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  “Well, I let you in my life, too, you know.” I rub my thumb over the soft threads of my most cherished piece of jewelry. “I let you both in my life.”

  “Pardon me. We were clearly a threat,” he deadpans. “You know how much of a threat I was to you? I was trying to figure out how to ask you to move in with us, and all the while you’re plotting to leave.”

  My world crumbles around me, my knees threatening to fail altogether. I can’t blink the tears back faster than they fall.

  Why couldn’t he have said this a couple of days ago? Why does this have to happen now?

  Memories of Mia’s laugh and Dane’s smile flash through my brain, and I choke back a sob.

  “I’m a fucking idiot. I guess Haley and her romantic ways are rubbing off on me, because I thought you and I were going somewhere. And not to New York,” he adds as he walks toward his truck.

  “Dane! Wait!” I call after him.

  He holds up a hand to signal he’s done with the conversation. I chase after him anyway, even though I know it’s pointless. I need to let him go and sort this out, but I’m a glutton for punishment.

  I catch him right before he makes it to his truck. I grab his bicep, but he shakes me off. “Dane. Wait. Listen to me, please.”

  “What?” He spins around, almost knocking me over. “What could you possibly have to say now?”

  I catch my breath before making my final request. “Can I tell Mia?”

  He laughs long and loud, as if he just heard a great one-liner. Then he glares at me and opens the door to the truck.

  “Please,” I beg. “I want to make sure she knows this had nothing to do with her.”

  “You know what?” he says, climbing in the cab. “Stay away from my daughter.”

  “Dane . . .”

  He shakes his head as he starts the ignition. “I’ll tell Mia. I’ll tell her in a way I think won’t break her heart since you obviously don’t give a fuck.”

  “You aren’t being fair,” I cry.

  He doesn’t respond. Just looks at me with watery eyes before pulling away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  NEELY

  I’m pretty sure my face is swollen. I think I can see the bags under my eyes when I look at an angle. My lips hurt, probably from crying until the sun came up, and my heart is in so many pieces I think they’re scattered across all of Dogwood Lane.

  I thought about staying here. I gave it more than a few moments of consideration over the course of the night, mostly when I thought about picking up the phone to call Dane. Every scenario ended with me being unsure about what I could’ve done at the magazine, and I don’t want to ever hold that against anyone.

  Throwing my last pair of jeans into my suitcase, I latch it shut. My bag goes on top, balanced perfectly, before I roll it to the door. I don’t leave. Not yet. Instead, I turn around and take in my childhood bedroom, my home for the last couple of weeks. I’m going to miss the warmth of the blankets and the way the sun comes in the windows at a slight angle. That’s not to mention all the little things on the walls, in the drawers, and on the shelves that remind me of being younger. More naive. And probably a lot happier.

  I make my way through the house, taking in the pictures and mementos of a life well lived. Leftover pie sits on the stove, and I grin at Claire’s joke.

  The sky is overcast as I make my way to the car. Gary and Mom are standing on the driveway, awaiting my arrival. Mom has a handkerchief in her hand, already blotting her eyes.

  “Stop it,” I tell her, coming to a stop. I pull her into me and give her the warmest, sturdiest hug I can manage. “I love you. I’ll be back to visit. I promise.”

  “This visit was one of the happiest times of my life,” she says. “Having you around, being able to enjoy little things with you, has been a mother’s dream.”

  “I’ve had a great time too.” I kiss her cheek before turning to Gary. “And it’s been a pleasure getting to know you.”

  “I’m going to pretend you meant that much cheerier than it came out.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” I sigh. “I’m just kind of melancholy today.”

  “You have every right to be. It’s hard, sometimes, to make choices in life when it’s not a clear-cut decision. All you can do is make the best choice for you, and I believe you did that. Or, at least, you made the choice that feels the best for you.”

  “I’m not feeling very good this morning,” I admit. “But you’re right. I’m sure when I see the Statue of Liberty, I’ll come around.”

  He gives me a one-arm hug. “If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out.”

  “Thanks, Gary.” I lean in and hug Mom once more while Gary puts my bags in the rental car. “I love you, Mama.”

  “Oh, Neely . . .” She lays her cheek against mine and holds it there for a long time. “I’m proud of you. I know this decision wasn’t easy.” She kisses my cheek, her tears wetting my face. “I love you.”

  With a little wave, I slip into the car and back out of the driveway. I honk three times as I make my way down the road.

  I pull to a stop at an intersection and do a quick scan of my gauges. The little orange marker shows I’m definitively on empty. I make a quick right and head to Elmer’s Gas Station.

  I pick a pump and get out. Swiping my card, I set the nozzle to fill and figure I may as well go inside and get a few snacks for the flight.

  The air inside the station is ice cold. I peruse the smoked almonds and beef jerky packages, but none of my usual go-tos look appetizing. Nothing looks good, even the cinnamon breakfast cakes I love but don’t let myself have very often.

  I turn to leave but almost run into Susan. Keyarah and Madison’s mom stops in her tracks.

  “Neely,” she gushes. “How are you?”

