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It was her laugh I loved. She’d been so surprised when I’d leaned over and whispered that the keynote’s speakers toupee was staging a slow escape, she’d pressed her lips together, her eyes going wide, and let out this low, helpless sound as she leaned into me. I wanted to hold on to that memory forever.

I rolled over and punched my pillow down, remembering the scent of her perfume.

Later, when we were over at the bar, she’d been telling me about some project she was working on, and that was when she reached over mid-sentence and touched my arm. She rested her fingers there on my forearm as if it were normal. I could still feel her touch.

I felt it after she’d pulled her hand away, after she’d realized she’d touched me. I’d felt it on the drive home, my skin still warm, like a sunburn that wouldn’t fade. I could still feel it now, her phantom hand resting on my forearm. I pressed my arm against the cool sheet and closed my eyes.

She probably didn’t even realize that she’d done it. She’d touched me the way you touch someone you are completely comfortable with, someone you don’t have to think about touching, and it had caused me to come undone.

I closed my eyes, seeing her lips before me. The way she’d sipped her drink and licked the corner of her mouth, distracted while still talking. God, and when she smiled…

She was going to be a problem, and for the first time in a long time, it was a problem I wasn’t really sure I knew how to handle.

I stared at the screen for what felt like an eternity, and then I shut the laptop and took a drink of my scotch. I could still hear her reading to Sophie, as I climbed the stairs and went into my room, shutting and locking my bedroom door. I walked over to the window and stood there, looking out at the dark yard.

Suddenly, a feeling of guilt filled me. It had been two years, and still it showed up. Rebecca’s side of the bed was empty and had been from the time Rebecca had gone into the hospital the last time, eventually moving into hospice. I’d finally stopped reaching for her in my sleep, shortly after the first year. It had felt like the worst betrayal.

I unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it over my head, then sat down on the bed. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and thought about what I’d read on Ember’s laptop.

Her face was right there. Ember, in that stupid sweater, looking up at me with frosting on her cheek and that small smile. My hand moved down my stomach. I shouldn’t have kept going. The guilt I felt was screaming in the back of my mind, saying Rebecca. Think about Rebecca. I thought about how Rebecca would have rolled her eyes at me and said, Everett, you’re allowed to be a man and have desires.

Rebecca had never wanted me to become this. She’d told me that while she’d been in the hospital and once again days before she died. That conversation still lived vividly in my mind. She looked at me and with a weak voice and said, “don’t you dare turn into some tragic widower. If you mope for more than a year, I swear to God I’ll haunt you. Please promise me you will move on, find someone, and live out all the fantasies I wasn’t able to fulfill for you.”

My hand drifted lower and wrapped around myself. I was already hard, and I stroked myself slowly. I swallowed hard, thinking of Ember on the barstool, her legs crossed, the blanket she always used slipping off her legs. I thought about the curve of her neck as she bent over her laptop and the way she bit her lower lip when she was concentrating.

My grip tightened. I thought about her hands, small and always moving, and what they might feel like if they were holding my cock instead. I could hear her laugh as she giggled with Sophie. I thought about how her sweaters always hugged her in all the right places.

My hips lifted off the bed, and my breathing came harder, rougher. I stroked faster, my thumb dragging over the head on every upstroke, pre-cum slicking the way.

I imagined Ember looking up at me from her laptop after seeing me watching her. She didn’t look away. Instead, she bit her plump lower lip. In my mind, she put the laptop to the side and stood up. She walked toward me in that sweater. She ran her hand down my chest and slipped it into my pants. I could feel the warmth of her palm even though none of it was real.

My hands fisted the sheets and my abs tightened as I continued to stroke myself. I was close, and then the guilt appeared again. She was my nanny; she was twenty-six, and she slept only two doors down from me every night, but that still didn’t stop me from imagining her getting down on her knees and taking me into her hot mouth. I stroked myself faster, my entire body tensed, and I came hard, cum hitting my stomach in fiery streaks while I pressed my head back against the headboard, fighting not to make a sound.

I lay there afterward, breathing hard, staring up at the ceiling as I came down.

The house was quiet. I reached for some tissues and cleaned myself up, then pulled on a fresh pair of boxers and climbed under the covers.

Rebecca’s pillow was still on her side of the bed. It was one thing I hadn’t been able to move. Her scent was long gone, but the indentation where her head used to rest remained. I’d built my life around the absence of another person, just like Ember’s character Ethan had.

I reached over and turned the light off and lay in the dark for a long time, listening to the house settle around me, wondering when exactly I’d stopped being in control.

It was Saturday morning, and I sat reviewing some contracts at the kitchen table while Sophie sat across from me reading her dinosaur book. Ember was busy making a late breakfast. I pretended not to notice her while the bacon sizzled in the pan.

The doorbell rang, and Sophie’s head shot up. Before I could say anything, she was off her chair, running to the front door.

“Sophie, don’t…” I called, pushing myself back from the table, but I could already hear the front door opening.

“Grammy! Pop-pop!” She screamed.

Instantly, my stomach dropped as I made my way to the foyer. Margaret stood there in a wool coat, pulling Sophie in for a hug. Richard stood behind them with his hands clasped together, looking around the entryway before his eyes landed on me.

“Margaret, Richard. I didn’t know you were coming,” I said, coming up behind Sophie.

“Well, we were in the area.” Margaret hugged Sophie again. “Thought we’d stop by.”

I knew they weren’t telling me the truth because they were never in Maple Lane Falls. Every visit since we had moved here had been planned, which always gave me time to prepare. She stood up and looked past me down the hall.

“The drive was lovely and those leaves are really turning; the colors are stunning.”