I loved her. I knew that much for certain.

I was uncertain about everything else.

Kit Lomber called that very morning, right as Everly was slipping out the back door to go home to her new house. I held my phone in my hand, praying he’d call right back as soon as I kissed her goodbye.

He did. “Gabriel!” he shouted into my ear after I’d said hello.

“Mr. Lomber—”

“Told you ages ago, call me Kit. Mr. Lomber is my dad!” Kit was old enough to actually be my dad, but he didn’t like it when I reminded him of that fact.

“Right, Kit. How’s it going?”

“That’s the question I should be asking you, isn’t it?” he boomed. “We’ve got almost the whole crew ready and on stand-by. Location scouts are out doing their thing. The only thing that’s up in the air right now is when the star of the show is gonna be ready to start filming.”

I swallowed and hurried up the stairs to my room, shutting the door behind me. This felt like a call I needed to have in private, but I realized I’d made a mistake in coming back up here the second I glanced at the bed.

The bed, rumpled from a night spent loving Everly.

Even when I closed my eyes, I could see it. It was burned into my retinas like an afterimage of the sun. “Um,” was all I could say to Kit.

“You’re on the mend for sure,” he said. “I can hear it in your voice. You sound much stronger.”

“Yeah,” I wavered. “I’m doing better.” That rumpled bed was like an accusing finger pointed in my face. 

“Gabe, level with me.” When Kit called me by my nickname, that was when things got serious. His buddy-buddy-heart-to-heart chats set my teeth on edge on a good day, and today, in spite of how it had started, was turning out to not be a very good day. “I’m hearing a lot of hesitation here,” he went on. “I understand if you want to take a step back. You’ve earned it. But—and correct me if I’m not remembering this right—I distinctly recall you telling me you were excited to come back to the show. You told me that you—hang on, I wrote this down because I thought it’d make a great tagline for the season. You told me, ‘I almost died. Now I’m ready to really start living.’” 

I sucked in my breath to hear my own arrogant words read back to me. I’d said them when I was stuck in the sunroom, confined to the hospital bed. I’d called Kit, practically begging him to set a date for me to return, and I even started marking the days off on a pad of paper like a convict marks the prison wall. Those were dark days.

My days were full of light now. 

“I said that,” I exhaled. “I remember.”

“So level with me, buddy. Why the hesitation? Are you still hurting? I don’t want you pushing yourself to heal too fast. You know we expect you to be back in top physical condition once we start filming.”

Right then and there, he gave me an out. I could buy myself some time to figure out what the hell came next. 

And to figure out if Everly loving me meant I could convince her to come along for the ride. 

I let myself think that nice thought for only a moment before I pushed it from my brain. Like hell Everly would leave with me. She had school and her work, and she’d rented that house with Rachel. I loved that she was building a life on her terms. What right did I have to make her live it on mine?

I sucked in another deep breath and tried to pitch my voice as melancholy. “It’s pretty much exactly that, Kit,” I sighed. “I overdid it in physical therapy—trying so hard to get back into top physical condition, you know—and I fucked up my ankle.” This was all true. He didn’t need to know that I was describing something that happened weeks ago. “I’m limping pretty bad, buddy, and I need—”

“More time. I hear you.” I could imagine him nodding gravely. “Well, Gabe, I’m disappointed, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Luckily you’ve got a magician like me on your side.” His casual boasting made me grin in exasperation. “I’ll take care of smoothing out schedules, but you gotta do something for me.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said automatically.

“You gotta give me a date.”

“A date?” I stalled. 

“Right. A concrete date I can give them so we don’t mess with the crew’s schedules like this again. Give me the date you’re gonna be all healed up and ready to go.”

I paced in a tight circle, feeling trapped. A concrete date? “Um…give me a month.”

Kit tsked. “Damn, buddy. You’re really putting me in a bind here. I can do two weeks?”

“A month,” I insisted. “Give me a solid month to heal up.”

“That puts us out to the twenty-fourth? That’s a Sunday. I’ll send the plane for you on that Friday the twenty-second.” There was a curt finality in his voice. “I’ll let the crew know.”

“Thanks,” I said. 

But he had already hung up.

“Fuck!” I shouted and hurled my phone at the rumpled bed. That was twenty-eight days. Twenty-eight days with Everly before I handed her a bomb and asked her to be happy about it.

The way I figured it, I had two options. I could tell her right now, give her time to prepare, and run the risk of her breaking things off with me prematurely. What sane girl wanted to go steady with a time limit?

My other option was to keep quiet as long as I could and let us both enjoy the time we had left without worrying about the future. Of course, if I did that, I ran the risk of her hating me for not giving her a choice. 

Funny how neither risk was one I wanted to take. 

That night, when I called Everly after her shift, she apologized about not being able to hang out. “Remember I told you I wanted to take Rachel out?” she said as my heart fell. “That was tonight. I definitely told you, right?”

I blew out an explosive sigh. “Yeah, baby, you did,” I promised her. 

“I can cancel,” she offered. “You sound weird. What’s up?”

The last thing I needed was to stay home tonight. After Kit’s call, I’d paced around the house so much that Beau got all concerned and Finn started throwing things at me. Spending the night without my girl seemed too much to ask. “I’m fine,” I told her. “I’m just feeling cooped up.”

“You know, we’d love to have you come out, but...” Her voice trailed off. 

“But?” I prompted. 

She gave a nervous laugh. “I’ve sort of built up the wonders of alcohol to the point where Rachel is insisting I take her to a bar. She’s in her room getting ready right now.” Everly dropped her voice conspiratorially. “You know, for a girl who spent her life dressed in what amounts to a burlap sack, she’s got amazing fashion sense.”

I wasn’t thinking about Rachel. I was still stuck on what she’d said before. “You’re headed to a bar? Which one?”

“Crown Tavern, of course. Is there any other decent bar in this town?”

“You mean…” Now it was my turn to drop my voice. “The place where we met.”

She made a little “oh” sound. “Shit, Gabe, I guess I figured that—”

“No, I know, baby. I know.” Inside I was practically vibrating with the idea of it. To sit at the table with them while they drank was a huge risk to my sobriety.

It was exactly the kind of risk I needed right now. One I knew I could take and win. “If it’s okay with you, I’d still love to come out. Someone’s got to take care of you two naughty girls.”

She laughed. “Please. A wallflower and a girl who recently escaped a cult? Naughty is not the word I’d use.” Then her voice took on a distinctly naughty tone. “You know I want to see you,” she purred. “But it’s not fair to make Rachel be a third wheel.”

“I’ll bring someone for her,” I interjected. 

“Who?”

“I’ve got way too many brothers. You pick.”

“Hmm. She already met Beau the day you guys helped us move, so she might be more comfortable with him versus Finn, who’s a bit—”

“Of a prickly asshole,” I finished. “You got it. I’ll meet you there.”

I hung up the phone, feeling that buzzy excitement again. Maybe it wasn’t jumping out of an airplane, but it was a risk all the same. A tiny one. One I could totally handle, especially with Everly there.