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We let the sun do what it can. The ocean keeps rushing in and pulling back. My thighs ache. My ass hurts. Paul laughs once more under his breath, and I elbow him without looking.

“I’m never trusting horses again,” I say. “Or beaches. Or oceans.”

“That seems broad.”

“Is this part of your Puerto Vallarta birthday ritual?”

“No. It’s a first.”

“Don’t add it to the future itinerary.”

He smiles at that, but it fades quickly.

“What?” I ask.

He wipes his hands on his shorts, which only adds to the sand.

“I need to tell you.”

My stomach drops before he says another word.

“You’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

A wave slides up the sand and touches my heel. I wait for anger that doesn’t come. Just a clean, empty stretch of space between what I thought this morning might be and what he’s just made true.

“Okay,” I say.

It sounds awful, but how else could it sound? There’s no response that fits.

“It’s not because I don’t—” He stops, jaw working. “It’s not because this isn’t real for me.”

I look out at the water.

That sounds true. It also sounds like something people say before driving in the stake.

“I know,” I tell him.

I do not know. I want to. Maybe I will, just later. When I’m alone and it’s dark.

“I have to go back,” he says.

“To the dogs.”

“The dogs. And my sister. And the business.” He looks at me. “All of it.”

The list should make me feel better. Practical things. Adult things. Things people leave for.

It doesn’t help much.

“I can’t keep living a life that Renny built,” he says. “I need to figure out what the world looks like now. And I can’t do that hiding away in Puerto Vallarta.”

I pick at a clump of wet sand stuck to my shin. “Doesn’t feel like hiding to me.”

“It’s going to feel awful.”

“Good. I’d hate for you to have fun while abandoning paradise.”