Ryan jiggled his left leg and tapped his foot compulsively the entire drive to Mount Si that Friday morning. He listened on loop to the last playlist he had ever created for Hetty, before heading off to college. With each song, he fantasized about their moments together.

Furtively brushing their fingertips together under the table in Mr. Adams' film class. Their first kiss, so wrought with postponed pleasure he almost exploded into his pants at the first sweet contact with her lips. Hetty's hips circling his, grinding desperately together, separated only by a thin layer of underwear. Massaging her heavenly body in coconut oil poolside in Maui, the intoxicating aroma mercilessly swallowing them up.

As Ryan neared their lodgings in Mount Si, he attempted to calm his thoughts, as well as his body's physical reaction to them.

He didn't know what this weekend had in store, but he was in no mood to spoil it with realistic expectations. All he could think about was being in Hetty's presence for two full days. His heart had been broken about a dozen times since he had begun working with her this fall, and the biggest heartbreak was still ahead of him. It would be either when she married Cooper and gave birth to his baby, or when Ryan left his job at Walnut Grove. For the time being, he would shove these facts deep down beneath his gut.

* * *

Ryan felt almost dizzy as he approached the front desk to check in and receive his key. Glancing into the lobby, which was packed with people, he spotted Hetty like a glittering piece of sea glass in a bucket of grey sand. He paused, amused, realizing she had been staring at him. With her bottom lip tucked into her teeth, no less.

He approached her with a glowing smirk. "Hello, dear friend. I think I've caught you staring at me."

Hetty blushed furiously. "I was not!"

"I think you were."

"You're not being very friendly right now," she accused playfully. 

Ryan put his hand to his stomach in mock-indignation. "Am too!" Hetty shook her head, breaking into a grin. She looked somehow brighter than he had seen her in recent weeks. Lighter.

"How was the drive?" asked Hetty.

"Good," Ryan replied, chuckling coyly. He felt his face turn a shade pinker as he held back laughter at his own private joke.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing." Ryan recalled the memories that had consumed his thoughts for the past two hours' drive. "We should have ridden together. What a waste. Of gasoline." He smiled furtively at her.

"That would have been fun," Hetty replied, shining her eyes into his. What the hell is going on? thought Ryan.

One of the district administrators had arrived to the lobby and addressed everyone, welcoming them to the retreat and outlining the schedule for the day.

"I'm going to put my stuff in my room. I'll see you down at the workshop?" said Ryan after they had picked up their paper schedules.

"Sounds good. I'll see you there."

The cabin-style lodge glimmered with light, rich wood from floor to ceiling. There were massive windows everywhere, which revealed endless views of luscious pines and mountain-painted skies.

When Ryan returned downstairs to the "Cedar" room, he found Hetty seated at a table with Mariana and Rosalia.

In the first session, they did a series of teambuilding exercises. Each one seemed to involve some sort of physical contact with their group mates. Ryan was grateful for the excuse to touch Hetty, while simultaneously cursing the workshop instructors in his mind for torturing him. It was one hour into the damned retreat, and he was already worked up.

In the final activity before lunch, they were asked to find a partner, place their palms together in the air and close their eyes. Then, they had to move their hands in sync without breaking contact. It was supposed to be a metaphor for trusting your intuition to read situations - recognizing when to take the lead versus when to follow.

Mariana looked to Ryan after the session leader had finished giving the instructions. "Partners?"

Shamelessly, without caring how stupid it sounded, Ryan replied: "I'm with Hetty." They obviously weren't already partners, as the instructor had just completed her explanation a mere moment before Mariana made her offer.

Hetty glanced sideways at Ryan, and Mariana glared at him as if to give him a warning. Hetty had to remind herself that everyone still thought she was pregnant and about to marry Cooper. They were to start a life and raise a baby together. No one was aware this future had turned to dust in the past two-and-a-half weeks.

As the activity commenced, Hetty and Ryan's hands melted together like rippling silk. They moved in perfect unison. No one was leading; they were following each other. When the exercise ended, they fluttered their eyelids open and stared at each other intensely, not breaking the contact of their palms. Lowering their arms, their fingertips intertwined for a brief instant.

Ryan's throat was full of marbles that wouldn't let him swallow. When dismissed for lunch, they both just sat there as their colleagues rushed off to the buffet line.

"Once again, you're not being very friendly," accused Hetty coquettishly.

"To be fair, neither are you." Ryan tried to sound light, but his voice was low and scratchy. "Shall we get lunch?"

"Yep," replied Hetty. "Can you get up?" She gave him such a seductive, mischievous, old and familiar look that he almost fainted in his chair. His mouth fell open and his whole body pulsed once in a single heartbeat, blood rushing up and down him.

"Did you really just...?" He shook his head, biting back a grin, shocked at her comment and exploding with delight on the inside.

Hetty took off towards the buffet without another word or look his direction, leaving Ryan to follow after her.

* * *

As Ryan heaped roasted red potatoes onto his already overflowing plate, he felt a hot spark of electricity pierce his arm. Hetty grasped him and shook his shoulder side to side like an excited child.

"Deer! Deer! There's a deer outside!"

Ryan almost dropped his plate into the huge buffet tray of roast beef as she wiggled his arm. He gave Hetty a look, laughing at her exuberance over a woodland creature. She rarely displayed such outbursts of emotion.

"Look, do you see him? He's munching on that bush right there."

"I see him. You almost made me drop my lunch," he laughed, not irritated in the least. She didn't apologize, only beamed at him. Her smile killed him, every time. His insides disintegrated into glitter.

"Hey, I have an idea," Ryan offered. "Let's take a walk this afternoon after our sessions. You can search for more forest creatures. Just no bears, please."

