REAGAN STARED, DUMBFOUNDED, as Dave exited the hotel ballroom and turned the first corner of the hallway, disappearing. Hours seemed to pass before she remembered that she was still sitting on the table, the skirt of her dress hiked far up around her thighs.

She hopped off hurriedly, smoothing the dress out as well as her hair. As she patted down the curls that had fallen flat throughout the night, she counted each hammering beat of her heart, praying that there was no one else in the darkened ballroom with her.

She'd reached a crossroads, probably one of the most important ones of her life, and it was frightening to think that her mind had already been made up before she'd arrived there.

She was going to go to his hotel room.

Her body seemed to know it sooner than her brain did.  Dave wasn't even standing in front of her anymore, but she was drawn to him by magnetization, desperate to follow in his footsteps towards the decision that would reveal the final truth about their divorce.

There was little time she could spare to question why in the first place that they'd separated, especially when they were so apparently enamored with each other. It caused her pain to think that after everything they'd been though, it had been for nothing, but that wasn't her primary concern at the time.

The only thing Reagan wanted to focus on was getting up to his hotel room as quickly as possible.

She took a deep breath and walked out of the ballroom, following the same path that Dave had taken towards the elevators. As she pressed the button and anxiously took a step back, she thought of Chris awaiting her return to their room on the fourteenth floor.

Chris was sure to forgive Reagan for ditching her that night, but Reagan questioned how forgiving Chris would be once she found out where Reagan had actually been.

Chris was smart. She could draw her own conclusions about what had followed after she'd left Reagan downstairs.

The elevator arrived with a ding and its doors parted, welcoming Reagan in. She held her breath, shifting her weight on her feet as she was carried up through the hotel's many floors.

Gracie was quick to enter her mind. It couldn't have possibly been healthy for her and Dave to do what they were doing when there was Gracie to be worried about. She may not have known what her parents were up to, god forbid, but the moral question still lingered.

What was going to happen would leave them both facing a thousand open doors, all of them leading to one singular choice that would alter everything they'd strived to put behind them.

Reagan was backtracking on all the promises she had made to herself. She'd sworn to be thoroughly finished with Dave for the sake of her heart, but her heart was a traitor and she'd learned that night that while she had physically left him, her heart had not.

The only way the world seemed to spin correctly, rotating in the proper direction, was when she was with him.

She watched as the floor numbers steadily increased.

Eight.

Thirteen.

Seventeen.

Twenty-one.

Reagan's breath caught in her throat as the elevator dinged again.

Twenty-five.

She emerged slowly, scanning the hotel hallway. It was empty. Dave had already made it back to his room and was waiting for her.

Closing her eyes, she paused for a brief moment to regain her stability, reminding herself that she was still breathing. She could still feel her own pulse throbbing in her neck. What was happening was real, no longer a scenario plucked from the dreams that had kept her up at night for the past two years.

Reagan walked down the hall, turning her head side to side as she looked at the room numbers on each door. They were going up, indicating that she was headed in the right direction.

Before she reached Dave's room, she stopped for a second time, raking her nails up gently along the side of her thigh. Again, she was reminded that she was awake. She was about to be with him in a way she'd been with him many times before, but her nerves were strained like piano wire.

She was nervous, and not for any other reason except that she had a strange bout of stage fright. Her insecurity recoiled at the thought of Dave discovering that he was no longer attracted to her, that it wasn't the same as it'd been before.

Reagan inhaled and pushed on. She'd take that chance in order to satisfy her own needs, which were clawing at her insides demanding to be fulfilled.

When she got to Dave's room, she raised her fist to knock, but her knuckles never connected with the door. It flew open, exposing Dave standing in the threshold with an exhilarated look on his face.

Reagan compulsively smiled, taken aback to have seen the door open before she could announce her arrival.

"Were you actually standing there staring through the peep hole?" she asked as she laughed.

"Well, you were taking too long," Dave simpered.

