Episode 493: Path Of Thorns

He loved one girl and she’d dumped him. He’d gone and let himself love another girl even more and… this happened. Valentine’s Day should be outlawed! Who did it help? A day that celebrated love. The emotion that so thoroughly twisted everything to the point where you didn’t know what the hell to do, whether it was right, or bound to be the biggest regret you’d ever have to live with.

She shouldn’t be meeting him. Especially not today of all days. Valentine’s Day. With her husband out of town on business. And her first lover, sailing her that smile the moment she walked into one of the reastaurant’s private dining rooms.

That smile that shouldn’t still ignite the most primal urges inside her. They’d been together a lifetime ago. She couldn’t even remember what he’d given her for Valentine’s Day. No, that was a lie. She remembered every word. Every stitch of clothing they weren’t wearing the first time he’d looked so deep into her eyes and told her he loved her.

"Why would you ask me here today?" She demanded, sitting across from him at an all too intimate table for two.

"We have a daughter," Cal replied, his eyes reaching out to hers, his hand covering hers. "Christmas was the start of something."

Her heart flipped in her chest, as if she were a teenager again, as if he, and they, and- "Nothing’s started between us." She ripped her hand away.

He took her hand back, his eyes unwavering, refusing to hear her. "We need to talk about how to handle things with her."

"We can’t do that without you touching me?" Sarette glared at his fingers tangled up in hers. Or at least she tried to glare. Tried not to like the way it felt.

"We could have done this over the phone," Cal pointed out. "You would have insisted on that if you didn’t want me to touch you as much as I want to touch you."

Episode 494: Longest Days