I laughed and then moaned when a fresh shot of pain lanced my skull.

“This sucks,” I muttered.

“I can’t even imagine.”

“You’ve never had a migraine?”

I flipped my hand atop hers so that our palms were together and I wrapped my fingers around her hand. “Wait…I’m starting to feel something now.”

I could think of two possibilities that might arise from this action. She might try to slip her fingers out of my hand with a light reprimand or she might lean in and kiss me, press her face to mine, open her mouth to me. I closed my eyes, indulging the fantasy.

Instead, she tightened her fingers around mine.

We sat together in the dark, long moments, holding hands. I turned my hand so that our fingers laced together. She let me.

“Is your head any better?”

“A little.”

I ran my thumb across hers, tracing every contour from the delicate bone at her wrist all the way to her thumbnail. Even there, her skin was soft. She inhaled sharply and I felt a little resistance from her, like she wanted to withdraw her hand but didn’t quite succeed in doing it.

I loosened my hold on her, giving her the out, but she didn’t pull away. Our hands played against each other, as we each applied a light pressure, shifting our weight, almost as if we were dancing with just one hand each, pressed against the other. This moment, sitting together with her in the dark, felt so comforting and yet so painful. So close and yet so distant. Need was a giant cavity inside my chest. And it wasn’t just physical desire. I needed her presence, her spirit, her soul. I missed her so fucking much.

I let my head loll backward. If I hadn’t been feeling like such complete shit both physically and emotionally, I might have made an advance. Not a sexual one, but some sort of tentative approach. But the breakup had battered me bloody. Somehow, again, I was as defeated as that powerless, bullied kid I’d once been.

Our hands continued that strange, comforting rubbing against each other. Like my hand was making love to her hand. Maybe it was, in a way. Maybe this was all the love for each other that we still had left.

“Adam,” she said. “I’m sorry—”

“Shh,” I said. “Let’s just be in each other’s presence. Let’s be at peace.”

“I want to be your friend.”

Friend. That word reverberated in my brain, rolling around like a tin can in an empty, echoing room. “I can’t just be your friend.”

“But…you’re dating. You’ve moved on. That’s—that’s good.”

“Oh really. You think so? That it’s good?”

She paused. “No,” she whispered. “But that’s what a friend would say.”

“You broke up with me. Why do you care?”

I glanced at her bowed head, still holding her hand. I never wanted to let it go.

“I never said I didn’t care. But I never said I wanted to have your love life shoved in my face either…”

I sighed wearily. “I’m sorry. Jordan was being an asshole. I don’t know why he said that.”

“I’m sure he’s ecstatic that we broke up. I bet he’s the one who set up the date. Probably with one of his perfect supermodel friends.”

Stunning how she was correct on every single one of those points.

“I don’t want to talk about the fucking date.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to talk about us.”

She hesitated, her hand stilling. “We’re having a moment, here. We’re being present. We probably shouldn’t go there.”

My hand released hers and the backs of her fingers stroked the backs of mine. I’d rarely felt a touch more erotic, enticing. Now that my headache was easing up, her presence was having another effect on me. I wanted her. I went hard at the thought of her spread out on this couch, open for me. I sucked in a deep breath and figured I’d better start thinking about baseball—or programming—or anything but the memory of her long, curvy legs wrapped around my hips as I pushed inside of her.

My hand clamped around hers and I pulled it to my lips, kissing the back of her hand. She froze and I released her. Our moment was over, already fading into the past, along with the rest of those glowing moments we’d shared and now buried. Slowly she stood and turned to leave, but I stopped her, putting my hand on her arm.

“Thank you.”

She hesitated, then she bent. I didn’t turn toward her, but I held my breath, hoping she meant to kiss me. Her warm mouth landed on my temple.