It wasn’t oatmeal raisin, I’ll give it that.

Kit had gone all out. There was a craft table, a disco ball, the world-famous stolen chocolate fountain, and hearts and streamers everywhere. She had even hung a ball of mistletoe off the end of a stick to dangle over people’s heads and force them to kiss. Rob was doing the honors for her, bursting out with that foghorn laugh every time it worked.

Confessions: It was a lovely party, I did love wearing my diva dress, I did sing a love song medley, and everything about being there was better than being in my room alone. It was, in truth, an effective distraction.

As sad as I was, I felt a little happy, too.

I stayed and stayed. We sent the children to bed at eight o’clock, and we all continued eating cookies and singing our hearts out.

My best song of the night by far was my last one: I absolutely belted out “Best of My Love,” and halfway through, I looked up and saw Ian across the room, watching like he was spellbound. That, of course, made me sing harder and better, and I poured everything I had into the rest of it. At the end, I got the cheering equivalent of a standing O, and when I rolled across the room for cookies afterward, Ian followed and met me there.

We both held still for a few seconds too long.

“That was a hell of a song,” he said at last, his expression focused and warm and non-robot-like. The sound of the real Ian filled me with longing.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve never met anybody who could sing like you do.”

Now I smiled. “Thank you.”

“It’s good to see you,” he said.

“You could have seen me all week in the gym, if you hadn’t been ignoring me.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he said, frowning. “I was—” But then he stopped. And he didn’t start again.

“Kit said you weren’t coming to the party.”

“I’m not.”

“But you’re here.”

“I’m just stealing cookies.”

“I see.”

He gestured back at the hallway to the offices. “I was working late.”

“You do that a lot.”

“I’ve been researching your injury, actually,” he said, looking a little embarrassed about it. “Trying to think of some way to help.”

I had to hand it to him. That was nice. But I said, “It’s a waste of time. It’s over.”

“What’s over?”

“My recovery.”

He shook his head. “There are all kinds of ways to recover.”

I looked away.

It would have been a good time for him to escape, but he didn’t. Instead, he attempted to start up some chitchat. He nodded at the room. “Looks like you’re all having fun.”

“Not on purpose,” I said. “Kit forced us.”

He glanced over at Kit, who noticed us talking. When he turned back, he let his eyes take me in. “Great dress.”

“I think I’m going to become a one-shoulder-dress person,” I said. “You know, even when I have the option of two.”

“You should.”

“It can be my signature thing. Then, when I do something truly amazing that history needs to commemorate with a statue, they’ll have no choice but to put me in this.” I flipped one of the ruffles.

Ian smiled then—a genuine smile. Hadn’t seen that in a long time.

He was about to say something else when Kit showed up next to us and said, “Mistletoe bomb!”

Ian and I looked up. She was holding the mistletoe over our heads.

“Mistletoe is for Christmas,” Ian said.

“Ask me if I care,” Kit said.

“She’s been forcing people to kiss with that thing all night,” I explained.

“You’re going to force me to kiss your sister?”

Kit gave a shrug. “Kinda looks that way.”

“He can’t kiss me,” I told Kit. “It’s against the rules.”

“Which rules?” she asked.

“All of them,” I answered.

But Ian was considering his options. “What happens if I refuse?”

Kit leveled a don’t-mess-around look at him, and then, like it was a challenge, she said, “Then I guess you’ll waste a chance for a kiss.”

“You don’t have to kiss me,” I said to Ian, and then to Kit, “Cut it out! You’re going to get him fired!”

But Ian squatted down in front of my chair. He flipped up the foot rests as he lifted one foot, then the other, setting them flat on the floor. I was barefoot and I could feel, in places, how cool the surface was. Then Ian leaned close for me to put my hands on his shoulders, like he’d done so often in the pool, and he placed his hands on my hips to steady me, and I leaned forward, and I locked my knees, and I moved toward him—and we stood.

“It’s bad luck to ignore mistletoe,” Ian said.

