Layover in Houston

The breakup happened on a Tuesday, which I think says everything. Nobody dumps you on a Saturday. Saturdays are for brunch and denial. Isaac chose a Tuesday because he's the kind of man who schedules even his cowardice, and three weeks later I was standing in my friend Ashley's living room near the Houston airport with two suitcases and a job offer from a golf club in Phoenix I hadn't answered yet.

I'm Cassidy, by the way. Thirty-four, golf pro, recently single, currently between jobs by choice. That last part is new for me and I hate it, in case you were wondering.

The house was huge and quiet in that way empty houses get quiet, where the fridge humming sounds like a conversation you're not invited to. Ashley and her husband had flown to Portugal for a month and I'd said yes to housesitting before I even thought about it. Anywhere that wasn't my apartment, where every surface reminded me of Isaac. His stupid coffee mug was still in my cabinet. I'd thrown it out twice and bought it back twice, which is a whole other problem I'm not ready to discuss.

So I unpacked. Or started to. And the silence just pressed down on me like a bad lie on a firm green.

"Okay, this is ridiculous," I said out loud, to nobody. "Talk to yourself, that's healthy."

I opened a bottle of wine I found in Ashley's pantry, because technically I was the adult in charge here, and poured a glass, and stood at the counter listening to jet traffic rumble overhead. Every ninety seconds or so another plane came in low over the neighborhood. You'd think that would be annoying. It was actually kind of nice, like the house was breathing.

Then the doorbell rang and I nearly launched myself over the breakfast bar.

Nobody rings the doorbell at Ashley's. Ashley's friends text from the driveway like civilized people. I checked the peephole and my stomach did something acrobatic, because standing on the porch was Hugh Kowalski, thirty-eight years old, architect, and the man I'd spent one extremely memorable weekend with three years ago in Denver before we both flew home and never called each other again.

I opened the door because what else was I going to do.

"Cassidy Vance," he said. "Ashley didn't tell you, did she?"

"She absolutely did not tell me. What are you ... how do you even know Ashley?"

"We worked on her office build-out. She said the house would be empty, something about a friend staying here, and then tonight my flight got canceled and the crew got stranded along with me. No hotel rooms anywhere near the airport, and I thought, well. Ashley did mention her friend might not mind company. I should have texted first. I'm sorry. Can I introduce you to my hostages?"

Behind him stood two people in airline uniforms, both holding bags and wearing the specific exhausted grin of people who've been awake since four in the morning. The woman looked about twenty-six, dark hair coming loose from its clip. The man was taller, thirtyish, with the calm of somebody who lands planes for a living.

"Kimmy," the woman said, sticking out her hand. "Flight attendant, unfortunately currently unemployed for the evening. And this is Pierre, he flies the actual plane."

"Co-pilot," Pierre said. "Don't let her inflate me."

"Cassidy," I said. "I'm ... housesitting. Apparently badly, since I let strangers in."

"Ashley's strangers," Hugh said. "That's a step above regular strangers."

I made them come in because it was ninety degrees outside and they'd clearly had the day from hell. I got glasses down from the cabinet and heard Hugh laugh behind me.

"You're drinking Ashley's wine. Bold."

"I'm the acting manager of this facility. I can requisition wine." I turned around with the bottle and found him watching me with that look I remembered too well, the one where his eyes go warm and he doesn't bother hiding it. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"You know what."

Kimmy looked between us like a tennis fan. "Oh, there's a history. Pierre, there's a history."

"There's a history," Pierre agreed, settling onto the couch like someone who planned to enjoy this.

"There is not a history," I said. "There was a weekend. Singular."

"An excellent weekend," Hugh said, and I felt my face go hot, which at thirty-four I resent deeply. He took the glass I handed him and our fingers touched for maybe half a second and I swear the man did it on purpose. "Denver. Three years ago. You beat me at golf and then you wouldn't let me forget it."

"You were terrible at golf. You kept calling the sand trap a sandbox."

"I'm an architect. We're allowed one whimsical term per project."

Planes rumbled overhead. Kimmy pulled her shoes off and curled up on the other end of the couch, and Pierre nursed his wine, and somehow it went from awkward to easy in about twenty minutes, the way it does when everybody's tired and nobody's pretending. Kimmy told us about a passenger who'd tried to bring a live lobster on board. Pierre said the captain had made him do the announcement about turbulence and he'd gotten the word "bumpy" stuck in his throat like a bone.

"And then you," Kimmy said, pointing her glass at me. "What's your deal? Hugh said golf."

"Golf pro, between jobs, recently dumped."

"Oh honey," Kimmy said, and the amount of sympathy in it made me laugh even though it stung.

"It's fine. He did it by text. Text! Thirty-four years old and I got broken up with in a text message that used the phrase 'different trajectories.' Who says that?"

