“I’ve had a rough few days,” he said to Abraham, which was a comically understated understatement. It was like mentioning your broken finger instead of your possible brain bleed. In fact, maybe he and that surgeon had something in common. After all, “splinting the finger” was a pretty apt metaphor for what efforts he’d made with Nora since she’d left him standing, still shell-shocked, in Donny’s apartment. A text before he’d left the building to see if she’d changed her mind about wanting to talk. A call the next morning, the day of her flight, which had gone to voice mail. When she’d texted him back a couple of hours later, her message had been brief, kind, tentative. Got your message. Hope you’re okay. Boarding flight. We’ll talk when I get back. Xo.

I love you, he’d wanted to reply, which couldn’t make any sense. Sending her a text like that when he’d all but sent her away the day before? Sending her a text like that when he was still reeling from the shock of having had the idea to type it out in the first place?

He’d written Good luck instead, and then he’d spent the rest of the day absolutely kicking his own ass for it, much like Gerald Abraham planned to kick the figurative ass of the finger splinter.

The problem was, if what had happened between him and Nora was, basically, a brain bleed, he wasn’t even sure if he should try to fix it. What he was going through now—this sullenness, this hell—this was the reason he didn’t belong in something serious with Nora. This intensity, this recklessness, this selfishness—all of it, he should’ve stopped weeks ago. He’d taken it to a place with Nora he knew he wasn’t capable of seeing through, not in the way she wanted. Not in the way she deserved.

But damn, he missed her. Like a hole right in the center of himself, a loneliness unlike anything he’d ever felt, and given the way he’d lived his life, that was really saying something.

“I’d like to invite you to dinner,” Abraham said, and Will coughed, and then stared.

He couldn’t even manage a reply.

“With Sally and myself. Let me assure you, though, that I have not fallen back into a routine.”

“Uh,” Will repeated.

“This dinner is at my home, and I am cooking, which is not something I often did during my marriage. Sally would enjoy having you with us.”

Will cleared his throat, fully aware of how absolutely ridiculous he must look, standing here in his bike helmet, staring down in shock at his boss.