Sam might not have been the first person to arrive at the law firm in the mornings, but he was always the last to leave. The thought of him working through the evening in an empty office didn't sit well with Ada, so some nights she'd stay with him, filling in as his paralegal or catching up on her own workload. Usually, Sam was grateful for the company, but sometimes the guilt would catch up to him.

"Ada, honey, why don't you go on home," he said at the creak of the door. The computer screen reflected off his reading glasses. "Probably gonna be burning the midnight oil with this one."

Color rose to his cheeks as she sat on the edge of his desk, swinging a leg, pale blue pump dangling off her stocking feet. She smiled at him. "Then I'll get coffee with our takeout."

It took Sam a moment to put his jaw back where it belonged. "Lord, you make it awful hard for a fella to be a gentleman. But really, I mean it. This'll be the fourth night this week I've kept you out past your bedtime."

Cellophane crinkled as she unwrapped one of the designer chocolates Sam kept for his clients in a bowl on his desk. "I'm a little old for bedtimes, don't you think?"

"I know better than to tell a lady how old she is." He tore his attention away from her to focus on the screen again. The printer whirred to life. "You need to have a life outside of work, sugardove. You're gonna blink and you'll be forty and have nothing to show for it but a buncha nights cooped up in an office with a fat old man."

"You're not old." She held the chocolate to his lips. "And you're not fat. You're cuddly."

He took a deep breath. "Ada, I swear to God you are a temptress sent from the devil himself."

"He's a great employer, the devil. Great insurance, includes dental and vision. Three weeks paid vacation." Since he wasn't taking the bait, Ada smeared the chocolate along his mouth with a giggle.

"I bet he doesn't keep his employees out at all hours of the night," Sam grumbled. With an incredulous look, he ate out of her hand. She squirmed pleasantly, flushed with warmth. It drained out of her when he turned back to his screen with an exhausted sigh, adjusting his glasses.

Maybe he wasn't just sending her home for her well-being. Work was the last thing on her mind that evening.

"All right, all right. You win." She leaned forward to kiss Sam, only for him to scoop her into his lap with a playful growl. Ada threw her arms around his neck, head filling with notes of pepper and bergamot. "Mm. I love your cologne."

"And I love you," he said with a surprising shyness. It was still a new phrase between them.

Her hands slid down his soft shoulders, hooking under the lapels of his vest. "How about I wait for you at the townhouse? Give you some motivation to work fast."

Sam quirked the smallest smile.

"You know how long it's been since I had somebody waiting at home for me?" His eyes scanned the room as though in search for an answer. "Gotta be, nine, maybe ten years."

Ada's heart hurt. While Sam had relocated to DC when he'd made his foray into politics, Penny had insisted on staying at the farmhouse in Georgia. Visits were limited to Christmas, her birthday and their anniversary—basically whenever Sam was socially obligated to give her gifts. Ada stroked the apple of his cheek. "She's no good for you, you know."

"She's better than I deserve." He looked away. "You both are."

It'd gotten to a point where Penny's cruelties almost outweighed Ada's guilt about their relationship. "I wish you would stop saying that. You're a wonderful person, Sam, no matter what she says, or how she treats you. I'm not going to stop saying that until you believe me."

He gave the faintest glimmer of a smirk. "Could you say it again, then? Maybe add something about my stunning good looks?"

Ada smacked his chest playfully as she climbed from his lap. She jingled her keys at him as she sauntered to the door. "Hurry home, sweetie."

***

She'd started the fireplace. Dinner—takeout from his favorite restaurant—was waiting in the oven, kept warm at a low temperature. She pulled up his playlist of Ella Fitzgerald. There was even enough time to help herself to a long soak in the clawfoot bathtub in the downstairs bathroom. It was pushing ten o'clock, and Ada was running out of things to do, so she settled on straightening up the townhouse.

All things considered, it wasn't in too bad a shape. Sam was a fairly tidy person—or, at the very least, he was fairly good at pretending he was. While nothing seemed out of place on the surface, all of the closets in his home were full-to-bursting. Ada knew she was in no position to do so, but soon she found herself pressing through racks of coats in the walk-in hall closet as though she was on her way to Narnia.

If there was one thing she understood about Sam, it was that he loved clothes almost as much as he loved food, and the contents of the closet only confirmed this. Every suit style and color that had been popular in the past ten years was represented, and for every suit there was a matching shoe. As the suits closer to the back shrank in size, Ada likened it to a time machine.

It was hard to imagine Sam thin. It was even harder to imagine him as a young man, in love—or at least something like it—with Penny. Ada frowned and tore one of the too-small suits from the hanger, throwing it over her arm. Then she took another.

She was almost to the back when she found it. His letterman jacket.

With a smile, Ada set down the pile of old suits. She slipped her arms through the jacket's sleeves. Undoubtedly the smallest size coat of the lot, it still dwarfed her. Ada loved it. She snuggled the collar and slipped her hands into the pockets. Her fingers touched something warm.

Swallowing back a surprised shriek, Ada cupped whatever it was and tried to pull it out. It didn't budge. Like Sam, it had outgrown this jacket long ago. She worked at it a bit at a time, weaseling, prying it, until suddenly it popped loose in her hand.

Sam's heart.

It was easily the largest one she'd ever seen. Soft pink flesh struggled to beat, caged by larger patches of stony calcification. Humming curiously, Ada took a nail to one of the troubled spots. It flaked off easily under her touch, revealing healthy pink beneath.

"Ada?"

She nearly dropped the heart at the sound of his voice, but managed to catch it. It started to beat frantically, held tight to her chest. "I'm sorry, I was bored and I thought I could help you get organized—"

Her face flushed with embarrassment as she realized how rude and invasive it must've been. These clothes were his memories. This was his heart.

He leaned an arm against the door frame with a lopsided smile. "You know, Ada, if you were bored, I got Netflix..."

"I know, I'm sorry, this was really thoughtless of me." She tried to put the heart back in the letterman's pocket, but now that it was out it seemed hopelessly too big. Struggling would only make it more awkward. She held it out to Sam. "Here. I'm sorry. I really am."

Sam's pale blue eyes flicked to the heart, then back to Ada. "Haven't seen that old thing in a long time. Reckon nobody has."

"Not even Penny?"

He shook his head. "Naw. I tried giving it to Penny a long time ago but she didn't like the look of it. Said it didn't match hers. Penny—now she's got a real pretty heart, but it don't beat. She ordered a facsimile of mine, gold-plated. That's the one she keeps for visitors on the mantel."

"Oh." Ada stroked Sam's heart gently. As she brushed away more sheets of calcium, she caught him wincing. "Oh, oh God, I didn't—does it hurt?"

"Stings a touch," he admitted, but worked a smile in through his pain. "But I reckon it's good for me. Why don't you hold onto it?"

"Are you sure?" No one had ever given her their heart before. Not even her high school boyfriend.

It thumped in Ada's hands. Sam swallowed hard. "Sugar dove, I can't think of a single person I'd rather have it."