I sit up, belt my robe around me. Mitch doesn’t say anything, but when I open my mouth to speak, he holds up a hand.

“You want to be careful what you say to me right now,” he says slowly. “I’ve been up and down too many times with you, and I don’t like it.”

“But—”

“Hear me out.” He runs both hands through his hair this time. No wonder it’s always such a wreck, I think, my heart swelling with tenderness. “You’ve been giving me this ‘let’s be friends’ line almost from day one. And—”

“I—”

“I said hear me out.”

I shut up. It’s the least I can do. Let him get it out, I think. Then we’ll see what’s what.

He lets out a long breath, and starts again. “And I told you I was fine with that—and I would be—except that you’ve been looking at me like you could eat me up with a spoon for a long time. Since the night we were introduced, actually. And you just admitted that you have been feeling that way.”

I nod.

“So one day we’re out on a date, kissing at Jacks, and the next day you want to be friends, and the next day you’re looking at me like you’re trying to take my clothes off with your mind. And I’m trying—I am honestly trying—to do whatever it is you want or need, because I like you. I want to hang out with you, and it has nothing to do with wanting to get in your pants or anything like that. You want to be friends? Cool. I’m a great friend.

“But it’s just up and down on the rollercoaster with you, all the time. Every time you let your guard down with me, I find out something new about you, and my feelings for you get more complicated—and then you turn ice-cold, or push me away. And then you’re right back to staring at me. My other friends don’t look at me like that, Jenna.

“And then somehow I’m sitting in some shitty half-assed park in SoHo, listening to you tell me you fucked your ex-boyfriend, and you want me to—what? Commiserate? Come over and watch When Harry Met Sally? Bring you Ben & Jerry’s?”

I touch his arm, and he shifts out of reach.

“And I decide, okay, I’m out. I mean, come on. But then there you are, every time I turn around for three straight days. Calling, and inviting me down to the bar, and smiling and putting your hand on my knee. That’s not even mixed signals, Jenna. That’s just … signals.”

I nod again.

“And you want to make me dinner. Okay, fine. I know I said I was done, but maybe what … what happened made you figure something out? Maybe—I don’t know what. But I come here—against my better judgment—and we have dinner, and you sit there and you look at me, and I think Okay, she’s in this, look at how she looks at me. You tell me all this personal stuff, and you bought my movie on eBay, and I’m like, Yeah, she’s in. And you were. I’m not stupid. You were. But you got sick—really sick, not the make-believe kind you use to get away from me—and I think, well, damn. But it’s no big. We’ve got time.

“But when I come back it’s…. Whatever that was I thought I saw? It’s gone. You’re cool on the phone. You don’t want to see me right away. Whatever I might have thought before I left, you are definitely not in anymore. And I think, did I imagine that? Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. So okay, let’s try this just friends thing again. Back on the fucking roller coaster.”

Listening to him recount the story of us from the other perspective is kind of sickening. I’m not that person. I certainly never meant to be that person.

“And then you act … how you acted at Jacks earlier. You want to be around me, but you keep your distance. You look at me when you don’t know I can see you looking, and there’s something in your eyes again—that thing I saw the first night I met you. I can’t walk away from that broken look in your eyes. I don’t know why, but I just can’t.”

That makes my heart beat even faster, and it was already pretty much beating out of my chest. I open my mouth to say something—I don’t even know what—but he stands up abruptly and starts pacing the five steps in front of the chaise.

“And then you call me up in the middle of the night and tell me we can’t be fucking friends anymore? You need clarity. You need to focus, whatever the hell that means. But by the way, you want to know if I’m seeing anyone.

“And I come over here even though I figure by the time I get here you’ll be all closed off again and I’ll leave just as confused as ever—but instead I get here and you want—” He comes to a stop in front of me and takes another of those deep breaths. “And no way am I going there with you. It’s not that I don’t want you. I’ve wanted you since that very first night, when I saw you for the first time. And I saw how you were struggling, and you were brave, and you were vulnerable—and I knew, I knew from that first second that nothing would be easy with you, Jenna—but I wanted you. And you wanted me too, even though you kept telling me—and yourself—that you didn’t. I saw how you looked at me. I figured you’d come around. So I was patient. I’ve been patient until I had a hard time looking at myself in the mirror.

“And I just can’t anymore. I’m done. It’s like you’re carrying my balls around in one of your little designer purses, and I’m done with it. I’m not going to bring you picnics, and take you to the movies, and watch you out of the corner of my eye looking at me like you’re hungry, and then pushing me away. I’m not just going to keep coming back, hoping you’ll be over your ex, or willing to tell me whatever the hell is going on in your head, or maybe—crazy thought—ready to actually take a stab at seeing if there’s something going on between us. I can’t do it.”

“Okay,” I say.

