If there’d been a dagger sticking out of her kitchen floor, John would have gladly tossed himself onto it. What an absolute asshole he’d been. He hadn’t realized, until this second, how personal that comment must have felt to Mary. He’d known it was a stupid thing to say, but she was just so gorgeous, so undeniably perfect in his eyes, that he hadn’t thought there was even a chance that a comment like that might actually stick to her. But there, with the first words he’d ever said to her, he’d shredded through one of her most tender insecurities. She’d been left by her boyfriend for a younger woman, and John’s words had made her feel as if there was something wrong with her for looking for love in the latter half of her thirties. Which, honestly, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with that no matter what the reason. But certainly not when the reason was dealing with the deaths of the two most important people in one’s life.

God. No wonder she’d left the restaurant. No wonder Tyler had given him a hard time at the party. No wonder she’d crossed John off her list. He considered it a holy miracle that she’d even let him back into her life as a friend.

But that was just who Mary was. She was not a grudge-holder. And less than two months after he’d told her she was too old and stabbed her straight through the heart of her self-consciousness, she’d defended him to his father, asserted the existence of John’s apparently huge heart.

She was the one with the heart. Even after everything she’d been through, she was still handing that heart out in handfuls, welcoming people into her life, smiling at block parties and cheek-kissing her friends.

Shit. John felt a crack run down the center of his chest, like the first telltale sign of an earthquake. He pressed the heel of his hand to his heart, trying to hold himself in one piece. This couldn’t be happening to him. He couldn’t crack open for Mary. He couldn’t fork over his entire heart to her right at that moment, over spaghetti and paperwork. Not at the exact same moment he’d realized just how badly he’d screwed everything up.

He’d known that he’d been rude enough for her to lose interest in him immediately. He hadn’t realized that he’d deeply wounded her. So, what was he supposed to do now, his stupid, beating heart in one hand and Mary’s in the other?

He couldn’t fall in love with her right now. He just couldn’t. It was insanity. It was a road to nowhere.

It was unstoppable.