“How about this?” he asked, slowing his pace until they were both stopped in front of a café where patrons sat under heaters at the outside tables. Griffin positioned her in front of him, wrapping his arms around her midsection, and Maggie couldn’t help but lean into him. For balance, for warmth, for the sheer pleasure of just being near him, she pretended some more.

She focused on a brown pillar that extended from an ivory archway, pinpointing a spot where the paint had peeled away.

Click.

The photograph slid out from the bottom of the camera like a serpent’s tongue, and Maggie wasn’t sure she could handle the sting the venom would leave. As the image came into focus, she let out a breath. It wasn’t that she needed the camera like she used to, her short-term memory issues getting better each day. But when a moment presented itself, one she wanted to preserve for the long term, it was important to get it right.

The shot was wide, the small spot on the pillar in focus, but the swarm of people around it a colorful blur.

She dropped the camera back into her purse and handed Griffin the photograph before starting to walk again.

“This is really good, Pippi,” he said, and her heart leapt just a little at the sound of his nickname for her. They would get through this talk, and then they could be Pippi and Fancy Pants for the remainder of the trip. Hell, they could pretend for eight more months if she wanted, but they had to lay it all on the table now before they could get through the rest.

“That’s what Washington will be for you—a beautiful, amazing, chaotic blur.”

“Maggie, don’t…” he started, and she spun to face him.

“Don’t what? Be realistic? Come on. This?” She motioned between them. “This isn’t a fantasy. It’s work. That’s why you didn’t tell me about Washington, and that’s why you’re trying to convince yourself that you weren’t seriously considering it in the first place because you know it will be the kind of work that you might not be cut out for—that we might not be cut out for. I get it, Griffin. I get it, and I don’t blame you, and I’m not letting you say no to something you deserve…because of me.”

“Maggie,” he said again, but she wasn’t going to let him argue against his own best interest.

“Look at where we are,” she said, throwing her arms out wide and spinning around, her surroundings a blurred vision of pale concrete. “We are missing this because of us. I can’t ask you to miss out on your future, too.”

Griffin’s jaw ticked, and his eyes darkened.

“Like you missed the wedding?” he asked.

“What?”

“The wedding,” Griffin repeated. “Every second of every minute of every freaking hour we were apart today, I looked for you, but you weren’t there. I know you’re angry, but it isn’t like you to bail.”

Maggie plunged her hand into her purse and thrust a stack of mini Polaroids at him.

“Here’s how much I bailed,” she said, smacking the pile against his chest. She waited for him to look at the photos, for his eyes to widen.

“Maggie—” he started, but she interrupted him by shaking her head.

“I’m going to walk the rest of the way on my own, okay?”

What was happening with them? After everything, how could he think she’d bail on him? She set off alone, making it to the hotel in what felt like the space of a few labored breaths, the rest of the walk a blur.

Once inside the room, she pressed the door shut and whacked her head against it. Shit. That was sure to be the express lane to a headache. Then came the pacing, and after that the mumbling to herself.

“Bailed? I can’t believe he would think I was capable of missing anything this important. No matter what’s going on with us, I would never miss out on such a big part of his life. Bailed.”

She groaned.

“Are you through?”

Maggie jumped and spun toward the door where Griffin leaned against it, arms crossed.

Her mouth fell open, but of course now the words wouldn’t come.

Griffin took a step toward her, and she held her ground. Another step, close enough for her to smell the apple scent of the shampoo they now shared.

“Being apart from you last night was hell,” he said, and although she was standing firm, all Maggie could do was nod. Because yes, it was hell.

There had been nights she’d come home to a sleeping Griffin and woken to an empty bed, him already gone for work while she slept in before a late class. There was that long weekend she went to Florida to visit her gran while Griffin was swamped with a project and had to stay back in Minneapolis. And she had missed him. But the light at the end of the tunnel was that they’d be back together.

But last night? Last night felt like the beginning of the end of…something. And that, Maggie realized, was her hell. The possibility of a life without Griffin.

“This one is my favorite,” he said, handing her back one of the photos. She remembered sneaking out of the pew to get this shot, one where she had to squat to get the right angle to capture Griffin in his jacket and kilt behind the groom as the priest recited the wedding prayers. She’d been so focused on making sure she could see him from head to toe that she’d missed his expression—or the change in it.

“You were smiling when I set up the shot,” she said. “Smiling and watching Duncan and Elaina, but you aren’t even looking at them here.”

Griffin shook his head.

“I was looking for you,” he said.

“I didn’t bail,” she told him.

“I know.” He let out a long breath. “And I’m not bailing on you, either.”

Maggie held the photo against her chest. She’d had such a great argument prepared for this moment, and she was summoning the words to explain why he had to go, but Griffin never gave her a chance.

“What if I came down with the flu, right here and now?” he asked, and just as Maggie thought she was going to turn into a puddle of tears, she laughed.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“What if we get home, and I slip on some black ice and break my leg?”

“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “It’s not the same.”

He cocked a brow. “Answer the question, Pippi. If something happened to me, what would you do?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d take care of you.”

The corners of his mouth turned up.

“And if I did break my leg because I fell on black ice, how would you feel about my taking a leisurely winter stroll after I was healed?”

She grabbed his hand and slapped the photograph into his palm.

“This isn’t fair,” she told him. “All of these what ifs aren’t fair. You know going in, that if I come with you, you’re going to spend energy worrying about me that could be better spent on your new job.”

Again he stepped closer, and she had nowhere left to go but against the wall behind her.

“Maggie, I’m going to worry about you whether you are in D.C. or Minneapolis, whether you are in the bed next to me or in another apartment hundreds of miles away. Don’t you get it? I love you. Above any other person or city or job—you matter most. Maybe I was scared to tell you the truth, and you’re right. I shouldn’t have kept any of it from you, and I’m a shit for doing that.”

His palms were on her cheeks now. He was dangerously close to distracting her, and she had to stay focused.

“I was scared,” Griffin said, and she closed her eyes and nodded. She knew fear all too well, knew that she was letting it take the lead with her as much as Griffin had let it with him. “And I’m still scared now—terrified, actually. But not for the reason you think.”

At this her eyes fluttered open, and Griffin’s gaze held her there, frozen in wait for what came next.

“Maggie, I’m not afraid of what will happen if you come with me to D.C. I’m scared of what will happen if you don’t.”