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  She turned her back on him.

  “You won’t ever tell them about us because you’re afraid,” he accused, as if she’d slapped him.

  “Just…give me a little time,” she said.

  He laughed. “Right. Time for what?”

  “Time to figure out how to tell them. Time to figure out if you’re going to stay or go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Nick stated. “I know, because I’ve tried.”

  “I know, the boundary—”

  “No. I mean I’ve tried getting back to the gray, back where I was before, and I can’t do it.”

  This stopped her cold. “You did? Why?”

  “Because you’re never going to tell your sons or anyone else that I’m your boyfriend, Bess. You’re never going to admit it to anyone. And Jesus,” Nick said with a harsh bark of a laugh, “what if you do? Holy fuck, what’s going to happen ten years from now when I still look twenty-one? They’ll start coming after me with stakes and torches.”

  “No,” she said, and touched his cheek. “No, I’m sure that won’t happen.”

  She wasn’t certain, but it seemed the thing to say.

  Nick sat on the edge of the bed. “I thought when I came back that anything was better than being in the gray. I thought being with you… God, it was all I thought about, all I could think about. Being with you again.”

  He looked at her, but she didn’t sit next to him.

  “I thought it would all be better once we were together again, but this is worse. This is a worse prison. I can’t go anywhere, I can’t do anything. I can fuck you all night and all day, but I can’t really be with you.”

  “That’s not true!” Her voice broke. She reached to touch his hair, and he reached to pull her closer. He buried his face against her stomach, his arms wrapped around her legs. “You are with me. I love you.”

  Nick said nothing.

  “I’ll tell them,” Bess said, resolved.

  “What will you tell them?” He didn’t look up at her. His voice was muffled against her. “Hey, kids, here’s your new daddy, and by the way, he’s been dead for twenty years.”

  “We’ll start with letting them know we’re together. We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  He shuddered, then looked up at her. “You’ll really tell them about us?”

  “Like you said, Connor already knows. We don’t have to tell them anything,” she added, sitting next to him. “They’ll figure it out. They don’t need an announcement.”

  He smiled briefly. “And you’re ready to do that?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “But it kills me to think you’re unhappy.”

  He looked at his hands, folded in his lap. “This is all such a colossal mess.”

  “It will work out,” she said, sounding more confident than she felt. “We’ll find a way.”

  He snorted lightly. “Sure we will.”

  “Hey.” She took his hand and waited until he looked up at her. “We will find a way for this to work. I’m not going to let this slip away from me again.”

  “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Nick,” Bess said. “Trust me.”

  He leaned to kiss her, lingering at her mouth before putting his head on her shoulder and gathering her into his arms. “I do.”

  She hugged him back, hoping she wouldn’t let him down.

  CHAPTER 34

  Then

  If it had been their first fight, it had at least cleared the air. It didn’t seem to matter too much what they called or didn’t call their relationship. It seemed bigger than labels to Bess, anyway, something that could not be defined by a term.

  This was love.

  Oh, she’d thought she knew what that word meant a few times before in her life. Each time it had been different, and every time she fell in love with someone new she’d been convinced this time, this feeling, this version was “the one.”

  It took understanding that there was no “one” to realize what love really was.

  She didn’t tell Nick she loved him. She didn’t know how. The three simple words that in the past had so easily fallen from her mouth, like marbles spilled from a jar, didn’t seem adequate to describe the width and depth and breadth of her emotions when she was with him. Or without him.

  He remembered her favorite brand of gum. Her favorite color, woven into the new beach towel he brought her. He knew how she hated the cages of hermit crabs in most of the souvenir shops and liked light sticks on the beach at night. He held her hand no matter who was watching, and kissed her, too, over and over and over.

  Her love for him was not one whole thing but rather a myriad. Individual pieces, each with its important place, none of them useless. Everything from the sound of his laugh to the feeling of his hand on her back when they drifted into sleep with the sound of the ocean around them and soft sand beneath their bodies had a purpose and place within her love for him. She could do without none of it.

  Yet she didn’t say it.

  The first time she went to sleep and woke up next to him, she thought maybe that would change things. That somehow that next step, of her not leaving after sex, would give their relationship a weight it might be able to bear. Not from Nick but from her. Sleeping in his bed and waking with him in the morning had seemed somehow more significant an admission than saying the word love ever could.

  Eddie was right. Nick made her doubt herself.

  Bess opened her eyes and stared at the dresser next to the bed. Behind her the slow, steady noise of Nick’s breathing didn’t change. It was early, especially considering they’d only gone to sleep a few hours before. They both had to work this morning, but she didn’t feel like getting up yet. Getting up meant she’d have to shower, brush her teeth. Wash away the smell and taste of him.

  Nick’s hand slipped over her stomach and he aligned himself with her. A few hours ago their skin had been sticky with sweat from the effort of their lovemaking, but the night air had cooled them both. His cock stirred against her and Bess smiled but said nothing, not even when his hand slipped lower, between her thighs, to stroke her.

  She let out a sigh when he shifted a little to nudge against her, then to push inside. Condoms seemed ridiculous after the night on the beach, when she was on the pill and neither of them was sleeping with anyone else. They’d taken a trip to the local women’s health clinic for a few tests, at Nick’s insistence and not hers.

  He bit the back of her neck and thrust inside her harder. She was a little sore from the night before and hissed out a breath. He stopped, went slower. He stroked her clit until her hips moved again, and they tumbled into orgasm within seconds of each other.

  “Good morning,” he breathed into her ear.

  “Morning.” Bess gave him a smile over her shoulder. “I need to get ready for work.”

  “Me, too.” He withdrew and rolled onto his back while she got up. He rose up on one elbow to watch her dig in her backpack for clean clothes.

  Self-conscious, Bess pretended this was no big deal. In the shower she gave in to a series of giddy giggles she smothered under the water. She washed herself with his soap, his washcloth. She used his toothpaste and his towel. She stepped onto Nick’s bath mat and used his toilet.

  She’d never even stayed over with Andy like this. They’d always both had roommates and dorm rooms, not apartments. This…cohabitation…such as it was, made her think of houses with picket fences, a thought she tried to toss but couldn’t.

  Until the pancakes undid her.

  “Can you grab the syrup?” Nick used his spatula to point at the fridge. “It’s in there.”

  “You made breakfast?”

  “Yeah. Sit down.”

  She did, after grabbing the syrup. He’d set the table with mismatched plates and cups, but he’d folded the napkins and place forks and knives on top of them. He’d even poured grape juice because he knew Bess didn’t like orange.

  “You cook,” she said.

  “Jesu