Will did more than try on that trip, and I basically molested him as soon as we walked into my old bedroom.

My pulse tripped at the memory of later that night. Looking back on that time, I realized Will had essentially professed his love to me, and I had been too thick—or too lost in the amazing sex on the floor—to hear it. My face flashed hot and I quickly changed the subject.

“So it really wouldn’t be a problem then for Stella & Sumner? Us relocating?”

Max looked at me like I’d just said something absurd. “Things would be a bit more complicated, but you two need to do what’s best for you. We’ll make the rest work.” Then he smiled wide. “Benefit of being the bosses.”

After leaving Max and Annabel at the park, I wasn’t quite ready to head home and face Will yet. In fact, I wasn’t sure what I would even say to him. Instead, I turned at the corner and headed in the direction of the Fifty-Ninth Street and Columbus Circle station, deciding to take the subway to the lab.

There have only ever been two things that felt easy in my life: one was science; the other was Will. Outside my normal circle, I’d never been very good with people. I had a tendency to overshare, and my verbal filter short-circuited ninety-eight percent of the time. But with Will—somehow—it didn’t matter. He found it endearing that I never seemed to shut up, and I never had to be anyone but Hanna with him. It’d always been easy.

But last night... I wasn’t sure where any of that came from. I knew Will didn’t love my unpredictable hours, but that was part of running a lab. I always thought that as a scientist himself, he understood that. Will wanted me to take on a teaching position, but that was something you did when your career was slowing down, not starting out. I wanted to do research and publish papers, contribute to our broader scientific knowledge. I wanted to make a difference. Wasn’t the entire beginning of our relationship based on his helping me learn to find balance? I’d done it then, so why was he so quick to doubt me now?

I unlocked the door and stepped into the dark room, the silence immediately pierced by the sound of crunching glass beneath my shoes.

It was just bright enough to see that a shelf near the door had collapsed from where it attached to the wall, its contents spilling out onto the one beneath it and across the floor just below.