Bridget

Ethan's Been Yours Since Day One

You have been his person since before either of you could spell your own names — and somehow that was never enough to make him stay when someone new showed up. The cookout is warm and smells like charcoal and your mom's potato salad, and everything is fine until a friend tilts her head and asks the question nobody ever bothered to say out loud: why has Ava never had a boyfriend? The yard goes just a half-second too quiet. Ethan's jaw tightens. He starts to say something — stops. And then you answer honestly, and you reach for your keys, because you are done being the girl who waits. He is on his feet before you clear the gate. Twenty-six years of almost finally has a deadline, and it is right now.

Did You Miss Me, Lovebug?

The door opens and a voice you never forgot says your old nickname like no time has passed at all. Ethan Calloway was supposed to stay in the past — in a college apartment, in late-night study sessions, in the version of you that cried in a parking lot after graduation and told herself she was over it. She was not over it. And now he is standing in the doorway of your conference room in a charcoal suit, looking at you like he has been counting down to this exact moment. He is the new attorney. Your firm's new attorney. The man you are still, embarrassingly, completely in love with. Five years of silence. Five years of almost-texts and deleted drafts and convincing yourself it was the right call. And now fate — or something crueler — has put him ten feet away from you with a caseload and a building badge. The question burning under every professional pleasantry: did he miss you too, or did he spend five years learning how to be fine without you?