I was startled at first because, well, we never really touched except when it was accidental and detrimental. So, to have him wrap his arms around me, knowing it was me, in an effort to comfort me, well, I lost it. I cried into his suit jacket, dropped the bowl, and moved my arms around his waist, pressing my face further into his chest.

   I was crying out the stress of the last few months, crying for every time I’d held it in since Olivia passed, crying for all the times I wasn’t enough for her children or her husband. But I was holding on to him for entirely different reasons. I was pulling his body closer to mine because I could, when I never could have in the past. I was feeling all the muscles in his back as my hands ran up to his shoulder blades because I just couldn’t stop myself. I was reveling in the knowledge that his hands were on me and paying excruciatingly close attention to the fact that I liked his hands on my body. I loved everything about being in his arms, but hated myself for loving it so damn much.

   “Ruby, Jax, why don’t you guys go upstairs and put on some pajamas,” he whispered softly to his children, and I couldn’t imagine the scene I was making in their kitchen.

   After a moment, he pulled away slightly, his hands coming to frame my face, feeling very warm against my exceedingly cold skin.

   “Are you okay?” he asked, the sincerity in his voice breaking me open just a little bit more.

   “I’m c-cold.”

   “Yeah, your lips are a little blue.” His eyes kept darting between my lips and my eyes. He hadn’t moved his hands and I wasn’t about to pull away from his touch. “Let’s get you to the living room and warm you up a bit, all right?”

   “Ok-kay.”

   He turned from me, but reached for my hand at the same time, and pulled me into the living room. My feet started to tingle as soon as they were out of the water, and I made my way to the couch. When I sat, he knelt in front of me, just between my parted knees, one of his hands on each of my thighs. His finger hit the mesh of his basketball shorts and realization came over his face.

   “Are you wearing my clothes?”

   “Yes-s,” I stammered, teeth still chattering. He leaned forward until his face was exactly a hair’s breadth from mine and my lungs seized up with his proximity. A blush crept over my face when I realized he was only reaching for the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch. He pulled it around my shoulders, wrapping it around the top half of my body. “I got s-soaked while I t-turned off the valve. I w-went upstairs but c-couldn’t bring myself to p-put on Liv’s clothes.”

   “Shhhh,” he said as he rubbed his hands up and down my arms, trying to build some heat between his hands and my skin. It seemed like I’d been waiting years for him to use his heat on me, but thinking about it in that moment made me feel shameful.

   “What are we going to do about the water?” I whispered, unable or unwilling to use my full voice to ruin the moment.

   “Um, well, I’m not sure.”

   “Google isn’t much help.”

   His mouth quirked up in an adorable grin and I couldn’t help it when mine did the exact same thing. “Really? Well, I guess we’ll have to use some good old fashioned ingenuity then.” He thought for a moment, his hands still torturously kneading into my arms. I had to admit though, I wasn’t feeling the cold anymore. I was only feeling the slow burn building deep inside me. “You stay here, warm up. I’ll be right back.”

   I didn’t have time to answer before he disappeared down the flooded hallway. But I did hear the splashing and figured he must have gone right into the lake that used to be the laundry room. I cringed, thinking about his shoes again. There was a lot of noise coming from down the hall and I couldn’t help but stare at the entrance, waiting for him to come back.

   When he finally reappeared, he was carrying a large round machine that had a hose like a vacuum. “What is that?”

   “It’s a shop-vac. It can suck up almost anything. We’ll have this place cleaned up in no time.”

   “Auntie Evie, we’re hungry.” Ruby appeared at the bottom of the stairs with new, dry pajamas, looking exhausted. I immediately felt terrible. Amidst the flooding crisis and my emotional breakdown, I’d forgotten to feed the children.

   “Okay, Ruby, go upstairs and put on a movie for you and your brother. I’ll bring up a picnic for you to eat in the TV room on a blanket.”

   “Really?” Some of her exhaustion left and was replaced with excitement. They were never allowed to eat anywhere except the table.

   “Really. But you have to promise to keep an eye on your brother for me while I help your daddy clean this up.”

   “Okay,” she yelled happily, as she skipped back up the stairs.

   Three hours passed, in which I’d made sandwiches for the kids and brought them up with grapes, crackers, and juice boxes, calling it a ‘picnic’. They’d eaten and watched their movie while Devon and I worked together to suck up the standing water. Once most of the water was gone, all we could do was use towels to try to dry the floor and the walls. After inspection, Devon concluded that the hose that hooked up to the back of the washer had broken, causing all the water to flow out onto his beautiful hardwood floors.

   “We’ve got a few fans in the attic, I’ll go get them.”

   I heard his footsteps go up the stairs and I focused all my mental energy on his use of the word ‘we.’ He’d meant him and Liv. The we he thought he’d be using for fifty or sixty more years. He wasn’t a we anymore, but, to me, he always would be. Liv and Devon. My best friend’s husband, regardless of whether or not she was alive. For a reason I only assumed was for my personal torture, I’d been totally fine with Devon and Liv as a we when she’d been alive, but now that she was gone, the fact that he still attached himself to her in that way made me feel sad and heavy.

   When I heard him clear his throat a minute later, I turned to see him looking at me with soft eyes. “There were so many times when we were younger, before life really happened, when I’d imagined you in my clothes. I’d have these fantasies of coming home from my big important job to find you in one of my button up shirts, or just in one of my ties.” I could feel my cheeks burning at his words, but couldn’t move my gaze from him, didn’t want to shatter whatever was happening between us, because I knew it was fragile, like spun sugar.

   “Then things got serious with Liv and me and the fantasies sort of turned into forbidden thoughts. Thoughts I knew I shouldn’t have, and managed to turn off all together for the most part, aside from the few moments when you were absolutely too beautiful to push to the back of my mind. Just little snapshots of heaven I tucked away and only thought about when I was really happy, because thinking of you when things weren’t going well with Liv was too close to infidelity. I couldn’t think about you when, perhaps, I wanted to most because I was afraid of what that would do to my marriage. So, I tried not to. And it worked, for the most part. I still got to see you often. Still had you in my life, our lives. Still got to tell you that you looked nice, or that I liked your new hair style, still got to know you were safe and close by.”

   I could remember practically every compliment he’d given me in the last nine years. I’d tucked them away too. Tried not to read too much into them, because it felt too much like I was betraying my best friend.

   “And then I come home one night and there you are, in my kitchen, wearing my basketball shorts, and Liv is nowhere to be found.”

   The air in the room crackled with his words, filled with the regret of the enormity of the thought. Olivia was nowhere to be found, but she was still everywhere.