"I got up here two minutes after you did."

"Two minutes too long."

He grabbed her hands and yanked her inside of the hotel room without another word, slamming the door closed with one hand and pressing her up against the back of it. Reagan's fingers were already clasped behind his head, pulling his mouth to hers, but he took her left wrist and pinned it staunchly over her head.

His kiss now was nothing like it had been in the ballroom. There was an intensity behind it that he'd been saving, building up bit by bit until the time had been right, and she was experiencing it full throttle as shaped his lips vigorously to hers.

She whimpered against his mouth, silently beseeching him with an eager response not to stop. He squeezed her wrist tight enough that the blood stopped rushing to her hand altogether, moving south instead to the center of her hips.

Dave picked her up swiftly, carrying across her room. She jumped in his arms when he maneuvered her weight to one side, reaching out to sweep away the glassware that had been left out on the mini bar situated only several feet away from the inviting California king bed. Setting her down on the top of the bar, she laughed against his mouth at the clinking sound of breaking glass.

"You know that you'll have to pay for that, right?"

"They can charge it to my card."

He clasped both hands around Reagan's knees and pushed her legs astride, kneeling down in between them. She knew immediately what he was doing and her body responded accordingly, tightening in all the right places, but her anticipation didn't compare to the actual feeling. Once his face lowered amid her legs, she gasped, scrambling her hand to the back of his head.

She stammered out his name as he reached up without slowing the movement of his tongue, bunching the hem of her dress around her waist.

She hadn't quite forgotten just how good he was at that, being that the memory was burned into her brain for all eternity, but it was still something far different to experience in person. His musical talents weren't the only arena that he excelled in.

He kept going, digging his fingertips into her thighs, until Reagan's breathing quickened and every noise she made was twisted around a moan. Her body started to jerk and Dave knew better than even she did that she was close to bursting. She could feel it down to her toes and he felt in the way she tugged on his hair, unable to string a sentence together.

Just as Reagan's back began to arch, he stood up and pulled her to his chest. She caught her breath and her face fell into a bewildered, disappointed look.

"That's . . . bullshit," she panted, feeling the pleasant knot in her lower stomach fade away.

He chuckled, grasping her hips and helping her off the bar.

"I was kinda' intending on taking my time, here," he murmured, hooking his hands around the sagging sleeves of her dress and pulling them down. Reagan helped him along, wiggling out of her outfit until it pooled around her feet.

Dave remained crouched with his face level to her thighs. Curving a hand around one slowly, he kissed her there, guiding his mouth higher after every kiss that he placed. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the ever-changing location of his lips, and stiffened when he got to her waist.

He kissed his way along it, taking his time to pay special mind to her hips, before he slowly continued upwards. He kissed around her upper rib cage, in between her breasts, and when he got to her chest, she felt his tongue draw a line from her collarbone to the top of her throat. She trembled and staggered into him, her legs giving out.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he whispered as his hands disappeared into her hair. "It hurts to look at you."

"So close your eyes," he said shakily.

"Your lack of modesty is turning me on."

Dave tucked his arm around Reagan's waist and laid her flat on the bed, running his fingertips down her chest and around the curve of her leg. She watched as he took his time removing his jeans, never taking his eyes off of hers. After he'd yanked his shirt off over his head, he grabbed her by her ankles and pulled her closer to the edge of the bed.

His hands pushed her legs back by her knees and she involuntarily drew in a sharp breath when he pushed into her, letting out a hushed gasp of his own. Her fingers clenched around the comforter as he directed his hips back and forth, savoring the feeling that they'd both missed.

Reagan wanted more. She outstretched her arm and when he readily took her hand, she pulled him down on top of her, roping both arms around his neck.

He kissed her, moving his mouth from her lips to her cheek, and then to her nose and to her forehead. He kissed her all over her face as she sighed contentedly, lifting her hips as he moved against her.

"I love you," he said into her neck. "I love you."