"Architects," Hugh said, and then winced. "Sorry. Different crowd."

"You're forgiven because you brought wine people with you." I refilled his glass and when I sat back down I sat closer than I needed to, and I knew it, and he knew it, and Kimmy made a small delighted noise into her wine that she thought I couldn't hear.

"So what happened in Denver stays in Denver?" Hugh asked, quiet, just for me, under the sound of Pierre describing a fog delay in Chicago.

"I don't remember much of Denver," I said, lying.

"Liar."

"Shut up. It was a long time ago."

"It was three years."

"You counted?"

He looked down at his glass and smiled, and didn't answer, and that was somehow a worse answer than anything he could have said out loud. Because it meant he'd counted too. Three years, and the man had apparently been carrying around whatever that weekend was, same as me, in some drawer I didn't know about.

"I'll be right back," I said, needing air or distance or both, and went down the hall to the bathroom I was using, and stood there gripping the sink, feeling the floor tilt a little, hearing Kimmy's laugh float down the hallway.

"Oh, this is trouble," I told the mirror.

The mirror agreed.

I came out of the bathroom instead of going back to the living room, because I needed one more minute of not being looked at by anybody. The hall closet was right there, and I remembered Ashley mentioning extra blankets somewhere, so I opened it like it was a mission.

The closet was half pillows and half chaos, and way in the back, behind a stack of board games, there was a cardboard box with ASHLEY'S OFFICE written on the side in marker. Which made no sense in a hall closet, so of course I pulled it out.

It wasn't files. It was junk, good junk, the kind of box you keep when a project ends and you can't throw anything away. Ribbon from a ribbon cutting. A hard hat. A stack of photos rubber-banded together.

I took the rubber band off. That was my first mistake.

Third photo down, there I was. Denver, three years ago, standing on a tee box with my arm around Hugh Kowalski and both of us laughing at something the camera missed. I'd forgotten the shirt I was wearing. I had not forgotten anything else about that day, apparently, because my chest went tight just looking at it.

There were more. Me lining up a putt. Me holding a scorecard. One of Hugh asleep in a rental car with his mouth open, which I remembered taking, because he'd talked me into waiting out a rain delay and then fallen asleep on me like a large expensive dog.

And under the photos, wrapped in a napkin from a restaurant that doesn't exist anymore, was a small brass tee holder. The one I'd left in his hotel room in Denver, the one I'd teased him about for two days, the one I was sure he'd thrown away. Beneath it, folded twice, was the receipt from our dinner. He'd kept the receipt.

"Cassidy?"

I nearly threw the whole box at him. Hugh was standing in the hallway with his hands in his pockets, and he looked at the photos in my hand and went very still.

"That's not what it looks like," he said.

"What does it look like?"

"It looks like I've been creepy for three years."

"Weird. That's what it looks like to me too!"

He came closer, slow, the way you'd approach a golfer mid-swing. "Ashley asked me for the office files last spring. I boxed them up, and I put in a few things that weren't office files, because I couldn't throw them out and couldn't stand having them in my apartment. I told her to toss the box. Apparently she shoves things in closets."

"You kept the receipt."

"I keep everything. Ask anyone. It's a problem." He was close now, close enough that I could smell wine on him, and his eyes went to the photo in my hand and stayed there. "You were so mad at me in that one. I'd just said sandbox."

"I remember being mad."

"You remember everything," he said, quiet. "You just told me you didn't."

Well. What was I supposed to do with that? He'd had three years to call me. I'd had three years to call him. We'd both been cowards with excellent excuses, and now here we were in a hall closet situation at Ashley's house with two strangers on the couch and jet noise every ninety seconds.

"You counted," I said. "The years."

"You counted too."

"Shut up and do something about it, then, because I've had a terrible month and I'm tired of being the brave one."

"Can I kiss you?" he asked, and I could have strangled him for asking at that exact moment and also I never wanted anyone to stop asking.

"Yes. Obviously. Yes."

And then his mouth met mine and it was like the three years collapsed down to nothing, like Denver had just been paused and somebody hit play. His hand came up into my hair and mine grabbed the front of his shirt, and the photo crumpled between us and I did not care even slightly. He kissed the way I remembered, patient at first and then not patient at all, and I made a noise against his mouth that I will be taking to my grave.

"Okay," I said, pulling back far enough to breathe. "Okay. Wow."

"Yeah."

"That was..."

"Yeah," he agreed, and we stood there grinning at each other like idiots in a hallway.

"Your crew is going to notice we're gone."

"Kimmy noticed the second you left. She whispered 'go' at me. Loudly. It wasn't a whisper at all."

I laughed, and it came out shaky. "I'm not doing anything tonight. To be clear. I mean, I'm not deciding