This was grief wearing the shape of wanting. This was a woman who had just relived her mother's death and was reaching for the nearest thing solid enough to hold onto, using his body the way you use anything in a storm, not because you chose it, but because it's there and it's warm and it makes the noise in your head stop for a few minutes.
And she still didn't remember him. Not really. Not the years, not the wedding, not the thousand small mornings that had made up a marriage.
If he let this happen now, in this moment, for these reasons, he wasn't sure either of them would forgive him for it later, once the grief had passed and clarity came looking for what had been left behind in its place.
He couldn't.
Not like this.
"You know that's not true," Max said, his hands still steady on her waist, his eyes searching her face like he could pull the real Ruby up to the surface just by looking hard enough.
