I know we should sleep—he has to be up early for practice before the team leaves for New York for their first regular season game, and I have an appointment with a new client—but neither of us seems inclined. We made love and then showered together, and now we’re in bed, lying on our sides and looking into each other’s eyes.

“Tell me about Nic,” Mason says.

At first I don’t think I heard him right. Mason hated Nic, and tonight has been about us. “What?”

“Tell me about Nic Mendez. I’ve been a jerk about him, but I think I understand now why he was so important to you.” He tucks my hair behind my ear and brushes my cheek with the rough pad of his thumb. “I want to know all of you, Bailey. Even the pieces that will never be mine.”

Something in my chest aches at the idea of Mason believing I picked Nic over him. I suppose in a way I did. But I was picking Nic’s life over my happiness. Mason was so damn good. He could have anyone, and I was sure he’d eventually want someone better than me. “He wasn’t all bad,” I say. “He spent a lot of years trying to ignore me and doing his damnedest to convince me he wasn’t interested. But I wore him down.”

“Mmm.” His chest rumbles with his groan. “To be pursued by Bailey Green. Poor guy. Sounds like a really rough life.”

“I’d think you’d know something about it. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of the last three years trying to get you to sleep with me again.”

“Ah, yes, but I wanted more than your body.” There’s no bitterness in his words. Just truth. His hand cups my ass, and he tugs me closer so our hips are pressed against each other. “What else?”

“He was stubborn and reckless. But he could also be sweet and thoughtful.”

“Thoughtful, like flowers and poetry?”

I laugh. “No. Nic definitely wasn’t a poet. He didn’t talk much at all, actually. I talked enough for both of us.”

Mason’s quiet now, skimming his knuckles back and forth over my arm as he listens. I’ve never gotten to talk about Nic like this, and it’s both odd and touching that Mason is giving me the chance.

“He’d take me out. Neither of us had any money, so dates would be grabbing a pizza and a six-pack and going to the lake. Sometimes he’d drive me to the airport and we’d watch the planes take off in the dark. It was always a push-pull with him. Like he was the ocean and I was the shore. He’d come and then he’d pull away, and then he’d return only to pull away again, every time taking a little more of me with him.”

“Do you think you two would be together now if he hadn’t died?”

I shake my head. “I wasn’t with him before he died. I still loved him, but he kept pushing me away.”

“What would have happened if he hadn’t been arrested? Would you have kept the baby?”

I roll to my back and stretch my arms above my head. “If he hadn’t been caught, I imagine we would have tried to raise the baby ourselves. We hadn’t gotten that far yet. He was arrested only a few days after I found out I was pregnant, and we were still trying to digest the information.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.” Mason settles the flat of his palm against my belly. “You were practically still a child and pregnant, and he wasn’t there to help.”

“Before he was arrested, I imagined he’d get us a little apartment, and he’d clean up his act. We’d be another young couple just scraping by, but it would be fine because at the end of the day, we’d get to come home to each other and maybe the baby would be the thing to finally make him go straight.” I close my eyes, and it’s as if the room disappears around me. I’m back in Nic’s room watching him pace a hole into the carpet. He tried to be calm, but the idea of having a kid had terrified him.

Seconds stretch into minutes, and even though her body is next to me, her mind is somewhere else. The click of the ceiling fan overhead measures time while I wait, giving her the space the subject matter demands. I wonder if she’s done talking tonight. Maybe I should let it go. Maybe I should tell her my own secret and just how well I understand what she’s been through. She finally opens her eyes. “It’s my fault he got caught.”

“Bailey, no.” I rub my thumb beneath her breasts. “Don’t do that to yourself. He made his own decisions.”

She swallows. “But it’s true. I knew he was doing some minor deals for this guy in town—Clarence. Clarence had a way of keeping his boys under his thumb. Once you got in, it was almost impossible to get out. The day Nic got caught, I’d heard him talking to Clarence about an exchange. Nic wasn’t going to be able to do it, because the other guy didn’t like him. I called in a tip to the cops, thinking it was my chance to bring down Clarence so Nic could go straight.”

“But Nic ended up being the one to do the exchange,” I finish, because I can tell saying the words out loud is tearing her apart.

She nods. “If I hadn’t made that call, they wouldn’t have pulled him over. He wouldn’t have been sent to prison, and we would have kept the baby.”

“Nic made his own choices. He was arrested because he was breaking the law.” I press a kiss to her bare shoulder. “You don’t need this guilt weighing you down.”

“The worst part,” she whispers, “isn’t just that it was my fault he was arrested. The worst part is that, more than once, I’ve thought how grateful I am that he was put away.”

I draw in breath. I didn’t expect that. I thought she’d have done anything to keep Nic.

She rolls to face me again and curls her arms into her chest. “I hate that he had to go to prison and I still loved him, but we did the very best thing we could have done for Faith. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do it if he hadn’t been in such trouble.”

“You have more courage than anyone I know.”

“Then why can’t I find the courage to be with you?”

I pull her close and bury my face in her shoulder to hide my expression. I love that she’s opened up to me, but I still don’t know where I stand with her or if she still has secrets. Why else would she need courage?

I comb my fingers through her hair and pull back to look in her eyes. My secrets can wait. Tonight is about her. “He was your first love. I’m not asking you to forget him.” You can tell me the rest.

“Nobody ever asks me about him. Even Mia. It still makes her sad to talk about him, and since she doesn’t know about Faith, I’m always careful about what I say. So, thank you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

“People think I’m an open book because I don’t mind talking about the stupid shit people are quiet about. But I have secrets, too. Just like everybody else.”

“I know.”

“It’s hard for me to share them.”

“I know.”

She flips over so her back is against my front. “I’m so tired of hiding my mistakes.”

I wrap my arm around her and squeeze her tightly. Faith is her big secret, but there’s more.

For now, I’ll take what I’ve been given. I don’t have a choice. She’s not the only one with secrets. She said Nic was the ocean to her shore, taking more of her with him every time he’d pull away, and I understand that feeling all too well. I’m afraid if she leaves me again, I’ll be an empty shell.