It’s going fine. It’s going well, actually. Finn seemed to relax over breakfast, thank God, because I saw how his shoulders stiffened when he opened the door this morning. For good reason, too, because of what an idiot I was at Thanksgiving.

It’s holiday season in Lakewood, which means we can’t park by the library, my next destination. The first spot we find that’s not in the middle of a crowd of drivers is three blocks down, next to the bank.

Finn puts the car in park and turns if off. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

He cracks a smile, and that half-smile sparks a glow in my chest. “Are we really going to do this, Em? You and I both know there’s nothing in that direction but the library.”

I give him a mysterious shrug, pull my hood up, and step out onto the sidewalk.

* * *

The clouds have cleared, blowing away as quickly as they came, and Finn pulls off his hat halfway to the library. His dark hair shines in the sunlight.

“What are we going to read?”

“Read?” I scoff, teasing him. “We’re not reading anything at the library.”

“Are you dragging me to one of those farmer’s markets? I can’t stand those.”

I give him a sidelong look. “I didn’t peg you for a guy who’d hate farmer’s markets.”

“Why, because I own a flannel shirt?” Walking next to Finn is easy. Moving through the world with him is easy. Easier than anything I’ve ever known, and right now, I’m torn. It was a mistake to give him up…and it might be a mistake to be here.

“You don’t like to choose your own vegetables?”

He glances over, blue eyes picking up the sunlight and reflecting it back to me. “The people at the market always want to chat.”

“Is that a bad thing? Should I stop talking?”

“Don’t,” he says with a low laugh. “If you’re going to keep showing up here at random and dragging me out into public, you’d better not give me the silent treatment.”

“Okay. What’s the deal with the market, then?”

Finn sighs, flicking his eyes up to the suddenly blue sky. “Too many people asking questions.”

“About what?”

“About you.”

My breath catches in my throat. “No, they don’t.”

“You’d be surprised, Em. Everybody here still remembers when we were an item.” He shakes his head. “To them, it’s like no time has passed.”

“What’s it like to you?”

He looks at me, slowing his pace. “A thousand years.”

* * *

There’s a silence between us, and the gentler wind, cars driving by, tires crunching against the snow, fills it in. It lasts until the next crosswalk.

“What about you?” Finn says, while he checks both ways for oncoming traffic. He strides out into the crosswalk and I follow. “What has it seemed like to you?”

I consider. “Too much time and not enough. Law school…” I search for the words to describe it. “There was always something more I should be doing. The study groups alone took up hours every week, and even when I swore to myself I’d go to bed early, I never did.” The exhaustion had settled in around the back of my neck, a yoke I could never break free from. It was one I hardly felt until the day I graduated and all of it lifted.

“Did you like it?” Finn’s voice is sincere, questioning. There’s a lot we haven’t talked about, but it feels more natural by the moment.

“There were parts I loved.” The lectures. God, the lectures. It made me feel energized to sit in the lectures, as bizarre as that sounds. I’d sit there soaking it all in, a grand fantasy playing out in the front of my mind. “There were parts I could have done without. I thought it would be better once I had a job at a firm.”

“It’s not better?”

Shame rises in my throat. This isn’t what I meant to admit to Finn—not again. “It’s better. That’s not what I meant to say.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” I’m not a huge fan of the way he’s pushing me now. Especially because he’s right. “Now I get paid for what I do. It’s a million times better.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t believe me?” My voice is rising along with my mood. I shouldn’t care so much about this. It’s one conversation, with Finn, for God’s sake. He’s not the enemy. I know that. It just doesn’t feel like it.

He seems to sense that this is all going a little far. “I believe you, Em. Of course I do.” Finn steps closer to me on the sidewalk so that our sleeves brush together, and my irritation melts into the slush on the edges of the sidewalk. “I’m curious about you. It’s been a long time since we were together. Like this,” he adds on to the end of his sentence, but it doesn’t matter. My heart is already pounding.

It has been a long time since we were together. That doesn’t bode well for what’s to come. God, I need more time. I need time to figure him out, to see if there’s still that spark there.

No—not a spark. There will always be a spark between me and Finn. Thanksgiving proved that. What I’m looking for are embers. The kind that don’t burn out, no matter what you throw at them—wind, rain, snow. They keep burning steadily through day and night, and with a little tending, you can get them to last for months and months.

“Surprise,” I say as the library comes into view. “This is my plan for the next hour.”

“Wandering around the library?”

I shake my shoulders to try and get a handle on my nerves. “Don’t be dense, Finn. This is an event.”

“What kind of event?”

“You’ll see.”