“Don’t make that promise. You’ll regret it.”

“No, I won’t. What is this? What’s wrong?”

“Fuck. Sorry.” He quickly wiped at his eyes.

“Sebastian. Talk to me.”

“It’s nothing. I guess I just didn’t realize I was holding in a lot of tension.” He focused on pulling out of me, and the moment he did, I sat back and brought my legs together, covering myself with my skirt.

“Oh.” Well, this was a letdown. Was he really shutting down on me right now? After what we’d just said to each other?

“I’m sorry about your skirt. I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

I stared at him, blinking twice. “My skirt?”

“Yeah. I got…stuff on it.” He stood and did up his pants.

“Jesus Christ, Sebastian.” I scrambled to my feet, feeling warmth trickle down my leg. “I don’t care about the damn skirt. I care that you’re closing yourself off from me, right after I told you I love you.”

“I’m not.” This without even glancing at me.

“You are. Why?”

He was silent for a second, staring out at the water, and I recognized the stubborn set of his jaw. He wasn’t going to talk.

“Fine. Be stubborn.” Instead of engaging in the argument, I leaned down to pick up my shoes and my binder and stomped off the dock and up to the cabin.

Inside the bathroom I cleaned up with a wet washcloth, fighting tears as I looked at myself in the mirror over the sink. This is him. This is what you’ll have to deal with every time your relationship hits a milestone that freaks him out.

But what milestones would there be? He’d just said the other night that he doesn’t want the forever things—getting married, having kids. I’d played that off, and then we’d gotten distracted with sex—amazing, hair-pulling, wall-thumping, name-screaming sex—but later, as we lay next to each other in his bed, I felt sad that there was a possibility he didn’t want those forever things with me. Maybe he was just scared of that kind of commitment—a lot of guys were. Or maybe he worried about passing his OCD on to his children if he had any. Maybe he’s scared he’d stab me with the cake knife at our wedding. But who the fuck knows, because he won’t talk to me!

A gentle knock sounded on the door.

“Just a second,” I said. “Actually, just come in. I don’t care.”

The door opened and a downtrodden Sebastian appeared behind me in the mirror. I met his contrite eyes before rinsing out the washcloth in the sink.

He entered and stood beside me, taking the washcloth in his hand. Without a word, he wrung it out and dropped to his knees, and turned me to face him. Then he gently ran the cool, wet cloth up the inside of one leg.

I sighed. “I already did that,” I said, although it was so sweet that he wanted to do it, I didn’t protest when he stood, rinsed and wrung again, and knelt down to wipe the other leg, and then tenderly washed in between them.

He looked up at me. “I do love you. More than I’ve ever loved anyone.”

I cupped his jaw with one hand. “Then let me in, and let me stay.”

“I want to.” The fear in his eyes broke my heart. “I’ll keep trying.”

I started slipping the night Skylar told me she loved me. I knew I would.

It was all kinds of fucked up, I knew that too. Because I’d spoken the truth—I did love her more than I’d ever loved anyone before. My heart knew the truth, but it was as if my head refused to cooperate. Refused to believe in a future with her. Refused to let me feel secure in the knowledge she was happy with me.

She hadn’t brought work clothes for the next day, so I had to take her home that night. Halfway down the driveway, I had to go back and check the locks on the cabin doors. The second time, we reached the road, and I had to reverse to check them again. A quarter of the way to the farm, I felt the need to go back and check them again, and I nearly turned around. I was so agitated, my hands shook.

“Hey.” Skylar put three fingers on my wrist. “Stop. You locked the doors. I saw you.”

I swallowed. “OK.”

“What’s going on with you? Talk to me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Is it…what I said? Maybe that was too much.” The worry in her voice was like a punch in the stomach.

“No, Skylar.” I glanced at her, saw her chewing her bottom lip. I took her hand and kissed it. “I’m so glad you said those words to me, and I meant what I said to you.”

Which was why I counted lines in the center of the highway, there and back.

And why I made sure I kissed her goodnight eight times and told her I loved her twice, praying she wouldn’t catch on to what I was doing.

It was why I counted as I brushed my teeth, made sure I stopped reading my book on an even page, and switched the lamp in my bedroom off eight times.

In the dark, I lay my head on the pillow and worried with an intensity like pain.

I loved her, and she loved me.

Now it was my responsibility to keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

keep her safe.

• • •

Three days later I saw Ken, and he knew right away something was off with me. “How are things?” he asked, eyeing me warily from his chair.

“Fine.” I kept all my answers short and offered nothing. When he asked about Skylar, I told him things were comfortable, and even as I spoke the words I tapped the side of my leg eight times, then dropped my head and blinked eight times. I’m sure Ken recognized I was not myself, at least not the self that I’d been in the past few months, but he didn’t push. When I left the building I made sure I took an even number of steps to get out to my car. I hated what I was doing, felt sick and shameful and loathsome, but I couldn’t stop.

Skylar was tougher on me than Ken.

“What’s with you?” she whispered two weeks later when she caught me rearranging the place setting at my brother’s house. I was trying to make sure the two forks were exactly the same distance from each other and the one nearest the plate was that same distance from it. Same with the spoon and butter knife on the other side.

“Nothing.” I gave her a smile when she reached over and took one of my hands under the dining table.

“Are you nervous about something?” By contrast, she seemed cool and calm, although she was meeting my entire family for the first time today.

“No.” Leaning toward her, I kissed her cheek to reassure her. The last thing I wanted was for her to think I had an issue bringing her around my family. I didn’t—in fact, this had been my idea. Well, mine and my sister-in-law’s. She and Skylar had met already because Skylar had arranged a meeting between Kelly and Mrs. Nixon about supplying her guest houses with products. Skylar had also arranged a meeting with Mia Fournier, and Abelard now stocked and sold Kelly’s honey-based products as well. Kelly adored Skylar, and had encouraged me to bring her to dinner to meet the rest of the family. My father was here with his longtime girlfriend, my brother David was here with his wife, Jen, and my nieces and nephews sat at a kids table in the kitchen.

Skylar was her usual self, beautiful, relaxed, and outgoing, and it was wonderful to see how she fit in with my family. Diana had come to Michigan twice in our two-year relationship, and neither time had I felt as comfortable or proud as I did tonight. In fact, I quite enjoyed the impressed looks on my brothers’ faces when they first saw her. My father, who’d met her once at the office, kept looking back and forth between us with a curious look on his face, and I wondered if he was thinking How the hell did a guy like you get a girl like that? Which is basically what I thought every time I looked at her.