"I love bears! I would love to see one," she exclaimed. Ryan pretended to glare at her, raising his eyebrows in mock-concern.

"I mean, not too close-up, obviously. But from a safe distance," Hetty giggled.

Something was different, again. She seemed happy to be around him - an unfiltered, unreserved kind of happy. It was an aura he remembered from their time as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Ryan sensed himself mentally planning his final suicide mission with this girl. Woman. What was one more round of heartbreak?

They couldn't stop talking, bantering and smiling at each other as the day progressed. Ryan could see Mariana observing them with a concerned frown on her face, but he barely cared. Since September, he had spent many a night staring up at the ceiling, lecturing his heart on the immorality of his predicament with Hetty. He had tried so hard to back off and maintain space in order not to come between a marriage and the future happiness of an innocent, unborn child.

Morality is rarely black and white, however.

Ryan had always hoped to have a kid someday. He envisioned raising a daughter who was strong and confident.

He imagined her one day, as an adult, being forced to swallow her own happiness in order not to disappoint others. Feeling unable to change her mind. Letting a deep, beautiful love slip through her fingertips, because it would cause a scene and shake up the cookie-cutter trajectory of what a proper family should be.

"We're free!" cried Hetty, placing a hand on his shoulder and snapping him from his reverie. The afternoon workshop had finally ended.

"Ready to search for Bambi?" Ryan asked, standing up with Hetty and finding himself a bit closer than he had meant to be.

"Yep. I need a jacket though."

He was close enough to smell her, and his nerves were already starting to tremble.

"Good call. I'll meet you back here in like fifteen minutes?" he suggested.

"Sounds good."

The twinkle in her eyes today was totally fucking with his mind.

* * *

Back in her room, Hetty checked her texts. Cooper. Shit.

After the miscarriage, she had given herself permission to further procrastinate on breaking off her engagement. Honestly, she had meant to broach the conversation before the retreat but found herself completely paralyzed. She had lost her baby, Ryan was looking for a new job, and the thought of one more loss at the same time was more than she could bear.

She opened Cooper's texts:

Hey, baby. Did you make it okay to the lodge?

Hope you enjoy the time away. I love you so much.

Did he, though? Had he even noticed she had been a million miles away these past two-and-a-half months? Hetty tossed her phone onto the bed, doubt swirling in her mind. She reminded herself that she had already burned her bridge to Ryan, as much as they felt like a couple today.

Shaking her arms out, Hetty shoved reality into a deep, dark place in the back of her head and took a breath. Today, she had been acting instead of thinking. It was glorious. She could play this game for one more day. After all, there was literally nothing left to lose.

As she was halfway out the door, Hetty darted back in and impulsively snatched up a forgotten piece of jewelry, her head making an actual, physical buzzing sound.

Ryan was leaning casually against the freckled wood wall downstairs, waiting for her with a contented, dazed expression. He looked handsomely innocent in his winter jacket, his multi-toned hair swirling around in various directions, messy yet perfect.

He smiled as she approached. That smile revealed everything he felt about her; he was an open book, and he didn't seem to care. Hetty could tell he had applied a touch more cologne, which sent her stomach reeling. It thrilled her knowing that she - who had once been invisible to most - could induce a man to take an action for her.

Hetty walked right up to him, and for a split second she wasn't sure if she was going to stop. Standing close, they stared into each other's faces, both looking amused.

"Let's go," said Hetty lightly, assertively, joyfully.

The sun had been shining through the lodge windows all day, and it was colder outside than they expected. The crisp air pierced into their skin, but as they walked briskly along the path, their feet crunching atop pine needles with every step, the temperature became tolerable.

"I'm starving," complained Ryan.

"Seriously? After everything you ate at lunch?"

"I burned a lot of calories at the workshop today," Ryan countered.

"Yeah - sitting in a chair for six hours," teased Hetty.

"It takes a lot of energy to sit next to you and... control myself."

"Control yourself from what, Ryan?"

"Hmh, wouldn't you like to know."

"I would, actually." Hetty responded quietly. They had somehow stopped walking and were now facing each other, both buzzing with instantaneous desire.

"What's happening, by the way?" asked Ryan, a bit more serious now.

"What do you mean?"

"Between us. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving it. You're... I... It's just, you're confusing me." He was so adorable when he stumbled on his words.

"Um," Hetty wasn't prepared to answer this question - not at this moment. So she deflected it. "Do you want me to stop?" she asked, very quietly. Ryan grabbed her hands lightly in his, his touch barely perceptible.

"No, please don't," he responded, his tone pleading. His restless fingers dancing across her hands came upon something on her wrist, and he glanced down. Ryan's mouth fell open in a shocked, breathy exhale as he lifted Hetty's hand up to his face to inspect it.

"You still have this?" His voice was ragged. It was the bracelet he had given her for Christmas in high school. Before they were even dating - before they had even talked openly about what was happening between them. A bracelet she had kept hidden in a box since the night she met Cooper, believing it to be retired but never once intending to throw away. It was her most treasured possession.

"Yes," she whispered. "I still love it." Ryan's breathing had intensified. He hadn't let go of her hand yet. He moved in a bit closer and Hetty was certain he would kiss her. She was dying for it.

Instead, he just leaned into her space, letting their desire hang suspended between them. She had forgotten just how much will-power he had.

"You," he breathed out in a low voice, his lips not terribly far from hers, "are absolutely killing me."

"Ryan..." His name came out as a quiet, desperate gasp of air. There was so much she wanted to say, but her vocal chords were frozen in place. Ryan waited, breathless, as if expecting her to reveal critical information to him. No more words came.

They were now both shivering from the cold, so Ryan turned around to lead Hetty back toward the lodge.

They walked in silence for much of the way, and despite everything whirling in the air unresolved, the quiet space between them felt comfortable.