The other was from Tobias. Let me know if you’re coming over tonight. I’ll pick you up.

Harper told herself not to give in—to either man. She wasn’t sure why it took knowing that she was sleeping with someone else to make Axel finally miss her, so she didn’t trust his sudden turnaround. And she’d written Tobias back to let him know she wouldn’t be coming, simply because it was the right thing to do. Even if it wasn’t, she needed some rest. She was exhausted.

But after she went to bed, she tossed and turned for a long time, fighting the urge to change her mind.

To her credit, she didn’t. She managed to go to sleep. She was proud of that the following morning. But by the time Sunday night came around, he was, once again, all she could think about. And she was no longer so proud of herself for holding out; she regretted that she’d lost valuable time she could’ve spent with him. It wasn’t as though she had an unlimited number of days before she had to leave town.

What am I doing? she asked herself. She wished she could say Tobias was merely an escape from all her negative emotions. Someone she could get lost in. Maybe she wouldn’t be so concerned if that was the extent of it. But she genuinely liked him. Possibly too much. That was the real concern, wasn’t it? That she was getting in over her head—already?

Finally, after everyone else in the house was asleep, she pulled out her phone to text him. You awake? she wrote.

She waited for several minutes and didn’t get a response, so she told herself to let it go. If he was lying awake, thinking of her, he would’ve texted her back.

But the fact that she’d already missed last night and didn’t have a long time left in Silver Springs suddenly made her desperate to take advantage of the time she did have before she had to go back to Colorado and build a new life out of the rubble of her old one.

When fifteen minutes had passed and she still hadn’t heard anything, she gathered the nerve to call him.

“Did I wake you?” she asked when he answered.

“No,” he said simply.

So why hadn’t he texted her back? He didn’t offer an explanation.

“Okay, then… What are you doing?” Did he already have company? He’d said he wasn’t dating anyone, but he could’ve met someone since then. She had no doubt there were plenty of women who’d love to spend time with him. And it wasn’t as though she had any right to expect him to give up other relationships, not when she was the one who kept insisting they keep expectations low.