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“I wasn’t going to.”

“I mean it. I need to be the one to tell him. When I’m ready. If I’m ready.”

I take a breath and resume the walk toward the pond.

“Ten years,” Nikko says, more to himself than to me.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been sleeping with Bastian’s little brother for ten years.”

“Please stop saying it like that.”

“How would you like me to say it?”

“Any other way.”

He laughs. “Do you think Bastian would actually kick your ass? Is that why he can’t know?”

I don’t answer right away.

“I don’t know,” I say finally. “The first time we all came here after Finn turned eighteen, he sat all of us down and told us Finn was off-limits. Said if anyone touched him, he’d throw us out and change the locks.”

“Fox, that was what, twenty-something years ago?”

“I know.”

“Finn is thirty-nine. He’s not a kid anymore.”

“I know.”

“How long have you two actually been…? Like, is this a relationship?”

“We’re not together.”

Nikko looks at me.

“We’re not,” I say. “We’ve never called it that. It started as no-strings, and it just…kept going. We danced around it for the first couple of years. Then we stopped pretending we were going to stop.”

He pushes his hat down to cover his ears.

“Fox, when did you realize you are in love with him?”

I turn my head so fast I almost sprain my neck.

“How do you know I’m in love with him?”

He laughs. “Because now I know you didn’t spend three weeks on the road to clear your head. You’ve been in Winterberry all this time with him, haven’t you?”

I can’t lie, so I nod.

“Nobody stays with somebody for ten years just because it’s easy. So which is it?” he says. “Are you scared Bastian’s going to kick your ass into your next career, or are you scared Bastian will be fine with it, and then you’ll actually have to be in a relationship for real?”

“Both.”

“Fox.”

“What do you want me to say?”