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His mouth pulls at one corner.

“I’m going to sell what’s left of the business. And I want to split the money with you.”

I stop picking at the sand.

“No.”

“Clint—”

“No.”

“It’s yours too.”

“Puerto Vallarta is mine. I don’t need you turning the rest of it into some apology basket.”

“That’s not what it is.”

“Sure feels gift-baskety.”

Paul turns toward me, wet shirt clinging to his chest, sand stuck to one cheek, looking too ridiculous to be making life-changing decisions.

“It’s your share,” he says. “And if he’d done the right thing, we would never have had to fight over it.”

Part of me wants to keep refusing. Money always comes with attachments. Usually leashes. But Paul isn’t looking at me like he’s offering a leash.

He looks like he’s trying to cut one.

“I don’t want to owe you,” I say.

“You won’t.”

Somewhere down the shore, someone screams with laughter. Normal beach noise. Vacation noise. People having simple days because nobody has handed them a fortune and taken away a boyfriend in the same conversation.

Paul draws a breath.

“I think six months gives us both time.”

“Why six?”

He sighs. “I don’t know, really. How long does it take to sort out one life and start a new one? It feels like the right number.”

“Six months to figure out who we are when we aren’t trapped naked in a house together.”

He almost smiles. “That’s the idea.”

I toe the sand. “Trapped naked in the house hasn’t been nice?”

“It has been.” His voice softens. “It’s the nicest thing that’s happened to me in years.”

The anger in my chest loses its edge, becomes less useful.

“But if I stay now,” he says, “I’m afraid staying becomes another way to disappear.”

“And if you leave?”

“I might learn how not to.”

I laugh once, quiet and ugly. “That’s very mature. I hate it.”