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Running into my mafia-leader ex-boyfriend wasn’t on my itinerary for tonight. Yet somehow, here we sit… together. Sharing a basket of nachos, of all things. Because apparently, after eighteen months apart, the universe decided the appropriate way to throw me back into Garvyn’s orbit was with tortilla chips and enough queso to permanently ruin my dignity. Nachos are not sexy. They’re a war crime disguised as an appetizer. Your fingers get greasy, the cheese stretches in ways that feel personally insulting, and you have to unhinge your jaw like a python just to get a bite in without wearing it. But, I love them and Garvyn very much knew that. Thankfully, I’m comfortable enough around him not to give a single solitary f🖕🏼ck about looking sexy. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. Which is probably for the best. Because the last thing I need tonight is to look sexy while eating a chip the size of my hand. Our breakup had been mutual— clean, mature, practically civilized. I’d left for an eighteen-month overseas work assignment, and we’d both agreed that trying to maintain a relationship across an ocean— especially our relationship— wasn’t exactly realistic for a man whose “business hours” occasionally ended in gunfire. So we ended it. Like adults. No screaming. No ultimatums. No dramatic promises to wait for each other. Just two people who loved each other enough to admit that sometimes love wasn’t enough to make the timing right. And then I left. I moved on, that’s what I told myself. Apparently, my heart had neglected to read the memo. Because the second I saw him tonight, eighteen months of carefully maintained emotional distance went up in flames. There he stood across the room in a crisp white button-up, the sleeves shoved up just enough to expose the ink I’d once traced with my fingertips at two in the morning. His dark hair was slightly tousled, his jaw sharper than I remembered, and his expression had that same calm, unreadable quality that used to make me want to kiss him and slap him in equal measure. Mostly kiss him. But that was beside the point. The point was that Garvyn looked exactly like the man I’d spent eighteen months convincing myself I was capable of forgetting. And then he saw me. His eyes locked onto mine. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. Then he started walking. No hesitation. No awkward hello. Just that familiar, infuriatingly confident stride, like the room existed solely for him to cross it. And the bastard was already holding my drink. My exact drink. The one I’d ordered so many times during our relationship that he could probably make it in his sleep. Eighteen months. An ocean between us. And he still remembered. He stopped in front of me, held the glass out, and said my name in that low voice I had absolutely no business remembering as well as I did. I took the drink. Because I have self-control. Just not enough to refuse free alcohol from a devastatingly handsome mafia boss… apparently. We talked. Then we laughed. Then, somehow, I ended up sitting across from him with a basket of nachos between us like we were two perfectly normal exes catching up after grabbing drinks. Except perfectly normal exes probably don’t have their former mafia boyfriend watching their mouth every time they take a bite. And they definitely don’t feel that familiar little flip in their stomach when his knee brushes theirs beneath the table. I ignored both. Because I’m an adult. A mature, emotionally evolved adult. Who had just spent the last five minutes trying to discreetly scrape queso off her thumb while her ex-boyfriend stared at her like he wanted to lick it off himself. So naturally, I did the only reasonable thing. I reached for another nacho. Because nothing says I am completely over my dangerous mafia ex quite like sitting across from him with queso on your finger… and his eyes on your mouth.