“I’m sorry Robin. This sucks.”

Royce throws his buzzing cellphone to the seat where it hits with a solid thunk. “All I wanted was to show you the Eiffel Tower. And now it looks like we won’t even be able to exit this limo. This is not what I had in mind for our last days together. Crap. So sorry.”

Royce looks more than upset, he looks positively tortured as he motions to the phone, acting like he now finds it offensive. “And before you say your bright-sided comments about how it’s cool and how you don’t care, let me just tell you that Gregory’s just nixed our outing to the Louvre tomorrow.” He glowers over at me. “So, your dream trip to Paris stops now.” He flings his arms wide. “Here we are in the most romantic city in the world, with some of the best art in the world that you need to see, that you’ve dreamed to see, and thanks to someone leaking our whole damn schedule—we’re now prisoners.”

Though he just told me not to say this, I blurt out, “It really is okay, Royce.”

I paste on a smile as his glower darkens, all while my heart sinks with my own disappointment because—I really wanted to see all of my dream things with him—because these are our last days together—because I’d heard we were going to have a photo-opportunity-kiss on top of the Eiffel Tower.

And because I really wanted that darn kiss.

When he doesn’t answer, only looks more distraught, I blab on hoping I can make him feel better. “Look. Paris is not going anywhere, and like I’ve said all along, I’m happy just hanging around with you. Besides, now that my father is truly okay I have new perspective on life and patience. Everything is amazing. Perfect. My life-long-goals of checking to see if the paint on the Eiffel tower is really a gradient brown paint that’s darker on the bottom and lighter on the top?” I shrug. “That now seems so trite and silly. I’ll just take the Internet’s word for that.”

His stony expression lightens some as he recovers his phone, glancing sideways at me. “I love your odd, artist-girl meets city-tour goals.” He laughs, shaking his head at me. “That’s why you wanted to see the tower? Is it really gradient paint?”

I waggle my brows as I point out the window at the Eiffel Tower’s top which is visible in the distance. “It could be urban myth. Who knows. And of course that’s not the only reason I wanted to see it.” I evade his gaze—avoid looking down at the sexy lip twisty smile he’s giving me. “Someday, I will come back and climb those metal steps and see the sparkle-lights and eat crepes while staring up at it, and buy some horrible souvenirs, because those are other good reasons to see it, as well.” I pull a face. “Maybe during my years at art school I’ll come back. Yeah, like when I’ve studied the history of it more. That’s when it will be much more meaningful. People say, Paris is lost on today’s young people, because we don’t study history enough.”

“They do? Who says that?” His brow furrows.

I shrug. “You know—those—people who say all of the stuff.” We both laugh then, as I go on, “Heck, maybe I’ll get to come here a lot. I heard my art school has a year exchange program where you can go to art school in Paris. Maybe I’ll do that and then I can pace myself. See everything when I’m not…”

I stop because his face has frozen on this wounded expression. The laughter he’d found just a second ago is gone, and now he looks…haunted? Depressed?

What?

Before I can ask him, he finishes my sentence for me. “When you’re not married? When you’re not attached to the Guarderobe noose? When you can actually see monuments without being screamed at and chased away by strangers? Maybe it’s for the best, then.” He leans back and groans, running both hands through the hair on top of his head. “I hope you do come back, Robin. I really hope you do.” His sigh is so heavy I could swear he’s taken every ounce of air that’s inside the limo cab and sucked it into his lungs.

He seems to get himself together some, and glances up at me again, adding, “Sorry. I know I’m acting crazy. It’s the first time you have taken the ‘we’ out of our future. I—guess it sort of caught me off guard.” He sighs again. “I was wondering if, or when, you were ever going to bring up what happens to your life after…this. After us.” He winces and looks away. “After your father takes you home. Have you thought about it? About where you will go? What home base will be yours? I’ve been patiently waiting but as you know, I’m not very good at patience. Do you have a…p-plan?”

I shake my head a little, because I haven’t thought about it.

I’ve refused to think about it.

How can I tell Royce that every time I try imagining this ‘life after us’ it all seems completely unthinkable.

Should I bring up how I don’t want to be without him?

Should I mention that I’m so in love with him right now that I can’t picture this ‘equation’ as he called it without both of us inside of it? Should I tell him that his verbalization of my father taking me ‘home’ plus me imagining touring the Eiffel Tower ‘some other year’ and without my favorite tour guide, has made my chest hurt like someone threw a sand-bag into it, which is why I’ve got no answer for him right now?

Like before, I somehow manage to paste on a smile and add in a little laugh. “I guess you’re probably looking forward to be getting rid of me. Old ball and chain—I’m so high maintenance. Now you won’t have to see all the sights in each city all over again. And just…imagine all of the free time you will suddenly have.”

