Minnie wakes up in the middle of the night two nights later, howling about a lion, I think. When she finally settles, snoring in her Pack ‘N Play, I can’t go back to sleep.

I’m at a loss about what to do about Valentine. It’s probably better, in the long run, that it ended up like this earlier rather than later. What were we going to do, move in with each other?

The fantasy hits me so hard I almost feel possessed by it. Valentine’s voice in the kitchen with Minnie. Coming in from the yard after mowing the lawn. They’re eating lunch in the kitchen together, peanut butter sandwiches and crackers with grapes on the side. Valentine’s red hair shines in the afternoon light, in a loose bun at the nape of her neck, and I want so powerfully to twist my fingers through it and set it free from her hair tie that I can practically feel its weight in my hands. For once I don’t have to think about whether or not it’s the right thing to do—I just do it, and Minnie giggles when I kiss Valentine on the neck. I don’t leave her out, either, planting a kiss on her round toddler cheek.

A movement in the yard across the street catches my eye, jolting me out of that impossible vision. It’s ridiculous to spend the time thinking about it. It’s never going to happen. It was never supposed to happen. We agreed to a summer fling. That was all.

The way it turned out anyway should be a lesson to both of us.

I catch another glimpse of the shadow moving toward the lakeshore, back turned to me, and just by the way she’s walking, I know it’s her. Plus, it’s her yard so it would be pretty creepy if some other woman who looked just like her was walking around over there in the middle of the night.

I should just sit here. Or, better yet, go back to bed. I have work tomorrow with Jamie, and I’m going to need to get in extra hours if I’m going to accelerate getting out of Lakewood. That has to be the top priority.

I’m not going to go after her.

Nope.

I make it ten seconds before I’m out of the recliner.

First stop, Minnie’s room. She’s still snoring gently in the moonlight. Next stop, my room. I fire up the baby monitor app on my phone and double check that the app is working and she’s still sleeping. She is. Phone, pocket. Self, door. After Valentine.

By the time I catch up to her, she’s standing down at the narrow beach, a silvery glow caught in her hair from the moon. It takes my breath away.

“Bold move, Ryder Harrison.”

She hasn’t turned her head yet. I thought I was being fairly stealthy, but I guess not.

“What gave me away?”

“The sound of your front door shutting carries.”

“Right.” I move to stand next to her, my bare feet sinking into the sand. “Your parents have a nice property.”

Valentine looks across at me, her eyes shining. “Did you come all this way to talk vacation homes?”

I give her a grin, but the look in her eyes makes my chest ache. “It wasn’t very far.”

She looks back out toward the lake. “No, I guess not.”

There’s a silence between us that’s nothing like the silence as she fell asleep in my arms the other night. This one is tense, prickly, like we’re both waiting for the other person to sink the knife in a little further. I don’t know how it’s come to this since this was never supposed to be anything more than fun, but it has, damn it, and I fucking hate it.

Valentine sighs. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

Under any other circumstance, it would be funny, and I think maybe she meant it to be that way, but I can’t muster a laugh. “I don’t want to stop meeting like this.”

She turns to face me and curls her arms around herself like it’s cold out, even though it still has to be close to eighty degrees in the middle of the night. “I just don’t think I can do it, Ryder. After—” Valentine shakes her head.

“After what I said? I was a prick. I didn’t mean a word of it. It had been a long, terrible day.” The words coming out of my mouth just seem useless. “But those are all excuses. I never should have said that to you, and I’m sorry.” God, even when we’re standing here like this in a deep freeze, I still want her. I want her even if it costs me everything. 

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she says.

A spike of irritation buries itself in the center of my chest. “If you believe me, why won’t you just—” I laugh out loud, but it sounds harsh. “No. Fuck that. You don’t have to forgive me for what I said.”

“You’re not the first person to say that to me.” Valentine turns away again, back toward the water. She can’t look at me. My heart plummets right down to the bottom of my shoes and keeps going until it burns up in the molten core of the earth. The pieces are coming together now—the asshole at the park, the things she told me about Conrad over our first fling-date at the Mexican restaurant.

“Valentine.” I reach for her arm, and she gives my touch a side-eye like I’ve never seen, but she doesn’t flinch away. “You have to know...you have to know I didn’t mean that. I would never have left Minnie with you if I didn’t think you were awesome with kids. She took to you right away. I can’t even imagine how amazing you would be with your own daughter.”

“That’s the thing,” she says, quietly. “All of this—all of this—is happening because Conrad didn’t think I’d be so hot. He told his father what had happened. He ran straight to him when I was...” She glances across at me. “Why am I telling you this now?” Valentine sounds bitter. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.”

“Well, I’ve already started, so—” She blows a breath through her lips. “The reason we broke up was because a couple of weeks ago, I was late. And I told him. I was up-front with him about it because we were a couple, and that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to be able to trust the other person, and—”

“And he decided to drop you like a hot potato.”

She laughs. “That’s a quaint way of putting it.”

“That’s what happened, though?”

Her face goes solemn. “I lost the job. I came back here. And I felt like such a fucking idiot for ever thinking, oh, this might not be the worst thing if I got pregnant.” She looks me straight in the eye. “Turns out, it would have been the worst thing, at least for him.” 

I open my mouth to tell her that it’s not true, that he would have been the luckiest man in the world, but she cuts me off.

“I just need to start over. Completely. Somewhere new. And it can’t be here, Ryder. It can’t be with you.”

I can’t think of anything to say to that. I want to kiss her, but I’m sure she’d stop me, so I just step back and look over the water.

We’re in silence for so long that I think she must be getting ready to make a move, to tell me that she’s changed her mind.

When I turn around to look at her, she’s gone.