Ally couldn’t breathe.

She’d just spent the last fifteen minutes down in the kitchen trying to channel Samantha Hart, digging deep for some of that fierce warrior goddess courage, and she’d finally done it. Not much—her heart still felt too vulnerable and soft—but enough to admit the depth of her feelings for Roscoe. She’d fallen in love with him too, and no matter how scared she was, she needed to tell him.

Roscoe was supposed to tell her not to worry. He was supposed to take her into his strong, protective embrace, kiss her forehead, promise her that they could be truly happy together. That nothing bad would happen to them.

She wasn’t supposed to find him sitting on her bed, clutching that photo, looking at her like she was a total stranger.

Ally blinked back tears, trying to catch her breath. She didn’t know what was worse—seeing Dan’s picture—the one that had gotten her through more than a few dark nights—crushed in Roscoe’s hands, or seeing the look of utter despair that picture had put in Roscoe’s eyes.

“Dan,” she breathed. It was an answer. A confession. A plea, all at once.

The room spun, her world collapsing all over again as the details of Dan’s death slammed into her from all sides. The last time she’d seen him smile. His final words to her as he’d rushed out the door for work that morning. The phone call from his boss. The sad, helpless look on Dan’s assistant’s face as Ally exited her car. The ambulance and police. The feeling of utter despair as she was forced to take Reggie out of school and tell her the horrible news…

“Ally?” Roscoe said now, yanking her back to the present. She had never seen so much fury in his eyes, a terrifying mix of anger and hurt. “I’m only going to ask one time. Who. The hell. Is Dan?”

“That’s… Reggie’s dad. My… He was my husband.” The words came out, but Ally didn’t know who was speaking them. She was floating out of her body, there but not there, watching the scene unfold as if it were a movie.

None of this was her real life—was it? Ally wasn’t the one trying to put things back together after that brutal loss. She wasn’t the one who’d fallen in love with Roscoe so hard and fast it left her dizzy, only to lose it all in a single moment. She wasn’t the one who’d left her man sitting on the bed in nothing but a damp towel, staring up at her like she’d just smashed his heart.

And the photo? Who was its owner?

Still floating in some other place, Ally watched her hand reach for it now, some latent instinct to keep the photo intact, but Roscoe only held on tighter.

It felt like a punishment. She’d let her guard down too soon, let Roscoe right into her heart. And inevitably, in the process of making room for something new and amazing and utterly unexpected, she’d pushed Dan out.

“You told me the two of you weren’t involved,” Roscoe said, tossing the picture onto the bed. The anger had vanished, his tone turning cold and empty, yanking Ally right back into the moment.

You are going to lose him. Maybe you already have.

In an instant, she saw the whole of their relationship flash backward through her mind, one amazing memory at a time. Making love tonight… Painting at the Wellshire… Video games with Reggie and Nick… Picnics and parks and bingo and a thousand flirty texts and calls… Making out in the staff room… Their accidental non-date… Right up to that first time she’d ever seen him, strong and confident on the ice, his sexy dimple threatening to break down every one of her walls.

Roscoe had been patient with her all this time, and she’d betrayed him. Not in the way he thought, maybe, but a betrayal nevertheless. Because she’d let him believe that she was whole and unbroken, a woman who could love him the way he deserved to be loved.

Looking into his eyes now, Ally knew he was going to walk away from it all unless she could give him a reason to stay.

She took a shuddering breath, hoping it would give her strength, keep her calm, but still the words wouldn’t come. Not the big ones, the ones that would explain it all. Those words didn’t exist. Not now, not in the midst of her sadness and guilt and fear and confusion.

The old familiar darkness seeped into her heart like smoke.

All she could manage for now was a simple answer to his statement.

“We’re not involved, Roscoe. Not anymore. He’s—”

“You’re carrying his picture around.” Roscoe rose from the bed, letting his towel fall to the floor as he hunted for his clothes. “And who knows what else you’ve got in that bag. In this room. His clothes? Toothbrush? More pictures? Videos?”

He pinned her with his eyes, and Ally nodded. Yes, she had all of those things. And more. All taped up in boxes stacked in her closet. She hadn’t been able to get rid of his possessions—not when he died, and not even when they’d moved.

Again, she wanted to tell him this. To sit him down, take a deep breath, and let it all out. Open the closet, the boxes, her fucking heart. Tell him the whole truth and make him understand.

But Ally was mute, her whole body trembling, panic squeezing her lungs. Her tongue was fat and useless as the anxiety attack took hold.

Roscoe made a sound like a laugh, then stepped into his jeans. “That’s all I needed to know.”

