“Fuck!” My arm rears back, ready to launch the offensive item when two small hands wrap around my bicep.

“Hey hey hey, that’s my phone!” Tink wrenches it from my grip and puts it safely away in her pocket. “There’s no reason both of our cells need to meet their untimely death.”

She’s right, and yet, I can’t help but feel cheated at not getting to release this burning frustration through the senseless destruction of property. What would Wendy say if she saw you throwing shit like the Hulk on a temper tantrum? I don’t know the answer, but I doubt she’d like it very much. Physical rage isn’t a very grown up way to deal with your problems, I know that. What I don’t know is what to do about my current one. And it’s fucking huge.

Growling, I kick the shattered remnants of my cell phone, which met its demise earlier. The customer service rep for the trucking company kept insisting the records show that my last shipment for the Bel Air parts have been delivered. After the fifth time of reciting the company’s anti-fault stance, I lost my cool, along with my ability to use that phone for anything other than plastic confetti.

Plowing my hands into my hair, I fist and pull to prevent myself from busting my knuckles on a steel support beam. “I can’t believe this fucking happened.”

“It’s not your fault. Putting a rush on the shipment should’ve gotten it here in plenty of time.”

Holding my arms out wide, I gesture to the shipment-less garage. “But it didn’t. Despite what those assholes are saying, it’s most definitely not here.”

“Maybe they dropped it off at another shop or something,” she suggests. “I’ll go up to the house and make us some lunch while I call around, okay? Maybe J.R. is over at his Toy Shop staring at a huge crate of parts, wondering what the hell they’re for. It’s possible, right?”

I highly doubt it, but I force myself to nod. “Yeah, okay, thanks. I really appreciate your help.”

She places a hand on my shoulder, pinning me with her soulful green gaze. “Whether it’s as simple as making phone calls or as complicated as picking up your pieces to put you back together, I’ll always be here for you, Peter.”

“I know,” I rasp out through a dry throat. “You’re a great friend, Tink.”

She doesn’t move for several seconds, then her hand squeezes me slightly, and she gives me a tight smile that falls short of her eyes. “Of course I am. I’ll be back.”

As soon as she’s out of sight, I drop into a chair on a year-long sigh. Unfortunately, expelling the air in my lungs doesn’t relieve the tightness in my chest. It presses on my ribs until it feels like the slightest movement will cause them to puncture my organs.

I’m so fucked. Wendy’s coming here tonight to see the finished Bel Air. The car that I promised her would be done. The car that is not, in fact, done.

Taking the ring box out of my pocket, I brace my elbows on my thighs and open the top to stare at what’s inside. She won’t want this now. Not after how bad I messed this up for her…

No. I refuse to believe that the second time I try to give her my heart, Wendy will walk away from it. There has to be something I can do. Maybe it won’t completely fix it, but I’m not looking for a miracle. I’ll settle for a large damn Band-Aid at this point. Maybe if I—

“Peter? Are you in here?”

Snapping the ring box shut, I shove it into my pocket as I jump to my feet and find my dream girl stepping squarely into my nightmare. “Wendy.”

Her eyes land on me, and she practically breaks into a run. In the two seconds it takes her to reach me, I notice her brows are pulled together and the corners of her lush mouth are turned down. Something’s wrong with my girl, but she doesn’t give me time to ask before she throws her arms around my neck and brings me down for a kiss. A kiss I don’t deserve but selfishly accept. My hands frame her beautiful face, and I hold her to me, coaxing her soft lips open and tangling my tongue with hers in a dance of desperation she doesn’t yet understand.

Or maybe she does because I can feel it pouring off her, too, drowning us both until we finally come up for air.

“Baby, what’s wrong? I wasn’t expecting you until seven.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she says, pressing a delicate hand to her forehead like she’s staving off a headache from hell. “It’s just the meeting with the hospital board didn’t go well, and I needed to talk to you about everything. I tried calling you a bunch of times, but you didn’t…” Her voice trails off as she notices my cell phone on the concrete floor. Or what used to be my phone. “…answer.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s time I upgrade to a new one, anyway.”

“Peter,” she says carefully, “what’s going on? I haven’t heard from you all week. Everything is fine with the car, right?”

I drag my hands down my face, praying for a miracle. Praying that when I turn around, the car will have been magically finished by tiny fairies in the last fifteen minutes. Or that I have my days wrong, and I still have another week—just one is all I’d need—to fix this for Wendy.

But when I meet her concerned gaze, I know that none of those things is going to happen. I’m about to let down the woman I love in an epic way. And I can’t do anything to stop it.

“Wen, I’m so sorry,” I grind out. “The last shipment of parts for the car didn’t make it—or it made it somewhere, but not here—and the car won’t be done by Saturday.”

The expression on her face transforms from concern to disbelief. She shakes her head like if she denies it hard enough, it won’t be true. “No,” she says, her voice soft. “You promised me it would be done. You promised you wouldn’t let me down.”

“I know.”

“Please tell me this is your idea of a terrible joke. One that will probably take me a good thirty minutes to recover from and then we’ll laugh about it. Just tell me it’s a joke.”

“I wish to God I could.” I gesture to where the Bel Air sits in the same spot it’s been for over a month. “But it doesn’t look any different than it did last weekend.”

