The woman I’m falling for.

* * *

When the softball game is over, we head to a café. Ostensibly, she wants to talk about the future of tech, and we touch on that briefly, but mostly we just chat. She tells me more about her mom. She talks about Ray too, how devastated she was when he left her but how her work as a reporter was critical to her moving on. She poured herself into her job, and as she tells me this, I understand even more of what makes her tick—who she is beneath the mask she wore the night I met her.

“Remember the dress I wore to the costume party? The angel wings?”

“Yes. They were satin or something soft.”

“Chiffon. That was my unused wedding dress. Everything was ready, then he called and said he was leaving the country.”

My jaw tightens. “Do you think he was cheating on you?”

“It’s possible. He might have been lured by gambling, by another woman, or by his own unhappiness. I don’t actually know.”

“Do you want to know?”

She pauses, seeming to consider the question. “For the longest time, I did. I wanted to understand. But ultimately, I had to accept that maybe this is one of those things I won’t ever have an answer to, just questions. So, I’ve learned to let it go. It’s an unsolved mystery, and I learned from it.”

“What did you learn?” I ask, hoping she doesn’t say that she never wants to get involved with a man again.

“I learned I won’t always have the answers, and that’s okay.” She offers a small smile. “What about you?”

“I learned to be cautious about who I trust.” I take a breath and tell her about Annie, and how the end of that relationship hurt but how I walked away from it knowing that leaving was the only choice.

Sabrina meets my gaze, her hazel eyes fierce. She stabs the table with her finger. “She did not deserve you. I mean that, Flynn. She didn’t deserve you at all. No one does unless they love you for you. Unless they love you no matter what you have or don’t have.”

When she says that, I start to believe we could be that way—we could be a no-matter-what. That’s what scares me and, honestly, kind of thrills me at the same time. A no-matter-what with her—I feel the potent possibility in my chest, thrumming in my veins.

As we drain our iced coffees, her phone rings. It’s FaceTime. She glances at the screen, and her face lights up. I’ve never seen her like this. Absolute delight spreads across her features as she declares, “It’s Kevin!”

I tip my chin to the phone. “Answer it.”

She shakes her head. “No, I can call him back later.”

“Sabrina, you can talk to your brother. It’s totally fine. I get it.”

“Are you sure?” she asks nervously.

The phone rings again. “Answer it, or I’ll answer it for you.”