“OK, look.” He put an elbow on the back of the seat and propped his head on his fingers. His expression was more relaxed, amused even. “I’m sorry I shut down. I was trying to process some things.”

“Like what?”

“Like why you did it.”

“I did it because I felt like it. How’d you feel about it? Be honest.”

He smiled lazily, and I had the insane desire to trace his lips with my tongue. “Good.”

I gaped at him. “That’s it? Good? You’ve been silent for an entire hour and a half and that’s all I get? Good?”

“Uh huh.” His eyes glittered in the dark, and I hoped he was undressing me with them.

“Oh, that is so mean.”

“Sorry. I’m a man of few words.”

“How can a lawyer be a man of a few words?”

A beat went by. “Did I tell you I was a lawyer?”

Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. “Um, you must have, right?”

“I don’t think I did.”

He didn’t seem angry, exactly, but there was an edge to his tone that hadn’t been there before, a wariness, maybe. I decided to come clean. If we were going to be friends, I felt like I owed him the truth about what I’d heard. After all, he’d been more than honest with me tonight.

Plus the silence was killing me.

“OK, don’t be mad. Natalie mentioned that she’d heard some women talking in the shop about you. She told me she overheard you were a lawyer in New York.”

“Anything else?” His voice was tight.

I took a breath. “Yes. There was something about you having some sort of…mental breakdown last year.” I decided to skip the fiancée part.

He nodded slowly, a reaction I was starting to recognize as his I need to take this in so don’t ask right now gesture. But I was me, so I asked.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Oh. OK.” At a loss for what to say and worried I’d pushed too far, I slung my bag over my shoulder and reached for the door handle. “I should get going anyway. Thanks for dinner. I had fun.” I opened the door, and he grabbed my arm.

“Hey.”

I looked back at him.

“Come here.” He tugged me toward him, and I shut the door. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about that stuff right now.”

“It’s fine,” I said with a shrug. “Your past is none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked about it.”

“Skylar.” Taking my hand in his, he gently rubbed his thumb across the tops of my fingers. “I’ve said more to you tonight than I’ve said to anyone but my therapist in the last year. And I don’t even remember the last time someone kissed me by surprise.”

My heart raced with pleasure—not desire or lust or sympathy, just pleasure. It meant something to me that he’d opened up a little tonight, especially since he’d built such protective walls around himself. Not that I blamed him. The more I thought about what school must have been like for him, the worse I felt. How horrible to live like that, to be so alone.

“I’m glad you did,” I said softly. “I like listening to you, and talking to you. And kissing you.” I lifted my shoulders. “I like you, Sebastian. I want to know you better.”

His eyes dropped to our hands. “I’m not an easy person to get to know.”

I tipped his chin up, forcing him to look me in the eye. “I’m willing to try.”

She got out of the truck and shut the door without another word. I watched her open up her car, get in, and drive off, wishing I’d have had the nerve to kiss her.

Of the two of us, she’s the brave one. Brave enough to ask me for a drink, brave enough to trust me alone with her, brave enough to kiss me just because she felt like it. That actually made me smile. I did it because I felt like it. I could still hear her voice, guileless and sweet. And I could still see the look in her eye as she leaned toward me, daring and sexy. Then her lips on mine… I groaned aloud and put the truck in drive.

She had no idea what she did to me. Of course I couldn’t talk after that. I was too busy trying to adjust my boxers and not think about my dick. But of course, since I was trying not to think about it, it was all I could think about. Couldn’t she tell?

Maybe not, since she thought I might be mad that she’d kissed me. Mad, for fuck’s sake. The only thing that made me mad about it was that I hadn’t kissed her back. I hadn’t told her how much I liked it, how much I’d wanted to do it again before she got out of the truck, how many times I’d imagined kissing her back when she barely knew I existed—and how much better the real thing was. It had taken some serious fortitude not to yell “CHECK, PLEASE,” grab her by the hand, and run out of there so I could take her back to the cabin and kiss her properly. Lavishly. Thoroughly.

How long had it been since I’d had a woman stretched out beneath me, moaning with pleasure while I devoured every inch of her skin? And Skylar’s skin looked so delicious. I bet it would feel like satin under my tongue. Taste like cherries and vanilla ice cream.

Fuck, I was hard again.

And she knew things about me. She knew about New York, or at least the bare bones of it, and she’d still asked me out.

As I drove the long, dark highway up the center of the peninsula, her SUV ahead of me, I found myself wishing again that things were different. No, that I was different. That I had something to offer her. Sure, there would be good days, like this one. And for a while, maybe the good days would outweigh the bad, or maybe she’d find the good days worth the bad. But that wouldn’t last.

So when Skylar turned off 37 onto the road leading to her parents’ farm, I didn’t follow her like I wanted to. I didn’t pull up next to her in the dark, get out of the truck and wait for her to ask me what I was doing there. I didn’t grab her and crush my mouth to hers without saying a word. I didn’t hold her body close to mine and fiercely whisper how much it meant that she was willing to try.

But I wanted to.

So badly it hurt.

• • •

When I got home, the cabin seemed particularly dark and empty. I didn’t feel like mindless television, and the internet would only depress me, so I picked up a book my dad had given me recently, sat on the couch and tried to read. But I couldn’t focus on the story—the silence was smothering me tonight. Throwing my jacket on, I walked outside and unloaded the Adirondack chairs from the back of my truck. But once I’d lugged the boxes over to the patio, I didn’t feel like putting them together. Instead, I left them there and wandered down to the dock, grateful for the nighttime noise of the crickets and owls, the water lapping softly against the rocky shore.

What was Skylar doing right now? Sleeping? Watching TV? Or did she like to read at night like I did? Maybe she’d felt industrious when she got home and was attaching her bin pulls to the kitchen cupboards. I wish I was there to help her. I should have offered. I didn’t even have her number to call her again. Why hadn’t I asked her for it?

After a few minutes, I went back inside and sank onto the couch, feeling so lonely and sad I did something I hadn’t done in months. I picked up my phone and called Diana.

As always, it went to voicemail.

“This is Diana. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Hey…it’s me.” I closed my eyes. “I know it’s been a while. But I was thinking about you and thought I’d try to reach out. I guess you’re still not ready to talk to me, and that’s OK. I just wanted to let you know that you were on my mind and I hope you’re doing well. And…I’m sorry. I know I’ve said that a million times, but I am. I wish I could go back and do it all differently. Anyway. Goodnight.”

I ended the call, feeling, as I always did after calling Diana, a mixture of guilt and disgust with myself. I should delete her number and quit bothering her.