I had to work the morning after the Halloween party, which meant I was bleary-eyed and short on sleep as the seniors for my art class at the retirement home came shuffling into the room. Grammy paused, looked me over, and then gave me a knowing wink.

“Good work, you little hoochie-mamma.”

I glared. I was too short on sleep to have the energy for her antics. “Nothing happened. I just didn’t get a good night’s sleep.”

She rolled her eyes and went to sit down near the back, right beside Earl.

It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that I’d lied about having slept with Ryan. I was never the promiscuous type by any stretch, but I also hadn’t felt like I was the type to be secretive about it, either. I was sure there had to be some kind of weird psychological analysis for what I was doing, but if there was, I had no idea.

So I shoved it right down and decided it was a problem for another day. I felt good about last night. The sex had been amazing, for one. And Ryan had been amazing in every other way. Granted, there was the whole part where he revealed he’d actually been misleading me to a certain extent since the gastropub incident, but other than the knock against how trustworthy he seemed, I couldn’t make myself want to dwell on it. He’d admitted it, apologized—and very convincingly, I might add—and now we could move on.

As if thinking about him conjured him up from thin air, Ryan popped into the room with bright eyes and a smile that looked unfairly good on someone I knew had gotten as little sleep as I had.

“Can I sit in?” Ryan asked.

“No,” Grammy growled. “Unless you’re going to be modeling in the nude for us, and with an erection. I refuse to look at a limp dick for two hours.”

“She’s not lying,” Earl agreed with a grave nod. “She really won’t do it.”

I winced. I wasn’t exactly sure what the story on that could be, but I was sure I didn’t want to know.

“He’s not modeling nude for us. We’re just painting a still-life today and really focusing on three-point perspective.”

“Boo,” Grammy yelled. “We want penis!”

“Speak for yourself,” Earl said in his whispery, thin voice. “I’d take a pair of knockers, though. Unless he’s got them under that tight t-shirt, he can keep it on.”

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed from inside my purse. I dug it out and looked at the number. It was an area code I didn’t recognize, but I excused myself and answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Emily? I’m Valeria Purgot’s personal assistant.” The woman had a thick, French accent.

My stomach turned ice cold. “Valeria Purgot?” I said dumbly. I knew who she was, of course. She was half the reason I wanted to go to Paris to study. She’d made some of my favorite paintings of all time, and she was teaching part-time as a favor for a year or two at the school I was planning to attend. She was the same one I’d written an embarrassingly candid letter to a little over a month ago.

“Yes. She got your letter, and she thinks you’d be a wonderful apprentice. You’d still be able to attend classes next semester, but she’d be able to offer you paid work starting as soon as you arrived.”

“I’m sorry, please don’t take this the wrong way, but why would she pick me? And for what kind of work?”

Ryan edged a little closer with a curious but slightly worried expression on his face. I waved him off with a forced smile and mouthed, “it’s no big deal.”

“Because,” the woman said over the phone. “She liked that you took the initiative to send the letter, you’re already planning to come for school, which should simplify logistics, and she believes you have potential. Miss Purgot has always had a passion for developing young talent. You would be helping with the day-to-day tasks at her gallery, but she would also provide one-on-one instruction to you.”

“When would she need me to arrive by?”

“We would arrange for your flight in two days. Work would begin the following day.”

I raised my eyebrows and stared at the wall. “That’s… sudden.”

“Yes. It is. And she will need to know if you’re going to accept her offer immediately.”

“Immed—can I at least have a few hours to digest all of this?”

“I’m very sorry, but no. It’s very important that you would arrive quickly.”

“Okay?” I said shakily.

“Very good. We’ll be in contact soon with travel arrangements. I’ll let Valeria know you’ve accepted the offer and one of our people will be in touch.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Ryan, who was standing beside me with a creased forehead. “What was that?” he asked.

“Let’s talk about it after my class, okay? Maybe you can wait outside if you don’t mind?”

His expression hardened, and the sight of it made my chest feel tight and empty.

I fumbled and made my way through the class as a distracted mess, and the forty minute session ended up feeling more like two hours. By the time I trailed out of the room after the last of my students, I was feeling every minute of sleep I’d missed catching up with me.

Ryan was sitting in a recliner just outside the room I used, and he hopped to his feet as soon as he saw me. “What was that all about?”

I shook my head but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “I have to go sooner than I thought. I think. I mean, I do. I have to go.”

“What? You don’t have to be embarrassed about poop stuff with me. If you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go. I know everyone does it.” he laughed, relief cracking through the worry on his face. “Honestly, I’m glad we’re getting it out of the way now, because that can always be such an awkward thing. It’s like, do I just say I’m taking a leak but disappear for five minutes, or should I be straight up about it?” He searched my face and the relief shifted back into worry. “You’re not talking about that. Neither was I, actually. I just didn’t want it to be weird for you, so… shit. Say something! You’re just giving me that look like someone’s dead.”

I opened my mouth to speak and couldn’t think of the right way to put it, so I clamped my lips together and shook my head again. “I don’t know what the right choice is here, Ryan. This really big artist apparently wants me to basically be her apprentice. And she wants me to start in two days instead of two months. It’d be a paying job. It’d be my dream, basically, and after feeling like I’ve been chasing something that wasn’t there, it’s suddenly falling into my lap.” I looked up at him and frowned into those deep, light brown eyes of his as I fought down the waves of emotion threatening to consume me. “What am I supposed to do?”

