“What?” I scowl, and suddenly I’m so mad at Nana. For not letting me say goodbye, for leaving me. For dying. I stomp outside. Tahoe had reattached the ladder after stupid Jeremy tore it away, but I never went up there again. Even though my brother built it, someone tampered with it and it’s no longer safe in my eyes.

But I feel suicidal, I’m so sad and mad.

I stomp down the yard and head to the tree house, climb up there and then just sit and stare at her handwriting.

I open the letter and tears are falling before I even read the words.

A life of fears is no life.

Live it fully, my Livvy.

“Olivia?”

I lift my head and my eyes well.

“I’m up here!” I call.

I swallow the emotion back and tuck the letter into its envelope when Callan reaches the top.

He looks so out of place in a suit, always so perfect and hot, climbing into the tree house that is so the complete opposite of Carma, I’m torn between laughing and crying because the only reason Callan would be in anything like this would be . . . I guess . . . for me.

He struggles to find a spot next to me and folds his knees to his chest. I show him the note. I look a mess and try to wipe my eyes and right myself as he reads it.

Callan is cramped, his big shoulders hunched as he stretches his feet and pats his thigh. This playhouse was made for kids, not fully grown adults.

He lowers the note and hands it back to me. “What are you afraid of now?”

I shrug.

“What is it?” he asks.

You. My plans not going like I wanted. Losing what I love most.

I settle for a simpler answer. A more immediate one. And just as true. “If I kiss you, that you won’t kiss me back. I feel like I’ll end up like Jeremy, go down in a tantrum and leave you up here so you never kiss anyone else either.”

“You kiss me?” He lifts a brow, smiling tenderly. There’s a sadness in that smile, in both our smiles. Because it’s a sad day.

“It’s an idea,” I defend.

“I have a better idea. Me. Kissing you.” He cups my face and kisses my lips softly. I miss him so much, I launch myself at him.

We kiss, and it feels so good to get lost in him and his warm, wet mouth and his slow-moving, gently sucking tongue. I suck a bit too hard, and he groans and I remember his split lip.

When I pull back to breathe, he’s smirking.

I touch his lip with my index finger. “I’m sorry about this,” I say.

“I’m not.” He smiles. “I’m sorry about T’s eye.”

I frown. “How did that go?”

“Let’s see now. He said he would keep it to one punch because you asked him not to hit me. So I kept it to one because he’s your brother.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He smiles down at me in tenderness. Then I am pressed to his side, his arm around me, his shoulders hunched over me. And I realize my new favorite place is inside his hug. No other hug compares. I glance around the wooden house.

“So many years to get back up here. Now I don’t want to get down,” I admit.

“And this is one place that should send you into a panic.” The wood creaks beneath us as he shifts, and he laughs.

“Well, I’m not. I’m with you,” I defend myself.

He looks mildly puzzled and sardonic. “I’m no Clark Kent, Olivia. The sooner you know that, the easier it will be.”

“Who needs Clark Kent when I have Callan Carmichael?”

“My ego, woman. Stop feeding it.” He tweaks my nose. “You think I’m Superman.”

“I think you’re Henry Cavill as Superman.” I grin, and I sit up and admire the way the sunset streaming through the slits in the wood plays on his face. “I don’t know what I think you are. Don’t even make me analyze it too closely right now. It’s just the way I feel when you’re near. A little safe and a little breathless and a little happier than when you’re not.”

He sits back and tugs me close so that I snuggle against his side again. “I, on the other hand, feel crazed when I’m near you, and crazed when I’m not.”

“You’re never crazed. Only OCD.”

He laughs softly and the sound is reassuring. I hadn’t realized how exhausted and wound up I was until I feel myself relaxing now.

“I knew my grandma would die. I mean, I knew she wouldn’t be with me forever, no matter how much I wanted it. But in my mind, it was after I was twenty-eight, maybe around thirty-five, after she met my husband and my two children one day.”

“Two children?” he asks in interest.

“See? You probably don’t even like children so you better get out of my fucking tree house now.”

“I’m not fucking leaving. Hell, I like it here.” He extends his legs out as far as they can go, and his smile fades. “Nobody ever plans for the bad things.”

“Every time I lose someone, I get so mad. You’d think I’d only be sad. But I get so mad. I’m so selfish.”

“You’re not selfish, you’re hurt. You lost someone you cared for.”

He’s holding me and it strikes me with painful intensity how I don’t want to lose him. I realize it would make me madder than mad to lose him, despite being afraid of loving him because he’s not the husband I pictured. He’s more, and he challenges me and he keeps me on my toes and pushes me, and also makes me melt and respect and learn, and admire and want him, want him like nothing in this world.

He’ll be a difficult and infuriating husband. Hell, he won’t even want to be anybody’s husband.

I don’t want to wait until the timing is right, because it’s never going to be right.

I won’t want anyone the way I want him.

I never have and I never will and I know it.

I’m pretty sure I’m irrevocably in love with him.

Suddenly I don’t want to wait until I’m twenty-eight anymore. I’ll be like an old lady by the time I’m twenty-eight. But at least I’ll be worldlier, more able to make a decision like that.

“I had a dream the moment she died. Do you think she was saying goodbye?” I ask him with a small scowl.

“I don’t know, Livvy.”

“But what do you think?”

“What do you think?” he counters.

“That she was saying goodbye.”

“Then she was saying goodbye.”

Later that evening when the house is near empty, I hear Tahoe and Callan talking out on the patio terrace. Callan sits on a chair, shoulders hunched, hands steepled, and he’s breathing deep and slow.

“Don’t ruin it. I see the way she is with you,” Tahoe says.

Callan drags his hands over his face.

“Look if you’re not all in, get out now. My sister has lost enough, she’s hurting enough.”

Surprise makes me gasp, but thankfully I cover the sound with my hand. Callan drags his hand over the back of his neck, quiet. I nervously wait for a reply.

I don’t want him to get out. I want any piece of him I can get.

Quickly, I step outside, letting the door bang loudly as I step out to the porch.

Tahoe doesn’t turn to see who it is, but Callan lifts his head as if he can innately sense it’s me.

I smile tremulously at him and extend a cup of coffee, just like he likes it.

He looks like he wants to both crush me in his arms and run away from me as fast as he can.

Gina steps out with another bang of the door, and she seems to take in the scene. I guess it’s stupid to assume the look I’m giving Callan is only visible to Callan. And the look he’s giving me is only visible to me.

It’s been a long day, I suppose.

“I have an idea. Why doesn’t Callan stay here tonight?” she says brightly. “I can sleep with Livvy, you guys can fight it out over the bed in Tahoe’s old room.”

Both men laugh as if there’s no way they’ll fight out anything—both men’s egos too big to be in the same space.

“I’ll be at the hotel. I need to leave tomorrow anyway.” Callan stands and looks at nobody but me.