It’s been two days. Two long days. This guy gets up at the crack of ass and marches in here to start work every damn morning and it’s killing me. I haven’t been able to sleep much at night. Somehow I can only fall asleep around four or five in the morning so I need him to not wake me up at nine. But that’s what he’s done for the last two days. And it’s only going to get worse. He’s spent the last two days clearing the rooms of belongings and pulling down the wallpaper in the bathroom, but eventually he’s going to start knocking down walls and my sleep, and any sense of quiet, will be gone. I feel like him being here, ruining my chance at peaceful mourning, is the universe kicking me while I’m down. That and the sleep deprivation is making me feel like a cornered animal all the time.

He steps onto the porch at almost six in the evening and glances over at me. His silvery eyes land on my wineglass. “Wine o’clock again, huh?”

I ignore the comment. “Done for the day?”

“Yep. Fair warning. Tomorrow is the last day before demo. Then it’ll start getting loud and dusty in here.” He opens the door and leaves without giving me a chance to respond. He probably assumes I’ll complain, and he’s right.

I sigh and watch him go. When he closes the door of his trailer, I stand up and head inside. I have to eat something. I’m not doing enough of that. Cooking has always been a passion, since I was a little kid. But now it feels like a chore. I head into the kitchen, there are boxes piled up everywhere so my path is a long, meandering one. I open the fridge and stare inside. I could make a grilled cheese. I could whip up a salad. I sigh, sip my wine and give up, grabbing a jar of spicy mustard out of the fridge and reaching for the bag of pretzels on top of it.

I head back to the porch, sit down, dip a pretzel into the mustard and pop it into my mouth. I can hear Holden banging around inside his trailer. He’s playing music—Foo Fighters—and he must have made dinner because the scent of something tomato-y and garlicky wafts through the screens. I glare at my pretzel. “Why can’t you be pasta primavera?”

A car drives slowly up the street and I wonder if he’s expecting company? Having someone over to share that delicious-smelling dinner? A woman? My brain jumps there immediately. I have to be honest with myself, Holden Hendricks is a great-looking man. It would make sense that he has a girlfriend. I mean, some girls like the bad boys. They feel like they can love them into behaving better. I’ve never been that woman.

But when the car door opens, it’s Ty who steps out. The pretzel in my hand drops to the floor. I stand up. He doesn’t know I’m here, I haven’t bothered to turn on the lights and the porch is shrouded in darkness. And for a brief, crazy moment, I ponder ducking down and hiding until he goes away. But he came all the way here from Toronto, I doubt he’ll go away.

He starts toward the porch, but his head is turned toward the trailer. I put down my wineglass. “What are you doing here?”

That finally gets his head to swing toward me. He finds me, or probably just a dark shadowed outline of me, on the porch and starts to climb the stairs. “I came to get you back.”

I wish those words made me feel good and loved and gave me hope, but they don’t. “Ty, I don’t want to work through this.”

He opens the screen door. “I can’t believe that.”

“You’re going to have to,” I reply and glance at his car. “You came all the way back from Toronto?”

He nods. “I can’t just walk away. I’m not going to let you.”

Oh God. Why is this happening? He’s standing in front of me, looking anguished. Guilt floods me. “I’m sorry, Ty. I handled it poorly. I know that. But I still know that it’s the right decision. We can’t be together anymore.”

“I begged for your forgiveness. I quit my job so I wouldn’t even work with her anymore. I let you move to San Francisco without me. I put up with all your tears and mood swings and—”

“Let me move? Put up with me?” All the guilt I was feeling turns to dust and is replaced with the strongest sense of validation I think I’ve ever felt in my life. “When did you become that guy? The one who thinks being in a relationship means you control another person’s actions? That you have the right to give me permission like you’re my parent, not my partner?”

“That’s not what I meant!” he yells, but it’s exactly what he said. “When did you become the girl who walks away from a decade-long relationship in a fucking airport line?”

