Annie is quiet for a second. Then she sets down her salad, turns to face me fully, and takes my other hand too, so I'm caught.
"Number one," she says. "Your father leaving was the single dumbest transaction in the history of this town. He traded Clara Gable and you for a woman from a title company and a condo in Sarasota. That is not a story about your worth, Darcy. That is a story about his character."
"Annie."
"Two. You are not your mother, and it is not eighth grade, and you're allowed to notice the difference. Your mother got left with a kid and a mortgage. You are a thirty-year-old woman with tenure, a master's degree, great hair, and a man who—according to the entire eyewitness record—walked out of your building this morning looking like he won a medal." She squeezes my hands. "And three, you are the best person I know, far better than anyone else in this town including me, and I love myself a lot."
I laugh, which was probably her whole intent.
"When does he actually leave?" she asks. "Has he said?"
"No." I look at my hands. "That's almost the worst part. Nobody's said it. There's just this thing we're both not looking at, sitting in the corner of every room, holding a boarding pass."
"I'm not saying don't be careful," she says, gentler. "I'm saying be accurate. What if he's in it this far, too? What if the man is sitting in that vineyard right now doing his own sad math?"
"He isn't." I say it fast, like a reflex, because the alternative, hope, is worse. Hope is just another side of fear. "Finn has a whole life outside of this town, Annie. He’s got a dream project waiting for him in Colorado. He already left Mattichogue once, and stayed gone for years. He’s still searching for something he hasn’t found."
"How do you know he hasn’t found it? He seems pretty into you from what I’ve seen."
I shake my head, too afraid to consider it. "Men like Finn don't rearrange a whole life for a hometown schoolteacher after just one week."
"Uh-huh." Annie starts counting on her fingers. "Let's review. You were so sure he was leaving the Monday after the auction. He didn't go. He showed up to trivia night?—"
"Because you and Evan conspired to get him there," I point out.
"Immaterial," she says, without losing her stride. "He walked you home that night in front of the entire pub. Then he spent most of the day with you Saturday hiding from his own party, after which, on Sunday, he showed up at the library so he could ask you out on a date to Windows on The Bay, which requires a reservation, which means he planned it. And this morning he strolled out of your apartment in front of God and Mrs. Johnson like he couldn’t care less who knows you two are together now. So, sure babe. No evidence of rearranging going on at all."
"You're supposed to be on my side."
"I am on your side. And that means pointing out when you're being ridiculous. How am I doing so far?"
I shrug. "I guess you're not wrong."
"No, I'm not. And here's one more item for the tally, since I'm on a roll. After a night of glorious debauchery, which I'm deducing from the color in your cheeks right now, he not only met your womanly needs but exceeded them. By a lot."
"All true. And he made me coffee and breakfast," I murmur, because I'm still floating over the idea.
Annie's brows climb all the way to her hairline. "He. Made. You. Breakfast."
"Yeah."
"That, my friend, is not a man itching to ditch you."
I want to believe her. I want to believe it so much it scares the crap out of me.
And here's where I could tell her the rest. That it's already too late. That somewhere around midnight when we were tangled together on my couch I looked up at Finn andknew. I don't say it out loud. Out loud makes it real.
"Men like Finn have an exit built into everything," I say instead. "It's not cruelty. It's just how they operate. It's their architecture. And I'm not going to be the woman standing in the driveway acting surprised when he's gone. I can't let myself be that person."
"So what's the plan?" She says it the way she'd ask a freshman where the script is.
"The plan is I enjoy this for exactly what it is." I hear how reasonable I sound. I'm a professional explainer; I can make anything sound like a syllabus. "Right now, it's real, and it's good, but it's temporary, and I'm not going to let it get any deeper than it already is. That's it. That's the whole plan. I hold the line."
Annie looks at me for a long moment, and I can see her deciding whether to fight me on it. She doesn't. She just pulls me sideways into a hug that smells like paint and her terrible cafeteria coffee, and holds on one beat longer than a normal hug, which is Annie language forI love youand alsoI give this plan two weeks.
"Okay, babe," she says into my hair. "Hold the line."
Hold the line. That's it. That's manageable. I've held lines my whole life: red-pen lines, lunch-duty lines, the fire-drill line, the line at the DMV the year my registration lapsed. I am, if nothing else, a woman with excellent line discipline. This is just one more line, and all it requires is that I don't let a six-foot-two gorgeous, magnetic and wounded man with careful hands, a lethal grin, and a body I could explore for decades any further into my heart than he already is.
