“What? The age difference doesn’t mean anything to me. I think we fit on so many levels.”

“Don’t. Just rapid-fire here, say your next fear.”

“Okay.” She needled her lip. “I’m scared that I’ve been lonely for so long that I won’t be able to shake it. I’ll infect you and Matty with it.”

“Good. Okay, I’m scared that when I’m fifty-eight and settling nicely into my beer gut, you’ll want someone your age. Hip and hot.” This rising feeling was somehow fierce and soft at the same time. He was basically telling her that in some fairly prominent corner of his mind, he was considering an extremely long-term future with her.

Her eyes grew and she opened her mouth to reply but clapped it back closed. She shook her head at him. “I’m scared you think of me as a child.”

“That’s ridiculous. You’re more competent than I am.” He pursed his lips at the look she quirked at him. “Right. Fears. Okay. Here’s a doozy. My biggest one. I’m scared that I’ll die before you do. And you’ll go through what I did when Cora died.”

She reeled back from him.

Well, any hope he may have had at playing this thing cool went right out the window with the birds. His heart pistoned in his chest, and his hands went clammy. He couldn’t tell if that look on her face was because he was basically handing her an invitation to be the person who laid him in the ground one day, or because he was saying he wanted to be with her until he died.

Her hand clapped over her mouth. But then her legs snaked out and wrapped around his waist, drawing him close. “I’m scared of that, too. Of you dying. I’m scared of me dying. Of Matty. Crabby. Fin. Shit, meeting Tyler and Mary made me so sad because I knew they were going to die someday. How fucked up is that?”

Finally, finally, her arms went around his waist. She was hugging him back. And still the words tripped off her tongue. “I’m scared that I’m too sad for you. I’m an orphan, Seb. I’m defined by grief. Sadness. Loss. Death. I’ve never been the same, it hit me at such a young age. You deserve happiness. You deserve to move on. I don’t want to drag you down.”

He landed his forehead against hers. “Via, you are not dragging me down. You’re elevating me. You push me toward the light. God, you’ve been doing that even when you don’t mean to.”

He stepped away from her.

“Wait here. Don’t move.” Seb ran to his bedroom, opened the nightstand beside his bed and jogged back to her, still on the counter, shakily sipping her tea. He slipped the paper into her hand.

She was confused as she peered down at the creased, stained paper. Then her eyes widened when she recognized it. The checklist she’d made for him two years ago.

“You kept it.”