“I think I’ll live,” I snorted, patting the lump that had already formed.

She went back to her car on the other side of the pump.

It had been a few days since I had ended up at Barton’s with the entire gang to celebrate Gracie’s new job. I had had no intention of staying, knowing it would be awkward. But after our talk about her mom, Gracie and I seemed to enter into a level of comfort we hadn’t felt in a long time. So I had ended up staying for another hour.

We talked about her job. We laughed with our friends. For a brief time it was simple. Uncomplicated. I had forgotten what that was like.

Then Sophie had called and I had to leave.

And I didn’t want to.

I would have stayed all afternoon, sitting across from Gracie, remembering what it was like to be her friend.

Her friend.

Wasn’t that what got us into this weird place to begin with?

But I realized that I had been a jerk to throw away her friendship because of my pride. I had lost something important in my haste to put distance between me and my broken heart.

I had lost the Gracie that I enjoyed being around.

“We keep bumping into each other, it seems,” she laughed. The wind was strong and her blonde hair blew into her eyes. She made a face and pulled the strands free of her mouth.

“The fun of living in a small town,” I said. I noticed that she was dressed in tailored black slacks and a cream silk blouse that molded to her breasts. The neck dipped into a modest V. It didn’t reveal anything really. Just the slight hint of cleavage. It certainly wasn’t anything most men would have fixated on. But it was Gracie. And I was Mitch. I couldn’t help myself from staring at the smooth skin of her chest.

She lifted her hair and draped it over her shoulder, revealing the long, graceful curve of her neck.

She tasted like strawberries and sweat. My tongue glided up the column of her throat and I wanted to devour her.

All of her.

She moaned deep and low in the back of her throat. I lifted her leg and hitched it over my hip. She was just the right angle to go deep. I slid inside of her again. Even though I had just come, I was already hard for her again. She was wet, so fucking wet. There was no resistance as I thrust into her.

“Mitch,” she whispered, her voice raw, her eyes heavy lidded. I covered her mouth with mine as I buried myself to the hilt inside of her perfect, wet warmth.

She repeated my name over and over as I began to move my hips. She rose up to meet each push. It was a litany. A prayer. We came together.

Together.

Always together.

“Hello. Earth to Mitch,” Gracie called out, wiggling her fingers in front of my face.

Damn. I had a hard-on. This was the problem with looking at her. Blue balls and mortification.

“Sorry, my mind’s somewhere else .” I blinked a few times and tried to think of dead kittens and naked grandmas. Anything to get rid of the straining bulge in my pants.

I finished pumping my gas just as Gracie was grabbing her purse from her car. We walked into the station together. I held the door open and she gave me a pretty smile.

“Always the knight,” she grinned.

“Always,” I grinned back.

We got in line to pay for our gas and without thinking I grabbed a pack of Twizzlers and a Baby Ruth. After I paid, I handed her the chocolate bar, not thinking it would elicit the reaction that it did.

It was just a bar of chocolate after all.

Gracie’s bottom lip quivered. For just a moment I thought she was going to cry. Crap. What had I done?

She took a deep, shuddering breath and quickly unwrapped the Baby Ruth, taking a big bite. “I haven’t had one of these in…well, a long time,” she said, after swallowing.

“I know how much you love them,” I shrugged. It shouldn’t be a big deal. Me getting her a candy bar. But looking in her eyes, I knew that it was.

Simple gestures between us could never be easy. Not now.

For years, every time that I went into a store I made sure to buy Gracie her favorite candy bar. I had done it because I knew they brought a smile to her face. And that was my favorite pasttime. Making Gracie Cook happy.

And I couldn’t ignore how good it made me feel to see that smile on her face now. Because of something I had done for her.

We walked outside and paused just beside the door. “So, what’s with the getup? You look nice.” I gave the compliment easily. Because it was true.

She flushed a little and that made my chest tighten. “It was my first day as a fulltime writer at the magazine,” she announced with pride.

“Oh, wow, that’s awesome, G! How did it go?” I asked her.

I had called her G.

Sometimes it just slipped out.

That level of familiarity.

I couldn’t help it. It was still there no matter how hard I had tried to pretend it wasn’t.

“It was pretty cool. It’s an amazing opportunity. One I never really thought I’d have, so I’m beyond grateful for it,” she said, shoving her hands down into her coat pockets. It was cold. Too cold to be standing outside shootin’ shit but neither of us seemed in a rush to go anywhere.

“Well, you’ve worked hard for it. I’m really proud of you, Gracie. You’ve come a long way,” I said.

“Sometimes I think about what happened before, when I almost died, and I can hardly believe I’m still standing here.” A piece of her hair got stuck in her earring and before I knew what I was doing, I reached out and tugged it free.