“I had a crush on you even before I saw you naked outside my apartment that first day, Ada Cross,” he whispers into my ear.

He loosens his grip on me, and I pull away a little.

“Before?” I question.

“Yeah,” he admits, nodding his head. “From afar — from the other side of a magazine article.”

He stops and laughs to himself.

“No you didn’t,” I say, shaking my head.

“Oh, but I did,” he confesses. “I fell in love with a writer who saw the good in strange people.”

His sexy, crooked grin makes me smile.

“Jorgen.” My voice is almost a whisper. “I love you.”

He meets my longing gaze and then leans in and kisses my lips. I wish he knew how much those words mean to me and how hard it is for me to say them — not because I don’t love him but because I love someone else too — someone who I know will never say the words back to me.

“I love you too, Ada Bear,” I hear him whisper into my ear as he pulls me into his arms again. “I love you too, my Ada Bear.”

“You ever think about marriage?”

I almost drop the glass pitcher to the floor when his words hit my ears.

“Uh, what do you mean?” I try my best to quietly clear my throat.

“Like what it’ll be like,” Jorgen says. “I think about it sometimes.”

His eyes wander over to me. His face is scrunched up in thought. “Is that weird?”

I rest the pitcher safely onto the counter.

“No,” I say, simply.

I watch him smile softly, seemingly vindicated.

“I think it would be the coolest thing, you know?” he goes on. “Coming home to someone every night and taking trips together and getting to say, ‘my wife.’”

My breath hitches as I open the refrigerator door and slide the pitcher onto the top shelf. And when I turn around, I catch him in the living room flipping through my coffee table book full of awkward family photos and smiling to himself.

“Jorgen.”

His eyes find mine. I inhale deeply and then slowly force it out. “I have to tell you something.”

He hesitates, then sets the book down into his lap.

“What is it?”

He’s wearing a smile, and it looks as if he’s not the least bit prepared for what I’m about to say. It makes me nervous for him — and for me.

“I…,” I start and then stop.

I look down and grip the edge of the counter with both hands. I would swear that time had stopped if I couldn’t hear the clock on the wall noisily ticking out the seconds. I feel as if someone else has taken control of me. It’s as if someone else is about to say what I can’t. I squeeze the countertop and open my mouth just as my apartment door bursts open.

“Lada, I have coffee!”

Hannah’s cheerful song echoes through my little apartment, cutting straight through the silence, as she takes a step inside and stops when she notices Jorgen.

“Oh hey, Jorgen.”

She doesn’t seem as thrown off as she had been the first time she had barged into my apartment and had found Jorgen in my living room.

“I didn’t know you were off today,” Hannah continues. “Here, you can have my coffee.”

She tries to hand him her cup.

“No,” Jorgen says, smiling and gesturing for her to keep her coffee.

“I only took one sip,” Hannah tries to persuade him.

Jorgen smiles wider. “No, it’s really okay. I’m not a big coffee drinker anyway.”

Hannah flashes him a playful expression of disapproval. “Gotta watch those non-coffee drinkers,” she says, turning her attention to me. “They make me nervous — always awake and happy without reason.”

Hannah quickly turns back toward Jorgen and smiles. Jorgen returns her smile with his own. Then, Hannah takes a seat on one of the barstools facing me.

“I really should start knocking,” she whispers to me.

I nod. “Not a bad idea.”

She pushes her lips to one side and then dips her head in agreement. “Noted,” she whispers.

Hannah could have picked a better time to come barging in with coffee, but I’m glad she didn’t. I want so badly to tell Jorgen everything, but I also think that I just as badly don’t want to tell him anything. I wonder sometimes if I could just get by with never saying the words — ever. I wonder if it would even matter if he never knew. But then, I know that’s not really possible…or fair. He should know…soon, and I should be the one to tell him.

“So,” Hannah says. “We’re having a barbeque tomorrow evening.”

“We?” I ask.

“Yeah, Mom and I cooked it up. Just the family — and Jorgen, of course.”

Hannah sends me a quick, reassuring look that says: It’ll be okay. And then she dramatically spins around on the stool and faces Jorgen.

“Jorgen, you can come, right?” she asks.

Jorgen looks at me. I try to hide the utter fear I feel inside about a night with Jorgen surrounded by my family. I know Hannah probably doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but I have never brought anyone home before — not like this. And it is my family we’re talking about. I mean, if they didn’t feel the need to express their every opinion about certain aspects of my life at every turn, it wouldn’t be so bad, and I wouldn’t be so terrified — but that also wouldn’t be my family.

I force my lips into a faint smile that Jorgen seems to notice.

“I’d love to,” he says.

“Great,” Hannah exclaims before she glances at her watch and jumps up. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Just wanted to drop off the coffee and tell you about the barbeque. Lada, call me later. We can figure out a time for tomorrow.”

Hannah slips out the door then just as quickly as she had slipped in a few minutes ago, and instantly, my eyes fall on Jorgen. He looks happy and maybe a little nervous. I make my way to the living room and sit down next to him on the couch.

“They’ll love you,” I say and mean it.

I watch his sky-blue eyes slowly light up. “Well, I’m excited to meet them.” His happy gaze lowers and then quickly lifts again, grabbing my attention. “Is there something you wanted to tell me?”

I feel my face going blank until I remember there was something — something I don’t want to say anymore and risk losing that beautiful smile hanging on his lips.

“Uh, no,” I say, shaking my head.

He takes a wayward strand of my hair and secures it behind my ear.

“I love you, Ada.”

I lower my eyes and press my lips together.

“I love you too,” I say, eventually leveling my gaze with his again.

“What’s this?”

I turn and then sigh once I see what Jorgen’s eyes are planted on. We made it through the whole meeting-the-family thing with not so much as a mention of my life before I was nineteen. Even Hannah kept her mouth shut, which is basically a small miracle. But now, it’s me who leads him straight into an old memory.

“Is the L for Logan?” he asks, eventually.

I slowly nod my head and push my lips to one side.

He glances at me and then turns his attention back to the big oak tree with the heart carved into its bark.

“The A—your tattoo?” he asks.

I nod my head again.

He keeps his eyes planted on the tree, but I know he can see me nodding my head. Meanwhile, I spot a rock on the ground near my feet, and I kick it gently around with my shoe.

“Did you ever have a high school sweetheart?” I ask.

A silent moment passes.

“No,” he says at last, shaking his head.

I feel my eyes grow wide. “I don’t believe you.”

“No, really,” he says. “I never really paid attention too much to girls in high school. My head was so deep into football — that, and I had eight girls in my class and two of them, that I knew of, were my cousins. And I wasn’t really sure about the rest of them either. I was pretty convinced that we were all related somehow or another.”