We spent most of the rest of the week together, especially once my night shifts were over and I had a few days off. We went to the movies to criticize Mike’s competition, went for drives, spent time in coffee shops talking about everything under the sun. If I hadn’t been obsessively counting down the days to when Mike would have to leave, it would have been idyllic.

Even worse, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I talked to Mrs. Costner about it, in between listening to her entertaining but somehow vaguely disturbing stories of her seduction of Mr. McAllister. Who, I had to admit, didn’t seem at all averse to being seduced. “If you want something, you should just grab it,” she said to me during one of those conversations, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking figuratively.

Mike’s last night in town, he’d come over to my place with the script for the movie he was working on. “Help me run lines,” he’d said.

We’d just put the niece and nephew to bed—Dad wasn’t much help with that—and Mike had read them a story, with all the voices and acting a five and six year old could ever dream of.

“I don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” I’d laughed at him.

“Just read all the other parts. You don’t have to do any voices or anything, it’s not like storytime.”

“All right,” I’d said doubtfully and read the lines that weren’t highlighted like I was reading the newspaper.

Mike, however, was in full actor mode. Wandering around the room, hands messing up his hair, face contorting with emotion as he spoke or whispered or almost yelled. I put a stop to that last one pretty quick, reminding him that the kids were in bed and I absolutely did not want them up and bugging us on our last night together.

I could see why they liked him so much in Hollywood. Even here, hanging out in my parents’ basement and wearing a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt from our old high school that had seen better days, I believed he was the farm boy turned vigilante. I felt the emotion he wanted me to feel, grew angry along with his anger, and sad with his sadness.

So I guess it was only to be expected that, when he dropped to his knees beside me during a tender emotional scene, once we’d both said our lines, I leaned in and kissed him.

I forgot about the script, forgot about the past and how he was supposed to be earning his way back into my heart. Forgot about everything except the taste of him and how he made my body come alive. I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him onto the couch with me so that I could once again feel him press me against the back of it, his body so hot against mine. His fingers threaded through my hair, cupping my head as if to keep me there forever. Like I’d ever want to stop kissing him.

And then, to my great disappointment, he pulled away and buried his face against my shoulder and I had to be grateful to him for it, because the kiss was enough to make me throw all caution out the window and drag him to my bedroom. After all, I wasn’t a virgin and my body was very loudly reminding me of who it was that had taken that virginity.

Also, of how damn good that had felt.

But he hadn’t let go of me. His shoulders heaved with the force of his breathing, but that hand still cupped the back of my head.

“Mike?” I whispered, though I couldn’t have said what I was afraid of.

“Come with me, Lew,” he whispered back. “Just for a couple of weeks. Come see L.A. See if you might like it there.”

“Why do I need to know if I might like it there?” I asked, a feeling of both dread and excitement growing inside me.

“You don’t feel this? How right we are together?” His lips skated over my cheek, the brush of stubble like fireworks across my skin. He kissed me again and leaned his forehead against mine. “Just for a couple of weeks. I have to go tomorrow. If I don’t, not only do I lose this movie, I could lose my entire career. But don’t you want to see where this can lead? What we have together?” He cupped my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. “I never stopped loving you and the more time I spend with you, the more I realize just how stupid and immature I was then. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me. All I’m asking for is time, just a little more time to show you that I’ve got my head screwed on a little straighter now. Please, Lew.”

Oh, God, what had I done? That kiss, that stupid kiss. Where was that damn padded room when you needed it? “I go away and stay with you for a couple of weeks, what do you think people are going to believe?” I shook my head and reached out to touch his mouth. “I want you, but I don’t trust either of us.”

“The proposal is still open,” he murmured and caught my hand, holding it to his mouth. I felt his lips against my palm and gasped as my whole body reacted. “I swear, I’ll take you to any jewelry store right this instant to pick out wedding rings, just tell me where to go.” He pressed my palm to his cheek and I could feel the corner of his mouth moving against the base of my thumb when he said, “If I hadn’t been an idiot, we’d have been married a couple of years by now.”

We would have—I’d been looking at dates during the next summer. We’d have been coming up on our fourth anniversary soon and I’d have already been planning something special for next year. My body screamed at me to say yes and let him sweep me off my feet, just like a hero in a movie. My heart too, wanted to hear that yes, to live in the sheer joy that he made me feel, but some part of me was still scared. Scared to get out there and be dependent, to knit my life to his and find out later I’d made another terrible mistake. In that way, I was still the same as my high school self, in that I didn’t seem to be able to do anything by half-measures. If I went with him, it was because I was expecting everything and in the process, I’d give him everything. My body, my heart, my time, and my soul.

I needed to think, and in order to do that, I needed him to be gone. “I can’t. I can’t make that decision like this. Not with you here, not with both of us…here.” It was a shitty explanation and I could tell he was confused by it. “If you push me to make that decision right now, then the answer is no.”

“Lew, be reasonable—”

“No,” I said, though even I could hear how my voice shook. “Go home, Mike. Right now, the answer is no. Give me some time, and maybe it’ll change.” I held up a hand to stop whatever it was he was going to say. “I mean it. You know I don’t bluff.”

He took a deep breath and let his head drop, then nodded. “All right. You have my number. My flight leaves at just after one-thirty.”

“I haven’t said I’d go back with you either, even if I do change my mind.” I sat there and stared at him and prayed he’d leave, because my backbone was starting to waver. It would be so easy to just say yes, to fall into his arms and into the fairy tale he promised. But this was the rest of my life we were talking about—it wasn’t a decision I could make with my hormones, no matter how loudly they were shouting at me in the moment. “Mike?”

“Yeah.” He kissed the corner of my mouth and then the palm of my hand and stood up. “I’ll let myself out.”

I waited until I heard the front door close behind him before I ran into my bedroom and stuffed a pillow into my mouth so I could scream out my frustrations without scaring the neighbors. Then I took the longest shower ever recorded and wondered how to figure out what the right choice was.