His eyes fell to the floor as he thought. His expression was somber, and when he finally spoke, it was with the grave determination of someone telling the doctor to amputate their own leg. “You go. Chase the dream.”

“Just like that?” I asked. I’d already agreed. It wasn’t like I’d signed a contract, but he’d probably heard me agree, and heard how quickly I’d said yes. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how that would feel for him, but I knew he couldn’t understand how conflicted I felt.

He spread his hands. “What do you want me to say? Stay for me? Stay because I’m so sure it’ll be perfect between us? Promise that I’ll be more important to you than the thing you’ve been trying to get your whole life? I can’t do any of that. So you go. We had an expiration date, anyway, right?”

“Right,” I said softly.

He stuck his hand out like he wanted a handshake.

I stared down incredulously at it. “I guess the whole no hard feelings clause of our agreement went out the window when the expiration date changed?”

“I guess so,” he said. His voice sounded cold. Angry, even. When he saw I wasn’t going to shake his hand, he turned and walked away.

I watched after him, wanting to crumple in on myself. I couldn’t be mad. Why couldn’t I ever just be mad at Ryan goddamn Pearson? Why did he always have to be an asshole with some kind of asterisk beside it? Why was there always an excuse in the footnotes: “Ryan was actually just doing what he thought was honorable by protecting his girlfriend, who smeared a cupcake on your senior art project,” and “he was only lying to you because he was so worried about losing you,” and “he’s only mad because he really cared about you, and now he has to let you go.”

I sank down and sat against the wall, leaning my head back and letting the fluorescent lights burn rainbow-black, rectangular strips in my vision. I barely noticed when William sat down beside me.

“Looking a little gloomy over here,” he said, nudging me with his elbow.

I didn’t take my eyes from the ceiling. “Well, your little game as matchmaker looks like it’s coming to a fiery end.”

“I feel like you’re giving me some kind of clue, but it’s just not clicking. Can you give me how many syllables I’m looking for?”

“Break up. Two syllables.”

“Hmm,” he said. “Break up. Break up… It makes me think of ice though, not fire. Like ice breaking up. Ice on fire? No, that’s stupid.”

I slowly turned to look at him and tried my hardest to figure out if he was stupid or just really good at pushing people’s buttons when they shouldn’t be pressed. “Ryan and I are breaking up. I have to leave for Paris.”

“Wow. Very classic. The old, gotta leave the country excuse. I used that one once or twice. Just make sure they don’t have relatives in the country you’re supposedly migrating to. That can get awkward.”

“I’m not making it up.”

“Yeah, well,” he slapped me on the back, nearly knocking me to the side. “It’s too bad there’s not a sickeningly rich guy who would be amused to see you two together. Just too bad.”

“You know what you’re like?”

“Tall, dark, handsome, filthy rich… I could go on, but the look you’re giving me is telegraphing stop.”

“You’re like a little kid with two hamsters, and you want them to like each other so you’re squishing them together, but you’re squishing them so hard together that when you let go, they won’t even know how to stay together on their own anymore.”

“Wait, that’s a really specific example. Did you squish hamsters together when you were a kid? I’ve always said they shouldn’t let kids have pets. They’re little psychopaths. I swear.”

“I don’t know why I’m bothering trying to talk to you. You don’t take anything seriously.”

“False. Taxes are serious business. Learned that the hard way. I usually take my wife seriously, too. And sunscreen, actually. You’d be shocked if you knew how many people don’t even think about it. I feel like I could just list things I’m serious about all day, but you’re giving me that look again.”

“Why me?” I said. “You could’ve tried to set Ryan up with anyone, but you picked me. Why?”

“Does it matter now? You said you were ditching the guy. You and I are no longer friends.” He stood and dusted his hands. “I owed Ryan a solid, and you spoiled it. If you want to be friends again, I suggest you find a way to make this right.”

“Seriously?”

He spread his palms and raised his eyebrows. “See? I can be serious. Yes. And you know what, if you leave, I’ll find a hotter version of you. One with—with, really, really big boobs. She won’t even be able to tell you what color her shoes are they’ll be so big. She’ll be the one I set Ryan up with. So while you’re fingerpainting the Leaning Tower of Pizza, Ryan’s going to be motorboating two flotation devices that could’ve saved the Titanic from sinking.”

“It’s the Leaning Tower of Pisa, you boob.” I made a disgusted sound at him and got up to leave.

“Oh no. I’m the one who gets to storm out of here. This is—hey. I said—hey!” he started fast-walking to keep up with me as I headed for the exit.

I sped up too, but I tried not to make it too obvious. He barely squeezed ahead of me at the door and he closed it in my face, standing outside the glass with a smug look on his face. He dipped his chin at me, spun on his heel, and walked off.

I looked to Cheryl, who was sitting behind the front desk with a strange look on her face. “Don’t tell anybody about that. Please.”

“Honey, I’m not sure how I’d even describe it. So I think you’re safe.”