“When my dad died. When my life became too hard. When I decided I couldn’t lie to myself anymore,” I yell back. “I can’t trust you. I want to. I tried to. I can’t.”

“I told you, she didn’t mean anything. I was lonely. You were spending all your time at your parents’. We were barely seeing each other.” He runs a hand through his light blond hair, causing a big chunk of it to stand up awkwardly. “And then you told me you wanted to go to San Francisco and that we could do long distance. You didn’t ask. You told me!”

“I don’t have to ask your permission or get your approval on how I deal with my dying father,” I reply heatedly. “You should have been supportive. You should have been understanding.”

“You should have fucked me,” Ty blurts out and I freeze. “We hadn’t had sex in a month.”

“So four weeks is your limit?” I ask and every fiber of my being is drowning in sarcasm. “I’m sorry I didn’t see that section in the relationship handbook. I thought that if you’d been with someone for years and you claimed to love them and want to spend your life with them, the grace period for wanting to fuck like a porn star when you just found out your dad was dying a slow horrible death would be longer. My bad. I’ll read the fine print next time. With someone else.”

I start toward the interior of the cottage. “Go home, Ty. Or go to a hotel. I’m done.”

I feel his fingers wrap around my arm—tightly. Too tightly. I wince as I spin to face him. He has a look in his eyes that’s a dangerous mix of desperation and frustration and it makes my blood run cold. “You don’t get to end this with a sarcastic rant. You said you’d forgive me and you’d give me a chance.”

“Let go of my arm,” I say firmly, eerily calm.

He ignores me. “I’ve had lots of chances to be with someone else since you ran off to California. I could have fucked tons of girls, but I didn’t. I swear to fucking God I didn’t. Even though you’ve been a horrible bitch to me almost the entire time.”

“Let go of me,” I repeat. “And get the fuck out of here.”

“No.”

“I think you mean yes.” The voice comes out of the darkness behind Ty. It’s hard, rough, menacing and I’ve heard it before—repeatedly—when I was a teenager. “Because when a woman wants you to leave, you leave. And you also take your hands off her when she tells you to. Or else guys like me do it for you, and trust me, buddy, you don’t want that.”

Ty’s fingers slowly loosen and he turns around. I hear the screen door open and I fumble for the switch on the wall, flooding the porch with a creamy yellow light from a bug-deterring bulb in the wall sconce.

Holden is standing just inside the door, his shoulders back, his fists clenched by his side and his bearded jaw tense. The look in his eyes is hard, unforgiving, dangerous. Ty is not a small guy. He’s six feet and broad, but Holden looks like a bear in front of him protecting his cubs—protecting me.

“Who the fuck are you?” Ty asks. He looks tough and he sounds harsh, but I know him and I know he’s shocked and probably intimidated by this hulking stranger.

“I’m her neighbor,” Holden replies and takes one simple but aggressive step forward. “And I heard her tell you to leave. So I am here to find out if you need help with that since, you know, you’re still here.”

“I’m having a private conversation with my girlfriend,” Ty tells him.

“Ex-girlfriend,” I mumble and absently rub my arm. I’m dazed, I think. He’s never laid his hands on me—ever. I look at Ty. “I’m sorry you came all this way. I’m sorry it has to be so…messy. But you need to leave. I think we both need to cool off.”

Ty looks furious and, at the same time, devastated. “Ten fucking years, Winnie, and you can’t let me stay in a guest room?”

“House is under renos,” Holden says easily. “Winnie shouldn’t even be staying in it. All the extra rooms are filled with crap or covered in dust.”

Total lie. The entire upstairs, all four bedrooms, are just fine. But I am not about to correct him. Ty turns to him again. “Wow. You know a lot about your neighbors. Are you a fucking stalker or something?”

Holden chuffs. “I’m the contractor. It’s my renovation project.”

“Contractor and neighbor?”

Holden gives him the coldest, darkest smirk I’ve ever seen. It says Fuck you, douchebag better than words ever could. “I’m a lot of things. Most importantly, I’m the guy who isn’t going to leave until you do. And you are leaving. Willingly or not.”