Those blue eyes. His face so close. The air tingled in my lungs. Was he going to do this? “Nobody in this room needs any more bad luck,” I said.

His gaze was locked on mine. “Very true.”

“But you can’t kiss me,” I said, hoping like hell he wouldn’t agree.

“I can’t?”

“What if somebody reports you?”

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t?”

“Want to know the only question I care about?”

I nodded.

He looked into my eyes and said, “What do you want?”

I held my breath. What did I want?

What the hell kind of question was that?

I wanted him.

I wanted to drag him up to the rooftop and stay there all night.

I wanted to be the girl I used to be. The one with the hair, and jeans, and hips. The one with at least a chance of being wanted back.

But no way was I saying that.

I might never get the things I wanted. But at least I was the only one who had to know.

I shrugged.

Ian studied me, as if he could tell by looking.

Then he glanced up at the mistletoe one more time and shrugged right back.

He pressed closer, and he tightened his arm around my waist. I stretched my arms up around his neck, and as I did, I ran my eyes over his collarbones at the V of his blue scrubs, then up along his jaw, to let my gaze rest on his mouth.

Then he leaned down toward me. It felt like slow-motion, with Nina crooning “Midnight Train to Georgia” in the background. Inches away, he slowed down and lingered, like he was savoring the moment. Like he was taking it in. I hadn’t noticed how much Kit had dimmed the lights until suddenly the disco-ball light seemed to fill the room with stars, and it felt like the only steady thing in the world was Ian.

Everything about him felt solid and sturdy and like something I wanted to cling to. There he was, so close up, then closer—and then, impossibly, he lowered his mouth to mine.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done it. But oh, God, I was so unspeakably glad he did.

And there was his mouth again, the same but better, like something lost forever and then found again, and everything suddenly swirled too much for me to see anything at all. I sank into the warmth and comfort and electricity of that moment, knowing it couldn’t last long, but wishing it could go on forever.

Until the music suddenly stopped.

And the lights flipped on, bright as searchlights.

The room froze. The karaoke machine even went dead. We turned to figure out what was going on, and we both saw the same thing at the same time: Myles.

Myles had walked in.

He was halfway across the room, staring straight at us. “What the frick is going on here?”

“It’s a party,” Kit said, no idea who she was dealing with.

But Myles didn’t look over. “Did I just walk in here to see one of my PTs kissing one of my patients?”

“You sure did,” Kit volunteered. “I just Instagrammed it!”

“Congratulations,” Myles said to Ian then. “You just got fired.”

The crowd gasped.

“Say good-bye to your job,” Myles went on, enjoying this moment far too much. “Say good-bye to your PT license. And I’ll have to brush up on my immigration law, but I’m pretty sure you can say good-bye to this entire country, as well.” Myles took a step closer and waved his fingers tauntingly at Ian. “Bye-bye, work visa.”

But Ian had turned away from him. He was looking at me now, running his gaze over my face, studying the details. I could tell from Ian’s expression that Myles wasn’t wrong. Ian had just lost his job, and possibly much more.

My knees chose that moment to start to quiver—though Ian anticipated that, somehow, and he was already setting me back down in my chair. As he got me settled and moved to stand back up, he squeezed my hand, and it felt like good-bye.

“Do you think I’m fricking joking, man?” Myles walked closer. “Because I am dead serious. You just lost everything.”

Myles’s beady little face was red and sweaty, but Ian seemed to go the other way and get calmer and cooler.

Ian turned to face him. “Actually,” he said, “I know what it’s like to lose everything—and getting sabotaged by a weasel like you doesn’t even come close.”

“You sabotaged yourself, friend.”

Ian seemed to consider that. “Maybe I did.” Then he looked up. “But don’t call me friend.”

“Who is this guy?” Kit asked the room. Then, to Myles, “It’s a Valentine’s party. Chill the hell out, dude. Have a cookie.”

Myles looked over and noticed her for the first time. “It’s not even Valentine’s Day.”

“Why is everybody so fixated on that?”