She nodded. “But I can accept that if there’s joy in it too.”
He was quiet for a while, his brow furrowed. His shoulders rose and fell, heavy, and it felt like he was debating something. Finally, he sighed. “Was there joy in your life with Darren?”
*
He really didn’t want to know the answer, but he couldn’t stop himself. At least he hadn’t asked any of the other questions on his mind.Did you love him with all of yourself? Did he give you all the things I couldn’t give you?So Jace settled with the question about joy, though that one was hard in a different way. The selfish part of him didn’t want her to find happiness with someone else, and yet, knowing Selena wasn’t happy for years was painful, too.
It took a while for her to answer, and when she did, she didn’t meet his gaze. “I thought there was joy at first, but after a while I realized that the feeling wasn’t happiness itself. It was excitement about what Ithoughtwas coming. Not about the way things were but about how they might be. And then, after years of waiting, I understood that what I thought we were working for—it wasn’t ever going to come.”
Her words felt heavy, and they drove home the bone-deep wish he had struggled with since he lay on her couch with his arms around her. She had had some tough years, and he wanted to be the one to change that. He wanted another chance, a chance to find a new kind of happiness together with her.
He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. She didn’t pull away, just looked down at his hand, studying it.
“How long are you staying in Sacred Harbor?”
“I was planning to put the house on the market months ago,” she said. His jaw tightened, but he stayed quiet. “My friend Melanie has a spare bedroom where I can stay while I look for a place in Boston.”
“You have a job waiting for you there?”
She shook her head. “I could probably get one or continue to freelance, like I’m doing now.”
He swallowed. “And that’s what you want to do? Move back to Boston?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
She lifted her gaze, and they studied each other the way they had when they sat down. The reality was that his chances to see her would probably end soon. But he was older this time, if not wiser then at least a bit more patient. He had pressured her all those years ago, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake again.Give her time.
“Just think about it, Lee,” he whispered, and he left it at that.
Selena turned her hand over and fit it into his. Her fingers were still cold from her walk outside, and he stroked his thumb over her skin, warming it. After a while, she looked up at him, smiling, her eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Do you want to come over tomorrow and finish your tour of my house?”
“Very much.”
She laughed softly, almost to herself. “This is not even close to a friend conversation.”
Jace shook his head. “You know we could never just be friends.”
Chapter Eleven
Jace’s question about staying in Sacred Harbor hovered over Selena’s thoughts like an incoming cloud bank, the kind that said,Things are about to get serious. So, of course, she was trying to ignore it. She needed to turn in the preliminary sketches for her Easter project so she could focus on her personal and, as of yet, unpaid projects.
She had managed to focus for a few hours, but the closer evening came, the more the idea of staying played through her mind. What would it be like to stay in Sacred Harbor for real? Since leaving Boston four months ago, she had deliberately avoided making her life here feel permanent. It was supposed to be recovery from the divorce after the final terms were settled. Just a little time to regroup and then she’d return to Boston.
But what was waiting for her there? Melanie, her one friend that was truly hers, not Darren’s. Mel was definitely a reason to go back, and she’d welcome Selena into her apartment for as long as she needed. But her friend traveled a fair amount on research trips, and Selena was pretty sure she wouldn’t live there forever. Melanie wasn’t on speaking terms with her poet father, but Selena got the feeling that if her father ever reached out, Melanie would be on the next plane to Stockholm.
The truth: There was no reason shehadto move back to Boston. She could work from Sacred Harbor, like she had for the last few months, and she could still stay at Mel’s place when she had in-person meetings.
It wasn’t that Boston was calling her. The question was whether staying in Sacred Harbor would be a step back, into the past, or a step forward, into a future she wanted. Oh, how easy it would be to go back to life with Jace at the center. At the café she could feel the connection between them growing stronger. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted. It had taken all her strength to leave him behind nine years ago, and it wouldn’t be any easier the second time around. Maybe worse, now that she knew that, even after nine years, the connection between them sparked back to life so easily.
So staying in Sacred Harbor wasn’t just a question of giving their relationship another chance for a few weeks, just to see how things went. Staying was bigger than that. Either she wanted a second chance with him, a real go at this as two adults, with eyes wide open, or she needed to walk away from him forever.
Tonight Jace was coming over for a tour of the house, a thinly veiled euphemism for what she had fantasized about every night since he had picked her up in the tow truck. Maybe what they felt was mostly nostalgia, and the reality wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying. Or maybe it would be more. But she needed to choose to either give this a try for real or set them both free. And he had to choose, too.
Selena only understood that she had been pacing when Jace’s knock startled her out of her path. “Coming.”
She made a quick stop at the hallway mirror and smoothed her t-shirt over the roundness of her stomach. The tour of the house was likely to end in the bedroom, quite possibly with their clothes off. She had gained weight since high school, and there was no way he had missed it. But this was hernow, not the memory of her, so maybe it was better this way. Different. No illusions. Selena swept her hair over one shoulder and headed for the front door.