“Jesus, enough with the threats, asshole,” Ty snaps and turns back to me. “I’m going to find a motel, but I will be back. I deserve more than this from you, Win.”

He turns and Holden gracefully steps aside as Ty storms out of the house. A few seconds later he’s in his rental speeding down the street. I stare at his taillights until they’re gone, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Did he hurt you?” Holden asks and reaches up and stills my hand. I didn’t realize I was still rubbing my arm where Ty had gripped it.

“No. Not really,” I say softly. “I think I’m just in shock. He’s never done that before.”

Holden stares at me intently. I can see some kind of war being waged behind those spectacular eyes that are more sky blue than silver in the yellow light shining down on us. He sighs and rubs his beard pensively as he breaks the eye contact, looking out toward his trailer. “Look, I know I’m the last person you want to get advice from and, trust me, I’m usually the last one to give it. But any guy who would do that, at any point in a relationship, isn’t a good guy.”

“I know.”

He looks at me again. I can tell there’s more he wants to say, but all he responds with is a nod. “Good.”

Before I can thank him for stepping in and for not pounding Ty into oblivion, which would have only made everything worse, he swings open the screen door and disappears down the stairs, across the lawn and into his trailer.

I barely sleep all night and the next morning just before seven, I text Ty to see if he’s awake. He is. He’s at a motel a half mile away in Old Orchard Beach. I ask him to meet me at a small diner near there and then I shower quickly, get dressed, throw my wet hair in a bun and head out the door. Holden’s trailer is still dark. The one time I wish he was up early, he’s not. Of course. I really want to see him and thank him. I sigh and walk toward Old Orchard Beach.

As I open the door to the diner, I see Ty in a booth at the back. He seems far less angry and much more resigned. And exhausted. He looks absolutely spent. I know, as our eyes meet, that he’s accepted this. Finally.

We spend about an hour holding coffees we don’t drink, talking out everything. The good, the bad and the ugly. He’s still upset. I’m still sorry. But we both know it’s over. A few hours later when we’re ready to leave, it’s started raining lightly. More of a mist really, but Ty offers to drive me home and I really don’t want to walk.

When he pulls to stop in front of the cottage I start to unclip my seatbelt, but he stops me, placing a gentle hand over mine. I look up at him. “I’m sorry. For yesterday. For everything.”

“I know. I believe you,” I tell him. “I’m sorry too.”

“I hope things work out for you,” he says quietly.

“I hope they do for you too,” I reply and then, as he lets go of my hand and I release my seatbelt, I reach across the seat and hug him lightly. “Bye, Ty.”

“If you change your mind…,” he says, but he doesn’t finish the sentence and I don’t reply. I simply get out of the car. I hear him pulling away as I climb the porch stairs. As soon as I open the screen door, I’m shocked to see Holden standing there, staring at me with a scowl on his face.

“Hey,” I say.

“You’re with him again?” Holden asks, clearly not happy with it. “After last night?”

“I was just—”

He storms by me. “Forget it. I don’t care. You had self-esteem issues when you were a kid and clearly you still do if you think that type of guy is the best you can get. But whatever. Not my business.”

He marches out the door and stomps down the steps. I walk up to the screen and call through it. “You’re right. It’s not your business! So do your job and leave me alone.”

He slams his trailer door. I turn, march into the house and slam the front door. Who the hell does he think he is? Yes, I had self-esteem issues when I was a kid. Who doesn’t? I was too tall, too skinny, with bad skin and bad hair. Big deal. Who is he to judge me? Maybe if he hadn’t picked on all my weaknesses, I wouldn’t have had so many self-esteem issues. Fuck that jerk. I could march over there and explain to him I was simply saying good-bye to the only real boyfriend I’ve ever had and that civilized people do that, but he doesn’t deserve to know the truth. He probably wouldn’t understand it anyway.

I glance through the window toward the trailer.

Neanderthal. I hope this renovation goes smoothly so I can rid myself of this asshole as soon as possible.