“I really fucked up.” I pressed my palms against my face, trying to work the feeling back into my skin.

“You did.” Sam didn’t try to make me feel better about it. I had fucked up, royally so. Saying things I didn’t mean, with anger in my words. “What are you going to do to fix it?”

Running a hand down my face, I let out a sigh. “What the hell can I do?”

“Uh, going to her hotel and starting with an ‘I’m sorry’ would be a good start.”

“Oh, thanks. Didn’t think about that.” I shoved him, and he sloshed the beer in his hand. I ignored his glare. “She’s not in her hotel. She checked out, and I don’t even know if she’s still in the country.”

It’d been a week. A week of restless nights, of walking the city for hours at night until I was weak from the cold. If I replayed the conversation we’d had in the pub’s kitchen, all I did was want to wring my own bloody neck. The way she’d looked at me, like she was watching my soul leave my body, was enough to make me hate myself more than I ever had.

I stood up and paced the room. I would torture myself if I kept replaying that scene in the kitchen. If I’d ever doubted her growing feelings for me—which I hadn’t—that moment would’ve cemented them for me. I’d broken her, in a way she didn’t deserve. All because I’d been angry.

Lotte had called me a fucking idiot about a hundred times, but it’d been drowned out by the same words I’d said to myself, over and over, for the last one hundred and sixty-eight hours.

“What if she has left the country, mate?” When I didn’t answer right away, he punched me relatively gently in the arm. “Don’t be stupid. You lost one person you loved, and you didn’t have a choice. Now, you do. You have a choice: to go after her or to lose her.”

The thought made me angry, and I punched him back without trying to cause actual harm to him. “It doesn’t feel like a choice to me.”

“Good.” He settled back against the couch. “Because it’s not. You’re going to find her.”

I nodded, steeling my resolve. “I’m going to find her.”

“How?”

“Google?”

Sam sat up and dropped his feet to the floor. “Look, Ames. I get that Google is the all-powerful vehicle to finding just about anyone in the world, but you’re talking about a country with three-hundred million people in it.”

“How many Mila Sommers can there be?”

Sam pulled out his phone and typed. “Looks like there are a handful on Facebook.”

I scratched my head. “I don’t think she’s on there.”

“What about her brother? Doesn’t he have a blog?”

I pointed at him. “Yes, he does. Search Jude Sommers.”

It took us only about twenty minutes to find him, and less than a minute to find his blog and his email address. As I began composing my email to him, Sam stopped me with a hand to my shoulder.

“What if he’s angry at you, for hurting her? You think he’s going to tell you where she is?”

He had a point. “But I can’t do nothing.” I inhaled deeply, and exhaled, trying to clear my thoughts.

“When is she due to go back to the States?”

I glanced at the calendar on the wall. “Tomorrow. But she could’ve caught an earlier flight for all I know. If I hurt her like I think I did,” I clenched my jaw, “she might’ve left as soon as she could.”

“And where would she have gone?”

“To Jude’s, in Colorado.”

“Look, I’m not suggesting you do something as crazy as fly to Colorado and track Jude down, but, well, I am saying that. An email could be ignored. You need the big gesture. You need to apologize in person. And get on your knees and tell her you love her, and that you were an exceptional arse.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I never said I loved her.”

“Oh, piss off.” He pushed me this time, hard enough to send my phone skidding across the floor. “I’ve known you most of our lives, and I’ve seen you this miserable twice. You don’t look that miserable when the feelings aren’t that deep.” He laughed bitterly, and drained his glass of beer. “Trust me, I know what heartbreak looks like.”

I scrubbed my eyes with my hands, trying to figure out how I was going to wrangle time off from the pub in order to search for Mila in the States. “I don’t know how to begin with her. I don’t know what to say to make it better. I didn’t expect her, wasn’t looking for her.”

“The night you saw her on the bridge, something was different.” Sam set his glass down with a loud thunk. “The look on your face. I know you felt something shift.”

“Because when I saw her, when we made eye contact, the first words that crossed my mind were, ‘There she is.’” It had stunned me then, the words and the feeling just looking at her had elicited in that moment. It was why I’d stopped in my tracks, the reason I’d forgotten how to breathe for a second. “I fought it hard at first. I resented her. And maybe I’d never truly let go of that resentment. I don’t know how else to explain what I said to her.”

“You were scared. Because you love her, and you’ve loved and lost in a way that’s scarred you permanently. But you have to grow the fuck up, and find her. You can’t be afraid, forever.”

“I don’t want to be afraid. And I don’t want to move on without her. That’s…” I shook my head. “It’s not even an option for me.” The air around me since she left felt thicker, like I could choke on it. Had the air been thick like that before she came, and I was too busy taking shallow breaths to notice? I wasn’t sure—the only absolute thing I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to move on without her.

“You should start drafting your apology speech now.”

I sighed, staring blankly at my phone. “How do I apologize to her? How do I tell her I won’t fuck up again?”

“Ames. Come on.” Sam gave me a look like he was trying not to laugh at me. “You will fuck up. Probably hundreds more times. You’ll hurt her and she’ll hurt you.”

“Then what’s the point of promising I won’t?”

“Don’t promise you won’t. That’s the point.” He glanced at his phone. “Jude lives in Highlands Ranch.” Sam turned his screen toward me. “It’s south of Denver.”

“I need to talk to Asher and Lotte. And Jennie, too.”

“I’ll help. With the pub while you’re gone.”

“Thanks,” I told him, and started pulling up flights on my phone.