  “Good,” I lie. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Picking up some sports drinks for the girls. Aerial said practice tonight is going to be a run-through of the routine until it’s perfect, so we better be prepared to stay late.”

  “That sounds about right. We’re getting close to the Summer Show. It’s time to start perfecting things now and making the girls really put on the final touches.”

  “Will you be there?” she asks, picking up a bag of pistachios.

  “No, actually. I won’t be.”

  “Well, you’ve been such good help to the girls. I know they absolutely love to see you in the gym.”

  “I—”

  “And Mia.” Susan giggles. “She is beside herself about you. She told me how much time you’ve been spending with her and Dane. I’m sure it’s hard to spend time with him,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows.

  “I—”

  “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. If it is a secret, that is. I’m just thrilled to see her really coming out of her shell these days, and it’s all thanks to you.”

  I force a smile that I don’t feel. That I don’t mean. That takes the place of the terrible sadness that weighs on my soul.

  “To tell you the truth, Susan, I’m on my way out of town.”

  “For the day?” she asks, lifting a perfectly manicured brow.

  “For good.”

  She’s obviously taken aback. A hand goes to her throat as her eyes grow wide. “Really?”

  “I was never staying forever,” I say, going through my well-practiced spiel. “I was waiting on a new position to open, and it has, so I have to go back to New York.” Feeling awkward, I grab a bag of peanuts. “I’ll miss the girls.”

  “I guess you’re not taking the job at Aerial’s?”

  “I didn’t know anyone knew about that,” I admit. “But no, I’m not. I can’t. I haven’t told Aerial that, though, because this all happened so fast. I’ll call her when I land or maybe tomorrow.”

  Susan nods. “Good luck to you. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for, Neely.”

  “I’m not looking for anything.” I laugh, confused. “I’m just trying to
work and make a difference.”

  “Honey, with all due respect, that’s not true. If all you wanted to do was to make a difference, you would stay right here in Dogwood Lane.”

  “This community doesn’t need me.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. Keep telling yourself that Mia doesn’t need you, if no one else.” She heads to the cash register, and like a fool who can’t run away from pain, I follow. “Besides, I saw you with them. The only person who runs from what you have with Dane and Mia is someone who’s looking for something else.” She tosses her nuts on the counter. “I hope you find whatever it is.”

  Needing air, needing space, I toss my peanuts in a bin with discounted chocolates and head to my car. The pump is finished. I take the nozzle out and hang it back on the hook before realizing who is standing on the other side of my car.

  “Matt,” I say, unsure as to what he’s going to say. My heart thumps in my chest as I take in the guy who used to be one of my closest friends.

  “Did you think you were going to leave town without telling me goodbye? Again.”

  I walk around the back of the car and into his open arms. The contact is enough to make me blink back tears again.

  “I hate crying.” I laugh, pulling back. “I swear I’ve cried more in the last twenty-four hours than I have in my life.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because this time it’s all my fault. I have no one to blame for any of this but me.”

  “I know you didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says. “I know you aren’t a hateful person.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me right now.”

  He lifts his shoulders up and down. “Look, I don’t know how all of this played out, and I don’t want to know. I don’t care. I just know you’re my friend, and I wanted to tell you to be careful and that I love ya before you go.”

  “Damn you.” I blot at my eyes with a tissue I find in my pocket. “I don’t have time to get over to your dad’s. Will you tell him I said goodbye and I’ll see him when I visit?”

  “So, ten years from now?” Matt jokes.

  “I promise to do better.”

  “You better or this country boy is coming to the big city. Yeehaw!”

  I laugh. “You’re such a dork.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He takes his thumb and rubs a small circle on my forehead. “Be safe.”

  “I will. Be good.”

  “I’ll try.” With a simple smile, he starts across the parking lot.

  “Goodbye, Matt,” I call after him.

  “See ya, Neely.”

  As I climb in my car and start the ignition, I watch Matt pull away. The farther he gets from sight, the worse the pain gets in my chest.

  It didn’t hurt this bad the last time I left. Why can’t I shake it off?

  Cranking the air conditioner and the radio, I step on the gas and make my way to the airport. I look back only once.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  DANE

  She’s gone. She’s really, truly, actually fucking gone.

  I think I’m going crazy. I actually believe I know the minute she left town. I couldn’t breathe, and I had this insane need to get in my truck and barrel to the freeway, but I didn’t. Because people who do stuff like that are lunatics, and I’m not.

  Not really.

  I was grateful for Mia’s extralong practice tonight. It just gave me a bigger window without having to talk to Mia about why we aren’t seeing Neely again. Then Susan offered to let her stay the night, and while she didn’t say why, the sad look in her eyes told me she knows Neely’s gone.

  I hoped she’d change her mind. I hoped she’d start to leave and realize that Mia and I were worth it, that we were worth staying for.

  She didn’t.

  Meandering through my house, the night as dark as coal outside the windows, I feel like I’m coming out of my skin. There was a time not long ago I loved a quiet house. I loved an evening free with nothing to do. That’s exactly what I have, and I think I’m losing my damn mind.

