Jessica Joyce

Twins separated by fifty or so years. Soulmates born in different decades.

I punch in the number of the last bakery, my gaze pinned on Eli while the line rings. He’s off his phone now, so he’s either beat me to this one or didn’t find it. His attention is fixed on something neon pinched between his fingers—a Post-it note, folded into one of his paper rings.

It’s a moment of familiarity, but since we got to Blue Yonder twenty-six hours ago, there’s little else that’s been familiar about him. Bodysnatched Eli Mora is thriving.

And he’s messing with my head.

Though I have plenty of legitimate things to think about, I’ve instead spent the past day trying to figure out what’s with him. Alien abduction? Demon possession? Some of it fits the profile, among it that moment in the car yesterday and the way he called me Peach, like I was still that person to him.

But I don’t think demonically possessed people have weekly therapy appointments, or go on what I’m starting to think of as The Adam Apology Tour, or throw therapy-speak at their ex-girlfriends about their hyper-independence issues when they’ve spent the past five years not talking about anything that mattered to or hurt them.

I hang up and rise to my knees, leaning over the arm of the loveseat to press my face against the window screen. I stare at Eli, strategizing ways to calmly tell him to back off my list and honor our agreement.

But then he stands and my thoughts fall off a cliff. I absorb that he’s wearing light blue swim trunks seconds before he pulls off his black T-shirt, revealing acres of golden skin, a flash of gold against the nape of his neck.

My mouth instantly parches. I haven’t seen him shirtless for years; he’s filled out, especially since Nick and Miriam’s wedding. He looks good. Gorgeous.

I used to be so well acquainted with that body that sometimes it felt like mine. I knew every blunt curve of it, every hard plane. I knew where his skin would shiver from a ticklish spot, where it would shiver from pleasure. His shoulders look even broader bare, the wings of his shoulder blades flaring as he tosses his shirt aside. I used to dig my fingers into that spot right there, run them in soft, whirled patterns as he fell asleep.

A face pops into my line of vision. “Great view, right?”

I scream and roll off the loveseat, my ass hitting the hardwood floor so violently that my teeth rattle. “Jesus, Cole!”

His cackle rolls in through the window as I crawl over. “You obviously think so, at least.”

As I start to slide the box back, I catch a flash of neon pink behind Grace’s box—the paper ring Cole flicked at me yesterday. The one I should’ve tossed, but instead stuck behind real, actual rings that are real, actual symbols of forever.

I set my phone on the counter as Adam chatters on, picking up the ring. The paper is smooth and thick, layers folded meticulously by Eli’s attentive fingers. When he used to give me these, I’d be so careful slipping it onto my finger—my index or middle, or, after we started dating, my ring finger, but the right one. He’d trace a path behind it, help me push it down, then look up at me through his lashes, grinning. Sometimes his happiest smiles were his smallest ones, and his paper ring smiles were just the gentle upward curve of his mouth.

then a triumphant, “I got it.”

“You got it?” I throw the hanger to the side as he scoots out. The ring is on his middle finger, sitting above his knuckle. “Oh my god, you got it!”

It’s like someone’s plucked me by the back of the shirt and dropped me over the edge of a cliff. The relief is that visceral. It’s the excuse I’ll use later for why, when Eli stands, I throw my arms around his neck.

I don’t know the last time Eli and I hugged for real, because of a shared happiness. If I could pinpoint that moment, I probably would’ve spent the last five years torturing myself with it, so maybe it’s for the best. I just know that when Eli wraps his arms around my waist following a brief hesitation, it feels like coming home after the longest time away.

He lets out a shattered breath, pulling me closer, crushing my breasts against his chest. His heart hammers with mine. Through the thin material of my T-shirt, I feel the cold metal of Adam’s wedding band and I close my eyes, trying to remember it’s about him and Grace, not this. Trying to remember I’m supposed to keep my distance.

But, fuck it. If this is the actual last time we hug like this—for real, in happiness—then I’m going to revel in it. I have enough memories that hurt; what’s one more?

I should say something. Instead, I press my face into the curve where his shoulder and neck meet, biting my lip so I won’t put my mouth on him. It’s how I rationalize it: at least I’m not going that far. It’s just this. Just for a minute.

Eli’s nose brushes against my cheek, his stubble scratching at my skin. An accident the first time, I think, until he does it again. I pull back until the corners of our mouths are nearly aligned.

This is a bad, very horrible idea, my brain screams, but my body presses closer. Eli’s arms tighten, fingers digging into the small of my back.

“Georgia,” he whispers, and I hate my past self for writing on our list that we should avoid saying each other’s names. I hate that I forced myself to be so careful, even as I recognize that I need it right now more than ever.

I scrawl out all the reasons in my mind: that Eli and I didn’t work the first time. That trying again would hurt, likely in the same ways. It would ruin whatever modicum of ability we have to keep things bearable for the sake of our friendship with Adam. That this new Eli, who looks so much like the old one I loved, can’t be here to stay. That I don’t want this. Can’t have it, or else it’ll ruin me again, and this time I’ll become the mess I refused to be before.

I’ll remember all that in a second.

I’m ready to be your wife right now.”
“I’m ready to be your husband,” he says, his entire heart in his eyes.

I pull back another millimeter. Two, until I’m looking at the deep, warm starburst of his eyes, filled with gold and sparking heat. His nose grazes mine and his lashes flutter down, press hard against his skin.

His hands drop to my hips. Shape them, and then grip them.

“You’re not going to want this,” he whispers.

I told myself the same thing seconds ago, but hearing him say it out loud scrambles my brain. “What?”

“In thirty seconds, you’re not going to want this, and I can’t pull away, so you’re the one who has to.”

My arms drop like his skin is on fire and I stumble back, my hip connecting with the tiny island behind me. With a ragged exhale, he turns around, snagging the ring box. I watch him press it back into the velvet. Shut the box. Lower his head and rub a hand over his face.

“I’m sorry,” I croak out.

“It’s okay,” he says.

“I was excited.”

“Me, too.”

“About the ring, I mean.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Yeah.”

I uncoil the hose hooked up to the side of my cottage, the one we used to wash the dirt off our legs after the near-nightly walks he’d beckon me out for in the vineyard blocks. It wasn’t just vines growing out there—it was our awareness of each other, the knowledge that our dynamic was shifting, as undeniable then as it is now.

Suddenly I don’t know if I’m in the past or the present. The darkness, my memories, everything that’s happened between Eli and I the past few days—they soften the divide of time, making it liquid like the pool shimmering around the corner.

“It’s going to be cold,” I warn.

“I remember,” he says, eyes on me. The most dangerous phrase when it comes to us.

“Do you think something’s wrong with Eli?”