my eyes it'll come crashing down that drop.

Our hands lace together like two ropes knotted. Every doubt melts away as he presses another kiss on my lips.

"I love you," he whispers.

"I love you, too."

And then it becomes real. Life crashes around me like a crumbling house. The past seven years, the abandonment... my husband, my words.

Shit.

"Tabs... I never stopped loving you, ever."

My eyes fly open at his words, the tingles of pleasure gone from merely half an hour ago. I grab my discarded clothes from the floor and fly off the sofa. A part of me wants to hide from him, but I quickly remember Gray has known every crevice and part of my body most of our lives, and he's just explored it again so there's no need to hide.

"We...I... we just... we just had sex, Gray—"

"Generally, that's what happens, when... yeah, we did," he stammers awkwardly.

I deadpan him, "I don't need a fucking commentary on what we just did... I cheated on Tyler."

"Tabs... we... come on—"

I rage and throw my dress back on to stop myself from slinging words at him. I know logically, this was both of us, but he knows what he does every fucking time.

"Come on what? I've told you multiple times that I chose and choose Tyler. I told you that five seconds before! He is my husband, not you—"

"You mean like I should be?"

I scoff. "You fucked off for seven fucking years, Gray. You lost any right the moment you decided to ghost me. You waltz back in here, expecting me to drop my whole life and divorce my husband for you? What're you fucking... I loved you, I love you. But you ruined my life. I married Tyler."

He throws his clothes on, but he leaves his shirt undone. His skin is like a siren's song, but sirens are usually calling out so they can kill you and I know that's what Gray is doing.

"We're meant to be together, Tabs. We've been inseparable for twenty-two years—"

"Except we weren't, were we? Or rather, we were until you disappeared. Not one word, Gray. Not one apology, not one argument, not one birthday card, nothing. Did you expect me to be sat, waiting for you to come back?"

"I'm sorry."

"I fucking told Tyler... I fucking told him not to go through with the fucking donation... and now we've... you can't tell him—"

"You really think I'm going to phone him and say, 'oh hey, I slept with your wife!' That would go down a fucking treat with a fucking defence lawyer!"

We stare at each other, and for a tiny millisecond, I think we're going to be pulled back together and continue where we left off.

Despite standing opposite him now and regretting what we've just done, regretting every kiss, every touch, every moan, every peak, I can't deny I feel a nostalgic pull towards him. Yet I think of Tyler, and how together, we've set up a family even if it isn't yet complete.

"Just go, Gray, you've ruined enough of my life, I don't need this as well—"

"It takes two to have sex, Tabitha and as far as I could tell you fucking enjoyed that just as much as I did," he taunts.

"You're my past, Gray. I'd like you to stay there—"

"You know we can't do that even if you want—"

"Just get out!"

I turn around, trying to hold my regret together for the length of time it takes him to do his shirt up, grab his stuff and go.

Once the door slams behind him, I choke on the sob I've been holding in. I failed; I failed at not letting Gray in, I failed at keeping him at arm's length. I failed at choosing Tyler.

I knew what I was doing, I just didn't stop myself, despite knowing I didn't want to do it. I had an itch to scratch, it was there since he returned, and I indulged it. The thing about itches, though, is that you can distract yourself, but it never goes until you scratch it. So, I guess sleeping with Gray was inevitable, even though I didn't want it to be. 

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