He shakes his head, ‘no’ but doesn’t say more, only squints up past the driver as though he’s checking the unmoving traffic through the front window.

When the silence stretches from awkward to painful between us, and the limo still can’t get out of the gridlock, I finally add quietly, “Mrs. Felix says you and I need to stay married for a year or so at least. She has offered for the three of us—me, Dad and Sage, to stay next year in the apartment you and I set up in NYC.”

“I’d heard that.” He’s grown completely still and I can’t tell if he likes or hates this idea. “Will you?”

“Well, your grandmother thinks that would be a good basecamp for the year while we let the rumor mill start up. Should you need to go home, while we’re staying in our newlywed-apartment, your grandmother would keep smaller apartment next to her penthouse, just as it was before we were married. Then you could pretend to,” I pause to make quote marks. ‘visit me at our place’ but then simply live upstairs when you’re in New York. You know—so you won’t be bothered by our mundane day-to-day stuff that will go on—like. Sage will be just hanging around doing homework and like I think Dad will have to be going to a therapist and doing some physical therapy nearby VA hospital for a while. I would assume he can’t go back work right away, and of course I’ll just be busy with my own school work, too.”

“What about the dorms? Won’t you live in the dorms how you wanted?”

“Well.” I wink at him. “Our place has the amazing art studio you made for me and, it’s just right near the school, so it would be wasted…and…so…”

He nods, those electric eyes of his are shuttered in that way that I hate as he’s painting me with thoughts I can’t read.

“So….yeah. If it’s okay with you…I’d try to convince Dad to stay there until Sage was done with at least one year high school and until our divorce goes through. He will insist on paying your grandmother rent, though.” I sigh out. “As for the dorms, I guess I won’t feel comfortable about moving into any dorms until I’m sure my dad is…really and truly okay. I’m sort of worried he’s going to have some sort of PTSD or need me.” I shrug, keeping my voice cool and steady, my eyes trained on his sculpted, unmoving profile. “Gregory and Adam think it’s pretty cut and dry. They say time will pass quickly, and Vere says there’s tons of ways to start the rumor mill about our breakup that could speed things along, if we want it to all go faster.”

One of his brows goes high. “Does Vere have it all planned out then?”

“Not planned, but she and I chatted through some plausible scenarios. Like…you could suddenly stop visiting. Start partying, going out every night to fancy, high-profile night clubs and—and, then…you’d wind up staying in your place in Los Angeles too much—going to events without me. Appearing on red carpets and in restaurants with other ‘beautiful, notable stars.”

“You mean, bring back the Royce Devlin bad-boy, rockstar image?”

“Yeah.” I shrug again. “Like what happened with Katy Perry’s ex-husband. Remember that jerk? You could drop a couple of lines to the press—about how I don’t fit in with your crazy life, how we are in love but it’s often not a match to be married to a quiet painter who should be living in the college dorms. One who is pretty young and immature compared to you, because all of that is pretty darn true right?” He nods almost curtly, then looks away from me, analyzing the traffic jam again. “And…yeah…somewhere in the middle of all of that you will eventually land a girlfriend somewhere, and make your affair all public and yeah.”

“While you do what, exactly? Did you and Vere think up the other side of this scenario?”

I sigh, and decide it will be easier to tell him the truth than make up fake smiles and bullshit about what I will be doing when our relationship is over. “While I smile through my tears of course. Because I can’t pretend letting go of Royce Devlin, my first husband…is going to be easy.”

He frowns, looking over at me finally. “But you aren’t going to really cry, are you? I mean, you should be happy, right?”

Now it’s my turn to look away and stare at the traffic, because I really am probably going to cry, but I’m not going to tell him that. Instead I say, “Royce. All of this and you, has made me the luckiest, happiest person in the world. I will be having my cake—and eating it too. Going to school, being around my dad while he recuperates, all while Sage gets to go to one of the best college prep schools in the nation? What’s to cry about, right? And, maybe it sounds selfish for me to admit this, but I’ll be missing…I’ll miss…”

“What?”

My chest tightens, as his beautiful gaze locks onto mine and that’s where I start lying again—because I don’t want to tell him that I’ll be missing him.

Him!

Instead, I start babbling, “I will miss this crazy summer. Limos…and…yeah.” I motion around the limo. “You get to live like this all the time but I’m still not used to any of this. I can imagine it’s going to be really hard to go back to driving my old Subaru around, that’s for darn sure. Sage won’t know how to use a microwave anymore, and he’ll be staring at the door expecting room service to just appear with fancy cold cuts.”