Her cheeks flush, and her eyes darken to deep pools of navy, signs she’s overcome with passion. But this isn’t the good kind. This is the pissed-as-hell angel of fury kind. “I can’t believe this. I can’t auction off a car without a car. I just sat in a meeting where I was grilled about your credibility and the status of the Bel Air, and I assured them that everything would be ready according to plan. How could you do this to me?”

“Whoa, hold on. I didn’t do anything. I don’t have control over the delivery company. I put a rush order on it, so I would have it in time. They lost the shipment.”

“Come on, Peter. I get that the delivery company may have screwed up, but this isn’t entirely their fault. I told you from the beginning I thought that car was too much work for the time frame we had, but you brushed off my concern. Then add in all the Friday night partying, hanging at the races, and God knows what else when you should’ve been working on the car, and it’s no wonder it isn’t finished!”

The blood rushes in my ears and every muscle in my body locks up, bracing for the kind of attack Croc used to give me as he shouted all the things I did wrong. I know Wendy would never lay a hand on me—even if she did, she couldn’t inflict much damage—but my brain isn’t listening to logic right now. It’s reacting, using muscle memory, and sinking into that place where I learned I could do no right, so why even try.

“You claimed to believe in my ability to do this. If that was all a lie and you were so unsure I could hack the job, you should’ve taken your business elsewhere.”

“Are you kidding me?” she shouts. “I didn’t doubt your ability to rebuild the car. I questioned your timeline management skills and sense of responsibility. If you were running out of time, you should’ve been sacrificing your downtime to spend on the project.”

“Why, so I could work around the clock and be miserable like you were? There’s a reason I make sure Tink and the boys have fun. Life’s not worth living if all you do is work yourself to the bone.”

Tears well up in her eyes, severing my anger as effectively as a sword slicing through a limb. Sighing, I move to gather her into my arms, but she holds up a hand and takes a halting step backward.

“No,” she says, her voice thick with disappointment. “I thought I could come back for this job, have an adventure, and show myself I could have both. Now it’s only going to make everything harder. I never should’ve come back.”

“Wendy,” I croak.

“I guess we were right to go our separate ways all those years ago. Everything is great between us, as long as it’s all about having fun and seeking the next adventure.” She drags in a shaky breath then releases it, raking a hand through her waterfall of maple syrup hair. “But that’s not what being a grown up is, Peter. I love living in the moment when I’m with you because, admittedly, sometimes I’m on the other extreme. I focus too much on the serious things and forget to enjoy the small pleasures. The difference is, I won’t get fired or evicted or gain a bad reputation from working too hard. So, if I have to choose between fun and responsibility, I’ll choose the latter, whereas you’ll choose fun. Every single time.”

I’m losing her. I can’t fucking believe I’m losing her over a goddamn lost shipment. “If the stuff had gotten here like it was supposed to—”

“Right. The shipment, I know.” Her words say she understands, but her tone says different. “God forbid you take any responsibility.”

“Wen—”

“To you, it’s just a shipment, but to me, it’s my entire future.” She plows a hand through her hair, fisting it briefly before dropping her arm in defeat. “Never mind. I don’t have time for this right now. I have to come up with a way to fix this. Plan B, I guess, which I really should’ve had in the first place. I assume you can still finish the job once you get the rest of what you need?”

“Yeah.” All the heat is gone from my voice like a deflated balloon lying limp on the ground. “I’ll finish it.”

“Great. Please keep me informed of an estimated completion date, so I can make arrangements with the buyer for pick-up.” She glances down at her phone, then says, “I have to go. Take care of yourself. Tell the boys I said goodbye.”

She turns and starts walking out of the garage, and with every step she takes, she drives a nail through the coffin around my heart. It will never beat for anyone like it beats for Wendy Darling. It barely survived the first time she walked away from me. The only thing that kept it alive was the foolish, miniscule hope that someday she’d return to Neverland.

And she did.

I had the second chance with her I’d always dreamed about, and now it’s gone. This time, there won’t be enough left of my heart to salvage. Not that it matters, because without Wendy in my life, I don’t need that worthless muscle anyway.

“Wendy,” I blurt out before my pride can shove it back in.

She stops, and for a few agonizingly long seconds, I think she won’t look back…then she does. I fist the ring box in my pocket, the corners digging into my flesh. A physical pain to match my emotional one.

She blinks, and the tears balanced on the edge of her lashes overflow to run down her cheeks. The moisture clings to her skin as though desperate to stay with her for as long as possible. I realize I’m no different as I stand here knowing I won’t beg her to stay but terrified to let her leave.

Such is the story of our love. I’ve always been the peasant boy clinging to the girl who was too good for me. She’s like the ocean tide to my moon. She’s free to flow where she wants, but I’m tethered to the sky. I use what power I have to pull her into me, but I can only hold on for so long before she inevitably slips away to where she belongs.

There’s nothing I can do to stop it. She was meant for greater things, is meant for greater things. I need to let her go. Again.

“I love you, Peter,” she whispers between the tears.

I swallow thickly and force out the words I will mean until my dying day.

“I love you more, Wen. Always.”

The corners of her lips tug up in a trembling, sad smile that shakes me to my core. And then she walks out of my garage and out of my life.