She’d never seen him so rattled. In their short time together, he’d become her rock in so many ways—allaying her fears about the dangers of letting Reggie play hockey. Surprising her with flowers and fun dates and making her laugh, never pressuring her or making her feel like she wasn’t enough, never pushing her to talk about her past. He’d always seemed so content to let her set the pace, so ready to reassure her when she was having a hard time.

Now he was the one falling apart, and Ally just stood there letting it happen.

Powerless as the panic seized her body.

“Roscoe,” she whispered, her ears ringing. “Please slow down. Please… I’ll tell you everything, I just…” She sucked in a breath, desperate to slow her racing heart, to fill her lungs, to breathe. “I need a minute… I need some air and—”

“You know, I almost proposed to someone once.”

Ally gasped, his words like an arrow momentarily piercing through the haze of her anxiety, but she still couldn’t speak in complete sentences. She didn’t want to know his history yet. She needed to tell him about Dan. “Roscoe, wait—”

“Almost,” he repeated. “Had the ring and everything, had it all planned out. Then one night, I came home a day early from a week on the road, and you know what I found in my very own bed? My just-about-fiancée fucking her not-quite-ex. Turns out she’d been fucking him for half our relationship. So you can see why I might be a little sensitive here.”

Ally sucked in another breath, shock and jealousy warring within, knowing she had no right to those feelings. No right to his pain. “This isn’t like that.”

“You’re not giving me much to—”

“I love you,” she said softly, meeting his gaze again. Then, with more conviction, “I’m in love with you.”

Roscoe’s eyes widened a fraction, but before Ally could even find the strength to say it again, to reassure him, to run to him and kiss him and give him every reason he needed, his walls went right back up again.

“No,” he snapped, grabbing his shirt from the floor and yanking it over his head. “Don’t do that. You don’t get to throw that at me in the middle of an argument.”

“Sorry,” she said automatically. God, her timing sucked. She reached for one of the waters she’d brought in, twisting the cap and trying to gulp some down. Her hand was shaking so badly, most of it spilled.

“Sorry?” Roscoe let out a dry laugh. “For what? Telling me you’re in love with me? Or this?” He grabbed the picture from the bed, held it up in front of her face.

Roscoe’s fingers. Dan’s smile. Ally’s pain.

Her past collided with her present again, another explosion, the fallout tearing her apart inside. All of this was her fault. Not just because she hadn’t told him about Dan, but because she’d tried to convince herself she could handle a relationship, that she was well enough to move on from Dan’s death, that she could keep her own secrets and tell Roscoe about them in her own time, no harm done.

Instead, she’d ignored her instincts and let things go too far, too fast, too… everything.

But that’s who Roscoe was. Ally had seen that spark in him right from the start.

She had it once, too. That spark. That desire to see and taste and experience everything, no matter what the risk. But after her husband’s death, Ally’s spark had fizzled out. Since then she’d hoarded her feelings like a miser, too afraid to share. To live. To love.

Roscoe was the complete opposite. He lived—and loved—with a passion bordering on recklessness. Reggie was like that too—with hockey, certainly. And one day, she would be reckless with Nick Harper, or some other boy she decided was worth her entire heart, because Reggie was an all-in kind of girl.

As much sleep as Ally had lost worrying about Reggie, deep down she envied her daughter. Ally had her podcasts and borrowed self-help mantras, but Roscoe and Reggie? They were the real deal. Brave and courageous, authentic in every way.

Looking into Roscoe’s haunted eyes now, she wondered if she could do it. Live out loud. Be brave.

“There are things I haven’t told you,” she said, taking a steadying breath, then blowing it out slow. If she could just slow this whole thing down, clear her head, maybe she could get the words out. “Things about my past. My marriage. But I swear to you, Roscoe, it’s not what you think. Dan is… He’s…”

Ally faltered again, her throat burning with unshed tears. She wanted to scream with frustration. It was as if the dreaded d-word triggered her body’s inner security system, shutting her down every time she got close to talking about it. It was just like this in the aftermath of the accident—the panic attacks, the tears. It was the reason she’d turned to books and podcasts instead of therapy after the accident; for Ally, it was a lot easier to hear about someone else’s tragedy than talk about her own.

“Dan is what, Ally?”

“He’s… He’s…”

Roscoe sighed, his shoulders sagging as Ally watched the last of his trust flickering out like a candle. “It doesn’t add up. You never talk about him, but you’re still…” Roscoe looked at the picture again, shaking his head. “I’m an idiot. A fucking idiot. I really should’ve known better than to think this could be any different. That it was real.”

Tears gathered in her eyes, but Ally couldn’t blame him for thinking that way. She owed him an explanation, and she wanted to give it to him—more now than ever before. But she needed air and space, silence, time to open her heart and invite Roscoe into the darkest, deepest parts of her past. And Roscoe needed an immediate explanation, a short answer to a long and complicated situation.

The ghosts had finally crashed her party, just like Clarissa had warned.