Reagan let her eyes fall gently closed.

"I love you, too."

______________

She wasn't sure how much time had passed. It had likely been at least an hour, perhaps and hour and a half at most, since she'd walked into Dave's hotel room, but Reagan wasn't bothered enough to check the bedside alarm clock.

Time itself didn't seem to matter anymore.

She thought about how long they'd spent christening every corner of the room, moving from the bed to the floor, up against the wall and on the suite's soft leather couch. She thought about the positions he'd flipped her into, alternating the pace at which he'd slammed into her, lightly pulling on her hair and biting at her neck.

She thought about everything she'd said, from moans of his names to pleas that he keep going, to go harder, to kiss her, to hold her tighter.

In a single night, they had made up for two whole years of being apart.

When Dave had finally rolled over on the bed in exhaustion, draping one arm over his sweat-dampened forehead, Reagan had laid hesitantly beside him, unsure of what to do next.

She'd slowly gotten up, edging away from him and towards the spot where her dress still remained in a heap on the ground, but he'd stopped her.

"What are you doing?" Dave had asked, sitting upright quickly with anxious eyes.

"I was going to . . . I thought I should . . ."

"Stay," he'd insisted, holding his hand out to her. "Please. Stay with me tonight."

Reagan had obliged, not really wanting to return to her own hotel room anyway. She'd slid beneath the sheets next to him and laid herself across his chest, soothed when he'd started to gently caress her bare back.

They had been talking about nothing in particular. Anything that came to either of their minds, Reagan or Dave would say it, usually evoking a laugh or a smile out of the other.

He regaled her with stories from the Foos' latest tour, going into great detail to describe the barely realistic situations that either Taylor or Nate had found themselves in. She told him about Gracie, filling him in on the small things that he'd missed regarding her while he'd been away. He talked about the time he'd spent in Virginia the previous year, and she revealed how often his mother had called her, not just to talk to Gracie but to check in on her, to ask how she was doing.

Reagan was reminded of how easy it was to talk to him. She never had to think ahead, never had to choose her words carefully. And he listened — he made for a powerful listener, looking into her eyes as she spoke or nodding along as he processed whatever she said.

She realized how much she had missed that about him.

"You know what I was thinking about the other day?" he asked her, curling a piece of her hair around his pointer finger.

"Hm?"

"My t-shirts. I still have so many missing t-shirts."

She immediately bit her lip guiltily. "I may have, um, kept some of those even after you left."

Dave smirked. "You still wear them?"

"No," she returned stubbornly, "I let Gracie wear them. They go down past her knees, but they remind her of you. It makes her happy."

"Suddenly," he said with a laugh, "I'm not missing those shirts as much anymore."

"Good. You shouldn't. Think of them as our many family heirlooms."

She could tell by the way he reacted to the word 'family' that he'd liked what she said. He grasped her shoulder, holding her closer so that he could kiss the top of her head.

"I can't begin to explain how much I missed you," he murmured into her hair.

Reagan nuzzled her cheek against his chest, snuggling into his side until the warmth radiating off of his bed melded with hers.

"You'll be happy to know that I missed you too, then," she said.

"You're good at hiding it. Especially when you're dating another dude."

She flinched. "I had to try to move on, Dave. I was doing my best."

"And you think that's possible? To move on?"

He slid his hand under her chin and guided her gaze up so that he could stare into it.

"I don't know anymore," she confessed softly.

"I don't think it's possible," he said. "Believe me, I fucking tried."

"I don't even want to think about how many venereal diseases you came into contact with in the process. I probably shouldn't have even let you near me tonight."

Dave coughed awkwardly, trying to maintain a serious expression although his eyes flitted away for a moment. Reagan eyed him knowingly, assured that her theory of 'Dave versus groupies' had been confirmed.

"That's not the point," he insisted. "The point is that I've missed you like hell. I never stopped loving you."

"You act like I fell out of love with you."

