“Hey, in my defense, you made him seem like a pretty shit boyfriend.”

“Fair,” I conceded, and he slowly released me, both of us taking our seats again.

“Speaking of which… I’m sorry. About the breakup.”

I nodded, lungs squeezing painfully tight in my chest. “Thank you. So am I.”

And with the truth sitting out in the open between us, I felt a marginal scrap of closure wrap itself around my bleeding heart. Dad was right. It wasn’t going to happen overnight. I wasn’t going to stop hurting or stop missing Clay, not for a long, long time.

But I was still here. I was still breathing, still living.

And I didn’t want to shy away from the pain as I moved forward.

It reminded me of all that was, all the powerful emotions I’d felt with Clay in the time our lives were tangled together. I never wanted to lose those stinging lashes of pain, never wanted to forget how it felt to be held by him, touched by him, kissed by him.

Loved by him.

Maybe I didn’t get to have him forever.

But I’d hold on to every little piece of him that he gave me for the rest of my life.

And after, too.

Clay

I was so fucking tired of Boston winter.

And technically, it wasn’t even winter yet. We were smack dab in the middle of fall, but the sleety mixture of rain and snow piercing my skin like tiny branding irons didn’t feel like fall to me.

In California, fall meant crisp evenings and warm days. It meant sunshine and clear blue skies. We rarely ever had nights below fifty degrees, and most days hovered somewhere in the seventies.

That was football weather to me.

But the masochists who grew up here in New England? They loved playing in this shit. It was written all over their faces as we practiced — Zeke sticking out his tongue with a victorious smile after a big return, Riley doing a little dance after knocking in a thirty-three-yard field goal. As for me? I grumbled through every minute of it until we were all jogging into the locker room to shower, all the while longing for the hot shower that waited inside.

My stride slowed when I saw Giana.

She was too focused on rounding up a few of the players for the Instagram Live she had scheduled to notice me, so I took advantage of the moment, watching her curls bounce as if in slow motion as she pointed and directed and bossed everyone around. Her skin was brighter, eyes still tired but not lined with red the way they had been. Her head was held high, focus locked in on the task at hand like she didn’t have anything else on her mind.

She looked better than she had in weeks.

And I knew it was because of Shawn.