  I got used to her too fast. I became dependent on her laugh, her stories, her body against mine. Now I’m all fucked up, not knowing what to do with myself, and I have no one to blame but me.

  There’s a knock at the door, but I don’t even get excited. It’s not Neely’s knock. It’s Haley’s. I don’t tell her to come in either, because I know she will whether she’s invited or not.

  Sure enough, within a few minutes, she comes walking around the corner in the kitchen. She stops when she sees me.

  “You look bad,” she says. “Good grief, Dane.”

  “I’ve seen better days.”

  “I believe that just by looking at you.” She hops up on a barstool at the island and watches me. “So, she left.”

  “Yeah.”

  I can’t even get riled up about it anymore. The anger is gone. It’s just disappointment and loneliness I can’t put into words.

  I want to tell Haley this is a broken heart. This is what devastation feels like. But I don’t have the energy to even try.

  “I will say,” Haley says, swinging her feet back and forth, “I’m surprised she left.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “But I kind of like it.” She grins wildly.

  My eyes close, then reopen slowly. “I’m sorry. I think I misheard you.”

  “You didn’t. This will make for an epic romantic finale.”

  My head falls to my hands. “She left me, Haley. There is no epic finale. It’s done. Kaput.”

  “This is why you can’t call yourself a romantic.”

  I pick up an orange and toss it from hand to hand. “Good thing I don’t see myself as a romantic then, huh?”

  She snatches the orange out of the air. “What’s the plan?”

  “The plan for what?”

  “I don’t know. The plan to get her back? To forget her? To pull a Penn and screw so many women you forget who’s who?”

  “Not that.” I hop on the counter, the cold marble kissing my ass. “I knew better than to screw that one, and I went against my rules.”

  “So why did you?”

  I look at her with a blank face. “Is that a serious question, Haley?”

  “Yes. Why did you sleep with her if you knew, without a doubt, that it was wrong?” She hops off the chair and rounds the island. Her hands on the counter across from me, she leaps up and takes a seat. “Was she hot? Sexy? Did she come on to you?”

  Blowing out a breath, I remember the way Neely felt against my body. The way she looked into my eyes and everything just felt right. Nothing mattered because I had her.

  Except I didn’t.

  “You want to know the truth?” I ask. I grip the corner of the counter and feel a sense of calm run across my skin. “I loved her, Hay. I really did.”

  “You do love her then.”

  “I guess I do.” I pick up another orange and throw it at her. She catches it with ease. “There. You happy now?”

  “No. I won’t be happy until you’re happy. Well, I’ll be a lot happier in six months when I can go looking for my Prince Charming again.”

  I consider something. “Maybe there are no happy endings. Maybe we’re all searching for this fairy tale because mass-market media shoves it in our faces, but maybe it’s all a made-up thing that we will never get.”

  “Ew. Lies. All lies.” Haley gasps. “In fairy tales, they find the person they’re supposed to be with. It’s not two random people who just decide they want to hook up. It’s soul mates, finally coming together in the midst of a crazy scene and having to battle the world as a team.”

  “I still think it’s stupid.”

  “I still think you’re stupid,” she says. “But let’s get back to Neely.”

  Just hearing her name hurts. It brings back a rush of memories that I don’t want to deal with. “Let’s not.” I get off the counter and lean against it instead. “I have one regret.”

  “That you haven’
t gone after her yet?”

  “No,” I reply. “That I blew up at her. I was pissed.”

  “Rightfully so.”

  “I kind of lost it a little. It just set me off because I really believed she wouldn’t go, even though she kept telling me she was. How could she leave me? How could she leave Mia? They had plans. Neely was taking her to the Manicure Day with the gym.” I look at the ceiling and close my eyes. “I don’t even know how to tell her, Haley. She’s going to be destroyed.”

  “Want me to do it? I can make it sound a little better than you, being that my heart isn’t broken.”

  “I think it needs to come from me. As much as I don’t want it to, I think it’s best.” I blow out a breath. “I did this to her. I should be the one to take the brunt of it.”

  She gets off the counter and stands beside me. She could not say a word and that would be fine. I get what she’s saying without the words needed to say them. But it’s Haley, and she won’t miss an opportunity to speak.

  “Remember when you hired me?” she asks.

  “Yes. Where’s this going?”

  “Patience, Dane. Patience.” She pats my shoulder as she walks by. “You told me that day we’d have to work together to raise this kid. That we were a team. You wanted it seamless, remember?”

  “And I think we nailed it.”

  “We totally nailed it.” She grins. “I know a few things about you. Probably more than I want to, really. But one of those things is that you’d never, ever hurt Mia. Ever. So no more of the ‘I did this to her’ crap because I’m not going to listen to it. It’s not gonna fly with me, bud.”

  Her words help more than she knows. “You’re all right, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know. Now, if you’re gonna live, I’m gonna go home and get some sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

  “I’m good.” I let her grin warm me. “Thanks for coming by, Haley.”

  “Anytime. Call me if you need me.”

  And with that, she’s gone.