It was nearly dusk when Tristan opened the back door of the bar and walked into the room. Samantha had already been drinking for hours, albeit slowly, because her heart wasn’t quite in it. She sat at the long oak counter, passing her rum and coke back and forth between her fingers. The ice had melted long ago, causing a gradient separation between soda and water, where her eyes were focused now, tired, puffy, and empty.

He sat down next to her, two seats away, and braced his forearms on the counter to order a drink. “Whiskey and water, please,” he said to the bartender, though he didn’t even acknowledge she was there.

The bartender passed the drink along the bar a moment later, and Tristan picked it up. Samantha couldn’t help but look up at him. He looked tired, maybe even more than herself. As if he’d raked his hands through his hair a hundred times, as if he’d walked a thousand miles, and right away she knew it was because of her. When she told him not to wait up, she’d meant it. She’d meant every word. But as the time went by, as her mind began to calm enough to process it all, she realized she’d been unfair.

What happened between them had happened when they were young. When she was a naive teenage girl, and he a boy too big for his britches. It was unfair to punish him for that now. To hold him captive for a crime he committed when he was eighteen.

Yet it surprised her how much the wound still stung. How learning that he still remembered was almost more painful than thinking he’d forgotten.

Tristan leaned back in his seat, still not acknowledging her, and began watching the Giants game on TV. She had no doubt he’d come to check on her, yet he hadn’t even said hello.

“My phone died,” she said as a way of breaking the ice. “It was in my pocket when I fell into the pool.”

Tristan nodded, but still didn’t look over. “I figured as much.”

She smoothed her loose hair behind ears, then took a small sip of her drink. The alcohol loosened her insides, but her outside was still hard and tense. “How did you find me?” she asked, both curious and apprehensive.

He looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time since he got there. “This is the fifth bar I’ve been to.”

She cringed, looking down toward her drink again. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

He shrugged, his voice a deep and hollow. “Well you did.”

She placed her elbows on the bar and began rubbing slow circles at her temples with her fingers. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, and I’m sorry, but it seems my whole world is falling in around me. You were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He turned in his seat, just a little, and took another sip of whiskey. “Do you want to talk about it?”

At first she shook her head, but then she thought better of it and nodded. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the fact that she felt so utterly alone, but she needed someone to talk to. Someone to care about all that she’d been through.

“You know,” she began. “Out of all the people I could imagine myself talking to about my problems with, it was never you.” She laughed. “No offense.”

He shrugged slightly before meeting her eyes. “None taken.” But his brows furrowed, and he nodded his head, indicating she should begin.

She tore the corner of her cocktail napkin, not knowing at all where to start. To confess about how Renee moving away had rocked her off her axis. Or the fact that seeing him after all these years made her question every minute of her six year long relationship? She decided to start with something a little less intimidating.

“I had a gallery opening last month,” she began. “One I’ve been planning for my entire life.” She glanced up, finding his expression attentive, his eyes boring into hers. “It was a total flop. I sold nothing at all.” She placed her feet on the rung of her stool, while trying to make sense of it all. “The thing is, people have been telling me my whole life that art wasn’t something people succeeded at. That I would struggle. That I wouldn’t make ends meet. But I was stubborn. So sure of myself until that moment—with my name in lights above my head, watching all those people pass by without stopping—That I realized how true it all was.”

She took a large gulp of her drink, hoping to push down the emotion that seemed to be climbing up her throat inch by inch. “The sad part is it took me this long to discover I’m wasting my time. To realize I’ve wasted so many years of my life on a stupid dream.”

His voice cut in, deep and firm, making her heart jump. “Does it make you happy?”

She looked at him, searching his light blue eyes as tears brimmed in her own. She’d never been asked that question before. Never by a single soul before him. “No. It makes me frustrated, and angry, and…”

He turned to face her, setting his booted feet firmly on the ground. “Forget about the money. Forget about the gallery opening. Does your art make you happy?”

She looked into his eyes, wiping at the corner of her nose with her cocktail napkin. “Yes. Yes, it makes me happy,” she whispered.

“Then it’s worth it.”

She pulled in a shaky breath, her heart pounding in a way she hadn’t felt in years. She didn’t know what made him come find her, or what spurred his sudden interest in her happiness, but she couldn’t help her own curiosity. “What makes you happy, Tristan?”

The corner of his mouth lifted and he looked down to his feet. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Her chest heaved and she took another sip of her drink. “Try me.”

He looked up then, his eyes crystal clear and sparkling despite the dim lights above the bar. “You do, Sammie Smiles.” He reached out to wipe a tear that glistened on the bottom of her cheek. “Seeing you again has made me happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

She didn’t know what to say, but her heart was pounding so hard she knew she wouldn’t be able find words. Because she realized in that moment that he made her happy, too. This trip had been crazy, and emotional, and a complete disaster at times, but she’d never had more fun in her whole life. She planted her feet firmly on the rail of her barstool, trying with all her might to keep her world from spinning.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her chin quivering. “I’m sorry I said all those things. I didn’t mean them. I didn’t mean any of it.”

His finger brushed over her lips, shushing her. He eased himself off the barstool, took a couple of twenties out of his wallet, and tossed them in the direction of the bartender. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here and get some sleep.”

She swallowed, wishing desperately that the feeling suddenly rolling in her belly was caused from too much alcohol. But it wasn’t. That feeling came from falling for a man—maybe for the first real time in her adult life. A feeling of wanting him so desperately her heart ached with it.

“I wanted to hate you,” she whispered. “But I don’t.”

“I know.”

She stumbled out of her chair, dragging her bag from the top of the bar, as she continued toward the door. “I don’t hate you, Tristan Montgomery, and that scares the hell out of me.” She continued walking, not bothering to look over her shoulder to make sure he was following. She knew he was. She felt him with every hair on her body, every drop of blood that surged to the surface of her skin.

“I don’t hate you either, Samantha Elizabeth Smiles. I never have.”