I force out a laugh continuing on, “Although…one bright spot in all of this break-up stuff is that it will be nice to be able to visit the Perino family in Orlando so soon. Mrs. Perino is beside herself happy about this break up as is Angel completely relieved all went so well. I want my dad to meet them in person as quickly as possible, so I’m already planning how me, Sage and my dad will fly there to collect my car and then we will drive it back to New York. Maybe we will make a week-long trip there around Labor Day. I was kind of planning and thinking, if my dad retires or can’t work anymore, that he’d feel at home in one of the small towns around Orlando. Either way, I will finally get to take Sage to Universal Studios and into Disney World like I’ve always promised him.” I blink up at him, wondering what in the heck I just said.

“That will be nice.”

His eyes skate off of mine and when he sighs it seems twice as heavy as his last sigh. “Gregory misses Mrs. Perino so much. I think we will all be paying some visits to Orlando in the near future. I can’t imagine Mrs. Perino without her farm, can you?”

I think of the wonderful older woman who sheltered Sage and I when we ran away. Think of her gorgeous little mini-farm, and the cottages in the back that hold her family’s whole heart. “You’re right. There’s no way she’d leave that farm, but as long as he doesn’t expect her to sell it, I also think she’d be happy to travel around with him how you and I did this summer. She’s from Italy. It would be so great for Gregory go there with her.”

I suddenly feel sad because Royce doesn’t even know the deeper parts of the Perino’s sad story. Doesn’t know how amazing Angel and Mrs. Perino truly are…but it’s not my story to tell. Besides, if his uncle Gregory is really going to marry Mrs. Perino, which is the way I think things are going to go between those two, then eventually, Royce will know everything. Most probably, as time passes, Royce and Adam will wind up better friends than Royce is with me right now.

And if I can convince my father to go down there and stay…then maybe…just maybe…I can still…somehow…be part of…

Royce leans over and tugs at one of my curls, and I could swear he’s reading my mind as he continues, “And…maybe…once everything is sorted…maybe we will cross paths down there quite a bit? I’m pretty sure my uncle is going to propose to her. And of course if that’s the case, you will all go to the wedding, right? So I’ll see you then, at the very least, right?”

I nod, and his face is suddenly so closed off I wonder at the expression he’s trying to hide from me.

Suddenly he’s dropped my curl and he’s staring around the room at every single thing that’s as far away from where I’m sitting as possible.

“Hey.” I put my hand out and squeeze his forearm. “Are you okay? Did I say something wrong, because I’m just trying to make it sound easy…and fun, so if I popped off in the wrong direction and somehow hurt your feelings by discussing all of these possible scenarios with you then, I’m sorry. We can do how I exit here in million other ways.” I squeeze his arm tighter when, still he won’t look at me and I whisper, “Whatever we pick, I’m afraid that what’s ahead for our breakup might be way harder than we’re planning.”

“Shit. Robin…I don’t even want to think about it because…I’m afraid, too…”

“Afraid of what?”

“I’m afraid of what your brother said to me the other night. That we will wake up and it will seem as though we dreamed all of this.”

“But that’s how passing time works. Right? Like…sometimes I try to remember my life before our mom took off, and I can’t remember any of it. Not even how her faced looked, you know?”

“I do know, because that has started happening to me with how I remember my mom, and it’s only been six months. Which is why…yell yes, I am afraid. Do you know that book, the one where the monster says, ‘there’s a monster at the end of this book’ and then he begs everyone not to turn the page?”

“I love that book.”

“Well, I want to scream for the page not to turn, and I hate that it’s turning anyhow.” He leans back throwing his head against the seat. “We will be friends forever after this, won’t we? Say it, because all of the plans we’d come up with involved at least two years, but in less than one week, your father is going to take you home and…shit, I don’t know how to deal with idea that it will all suddenly be over. Because, it has been so… fun, right?”

“Yes. And don’t worry about that. You and I…we’re bonded forever.” I smile at him. “We will,” I insist, but I know I’m trying to convince myself way more than I’m trying to convince him.

He shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. “I’m glad we talked about it some without Sage in the room, though. Not talking about it was killing me.”

“Me, too.”

I also lean back against the seat, trying to hold with my idea that this conversation is not a big deal. Only, now that he’s said it all out loud, the image of me, walking away from him forever is about to swallow me up, so I change the subject. “Well, going forward, let’s try to keep it in the moment—how we’ve always done,” I suggest. “Like…I wanted to see Paris with you, and maybe we can still do that a little. We can stay in this limo and drive around all night. How about that for not turning the page?”

“How about great idea!” He looks over at me, eyes going from sad and unreadable to mischievous. His smile is so beautiful I just soak it in, because it’s just for me.