It all seemed so unfair. So goddamn unfair that she’d been given a second chance at love—that this amazing, incredible, loving man had come into her life—but that it had happened at the wrong time. Another year, maybe two? That would’ve been perfect. But she was a hot mess, just like she’d told Clarissa after the first time she’d met Roscoe, and no amount of laughter and fun dates and sweet, sinful kisses would fix that.

A surge of anger rose suddenly inside, nearly sending her to her knees. But instead of crumpling, she embraced it, clung to it like a life raft. Anger was good. Anger filled up the holes inside, kept her heart pumping when all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and die.

“So I’m cheating on you, right?” she snapped, all the rage she’d repressed after Dan’s accident bubbling up from within. “Like your ex? That’s the only possible explanation?”

“No. Just the most logical one.”

“You know what? I’m the idiot who should’ve known better.” It’d never been so clear to Ally than in this moment just how much she hadn’t dealt with, how much she’d swallowed down just to be able to get out of bed every morning, just to keep feeding herself and taking care of Reggie and paying their bills and not falling completely apart. She was barely functional for that entire first year, barely hanging on, but somehow she found a way to put that grief and anger and rage on a shelf, seal it in a box, and stay alive. Days turned into weeks, into months. And now, after three years, it was finally catching up with her, burning so hot inside she was sure she’d turn to ash before the night was over.

“It was selfish of me to drag you into my messed-up life,” she said. “I wasn’t ready for a relationship when we met, and I’m obviously not ready now.”

“Really? Which is it, Ally?” Roscoe shoved a hand through his hair, his eyes blazing with new heat. “Because you say you’re not ready, but then you’re worried about what you’re dragging me into. Is this about me, or you?”

“Both of us. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Ally realized how stupid that sounded even before the words were all out, but she pressed on anyway. “I just think we got into this a little too quickly, let things happen too fast, and all of a sudden—”

“Are you talking about the sex? Because I told you a dozen times we could turn down the heat. Newsflash, Ally. That’s not what I’m here for.”

Ally swallowed hard. Sex. Heat. The words sent her blood racing, memories of their time together crashing through her body. Despite her roiling emotions, her core throbbed with desire, still primed and aching for his touch. His kiss. His everything.

“No,” she said now, desperate to hold on to her anger, even as she felt it leaking away. “It’s not the sex. I’m… God, I don’t know, Roscoe. I’m just… I’m scared, okay? Scared shitless.”

“What are you afraid of?” Roscoe demanded.

That I’ll share my secrets, show you my personal demons, and you’ll never look at me the same way. That the fire in your eyes when you make love to me will turn to pity. That you’ll treat me like I’m weak and broken, too fragile to handle so much passion and love. That I’ll lose you, one way or another…

But Ally couldn’t say those things out loud, so she settled on, “You? This? Everything!”

“Bullshit. You want to know what I think?” Roscoe asked. “All that stuff in the beginning about Reggie and hockey, not wanting her to play. I don’t think you were worried about her. I think you were worried about yourself.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s the same thing with us. You’re not afraid of me. Of us. You’re afraid of you. Afraid that you’ll lose control.”

“It’s not—”

“Someone in your life—or something—took away your control, and you’ve been fighting like hell to get it back ever since.” Roscoe stepped forward, closing the gap between them. He slid his fingers under her chin, tilting her head up until their eyes met, looking at her with a mix of frustration and desire. Water dripped from his hair onto his shirt, and all Ally wanted to do was slide her hands into his wet, silky hair, pull his mouth to hers, and kiss him until their pain evaporated…

“Let me tell you something about control, Ally,” Roscoe said, his breath warm on her lips. “It’s a fucking lie. Something we say to convince ourselves it’s okay to get out of bed every day, because the truth is just too fucking dangerous to contemplate.”

He held her gaze for another moment, staring at her so intensely it made her tremble.

But then he closed his eyes, let out a long sigh, and released her.

Roscoe turned away, picking up his wallet and keys from the nightstand.

“Are you… Are you leaving, leaving?” she asked, heart hammering behind her ribs as she waited for his answer.

“Ally, I just…” He sighed, finally turning around to look at her again. There was no glint there, no laughter, no love, no fire, no frustration. He’d shut down completely, all the emotions that were once so easy to read replaced suddenly with a shield of pure ice. “I need some space. Okay?”

Maybe she could’ve talked him into staying. Into giving her a little more time to compose herself, to find all the words to make this story make sense. He looked at her as though he wanted her to do just that.

But in the end, she couldn’t. Because in the end, she really was weak and scared and broken, and no amount of borrowed podcast pseudo-wisdom could cover that up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Roscoe said, his stone-cold gaze a total mismatch for the raw pain in his voice. “Me, too.”

And then he was gone.