“I’m dead serious. Whatever it is about you that’s under my skin, I’ll find a way to scratch it out. I’m not doing this again.” He sits heavily next to me, looks straight ahead. “And I’m not doing … this. Not until I know where you’re at. So tell me now—are you in or out, Jenna?”

I weigh my options, try to decide what to tell him, how much to tell him.

And I realize it has to be all of it. Even the parts that make me sound crazy, which I guess I kind of am.

“You’re right about almost all of it,” I say. “Except the last bit. I was looking at you like I was hungry—because I was. At Jacks tonight … I didn’t leave because I was playing games with you, or because I went cold. I had to leave because I didn’t want to betray Kari. Because I would never hurt her that way.”

He just blinks at me, like he literally can’t even understand where the conversation just went. “What does Kari have to do with any of this?”

“I just thought … you know. Maybe. I didn’t know, I thought—well, you might be … something.”

His brows draw together and he just looks at me for a moment. Probably trying to figure out what the hell I’m talking about. I mean, honestly, that was gibberish.

Then the light dawns. “You mean you thought—Kari and me?”

I nod.

“Is that why you asked me earlier if I was in bed with someone?”

I nod again.

He shakes his head. “Kari and I are friends. Just friends. And not the way you do it—I mean really just friends.”

“I know,” I say. “I know now—because you wouldn’t lie to me. But I thought … when you took her to Fan Club Weekend—”

“No, it wasn’t like that. Luis and I were talking about it, that morning at breakfast, after you—” He clenches his jaw, and chooses not to finish the sentence, which is just fine with me. “And she was kind of down about how she’d never gone, and I thought it would cheer her up and be a fun time for her. She stayed with friends at the event hotel, and I crashed with one of the other actors at his place.”

“I get that. But that’s not what I saw at the time.”

“Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Because I was sure I already knew.”

He sighs. “I’m glad that you’re so sure now, but what happens the next time you get some crazy idea in your head?”

“You’ll talk me out of it?”

He lifts his eyebrows at me.

“Okay, okay.” I scrub my hands over my face. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right. I should have asked you. If I ever doubt you again, about anything, I’ll ask you, okay? But right now? I’m telling you that this”—I gesture with one finger, from me to him and back again—“I want to figure out what this is. I want you to help me figure out what this is.”

“If you want someone to help you figure out how you feel about me, you might want to think about asking someone other than me. I have a lot invested in the answer.”

“You do?”

“I do,” he says. “Since the beginning.”

“Why?”

He shrugs a little. “Because you were hurting, and trying so hard to act like it was no big deal. Because you’re smart, and strong, and you’re forgiving even when people aren’t great to you, and you tell awesome stories and you make me laugh and … I don’t know. I honest to God don’t know. You hit me like a bolt of lightning. Maybe sometimes there’s no reason. Maybe the reason is just because. Because I do.”

He runs both hands through his hair again. It’s a complete disaster, and I’ve never liked it so much as I do right now. I reach out and smooth it down a little, and this time he doesn’t pull away from me.

“You didn’t answer me earlier,” he says.

“I didn’t?”

“Are you in or out?”

I let out a breath that I feel like I’ve been holding for two weeks. “I’m in.”

He’s quiet for a moment, then: “Are you sure?”

“One thousand percent,” I say. “I’m in. I’ve been in, I just didn’t know it.” I lean forward and put my hands on his knees. “Look at me.”

He does, and his eyes are amber in the dim light of my living room.

“I’m in this, okay? Everything that’s gone wrong, every stupid misunderstanding—they’re all on me. They were all me, trying to tick off all the boxes on that checklist you threw in my face at Angela’s. I don’t care about any of that anymore. I will not mess this up again. I won’t keep secrets, and I won’t doubt you.” I kiss him, softly. “I’m all in.”

There’s a long moment where I’m not sure what he’ll do. Then he lets out a long, slow breath, and rests his forehead against mine. “I thought you would drive me completely crazy. You almost did.”

“I know I did, and I’m sorry. This is our reset button, okay? We start over, right now.” I stroke his shoulders, rub the back of his neck. “You can stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

And I see it. I can literally see the weight of uncertainty drop off his shoulders, feel them relax under my hands. Has he been carrying that this whole time?

“So now what?” he asks. “I’ve got my trip with Luis—”

“Go,” I say. “You should go on your trip. We have time. But…”

“But?”

I sit up, and untie the knot in the belt of my bathrobe. “You said Luis is driving tomorrow?”

“That’s right.” His eyes are on my hands as I pull the robe open and let it drop off my shoulders.

“So you can sleep on the way up?”

“I can,” he says.

“Good.” I reach out and start to unbutton his shirt, and at last I understand how wonderful these snaps are. One hard pull and the whole thing is open. I trail my fingertips down his chest and over his stomach. “Because you’re not getting any sleep tonight.”