"What else was I supposed to think when you asked me for a divorce?"

She shifted against him, adjusting the uncomfortable way her shoulders had become squeezed against his rib cage. Finally, he had spoken the word aloud — 'divorce.'

"I didn't ask you for one because I didn't love you anymore," she told him. "I asked you for one because we were falling apart. Yes, you . . . did what you did in Mexico and it made me angry with you, but it didn't make me stop loving you."

"Do you know how much time I spend regretting that?" he asked her gently, the extent of his remorse plainly evident. "I think about it every damn day, Reagan. I would give anything to take it back."

She stroked the back of her fingers along his torso. "I know. It just kind of fucked me up, to put it bluntly."

"I know that and I'll always be sorry. Nothing changes that it happened, but nothing also changes that I'm always going to be sorry that it did."

Reagan considered his apology, fresh to her ears after two years since the initial fuck-up. He was undeniably sincere, still broken even, over the mistake that he'd made. She didn't think that he still understood the full scope of how it had maimed her, but at least he regretted it. At least he still wished that it had never happened.

"Thank you," she said, kissing his chest. "For apologizing."

The error in judgement definitely warranted more than just a spoken apology, even after all the time that had passed, but she was willing to let it slide for the night. That way, there would be room for happiness and less for tense conversations.

"Can I ask you something?" He sounded tentative, lifting his hand away from the continuous strokes he'd been making along her back.

"Okay," she hedged, bracing herself for a question that she wouldn't be able to confidently answer.

"Will you stay with me?"

"I'm already staying with you. I'm right here."

"I don't mean just for tonight."

Reagan pressed her lips tightly together, squirming in place.

"I don't know if we can do that," she finally whispered.

"Why? Because we're divorced?" he asked. "People get married again all the time after divorcing, Reags. It happens every day."

"Probably not every day."

"It could happen for us."

She sat up, feeling suddenly nauseous. She was at another crossroads again, her future waiting impatiently to see which path she would take.

"It's a big step," she reasoned with difficulty, cinching her eyebrows together and staring down at the waves of white sheets that cocooned them together.

"You told me that you loved me tonight," Dave said, sitting up along with her. "Did you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it."

"So if you love me, and I love you,  why can't we try to make this work? If not for us, then for Gracie?"

He took her hands, squeezing them gently in his own as he softened his voice. When his forehead touched hers, she breathed in a shuddering lungful of air.

"It's not that easy. You can't just erase the past," she said.

"I get that, but we still love each other, Reagan. And you know something?" He fixed her chin between his fingers, forcing her to look at him. "I'm never going to stop loving you. The day I stop loving you is the day I drop fucking dead. You shouldn't have to arrange my funeral thinking that I died not loving you."

She couldn't help but to laugh despite the glaze of tears that had clouded her eyes.

"Who ever said that I was going to be the one to arrange your funeral?" she said through a sniff, wiping the back of her hand beneath her nose.

"So is that a yes?" Dave probed.

"How'd you get a 'yes' out of what I just said when we were talking about funerals?"

"Because I know you love me as much as I love you. You wouldn't have come up here tonight if you didn't. I know that we can start over and that it will work. Because we love each other as much as we did the first time around."

"You assume too much," she whispered, letting him take her face into his hands.

"It's not assuming. It's knowing. This is the one fucking thing I'd bet my life on," he said. "I'd bet everything that we can make it work."

Reagan clasped her around his, helping him to cradle her face. She leaned her cheek into his palm, closing her eyes at the feeling. He could have cut her open and still, he wouldn't have been able to read or understand her any better than he was in that moment. If her heart had been hanging on a thread, Dave had managed to sew it back into place just by simply saying what she herself had been too afraid to say.

She still loved him, more than she'd ever love anyone, and she wanted to be with him. For the rest of her life.

She twisted her face around so that she could kiss his palm, raising her eyes to his with a delicate smile.

"Start betting, then," she said.