Sawyer’s careful examination of Evie in the time she’d been back had revealed that even though she was back physically—geographically—they lived in two different worlds. She had gotten the education she was supposed to get. She had become the librarian she was supposed to become. He’d overheard her the other day in a deep discussion with Maya about the plays of Tony Kushner. Sawyer wasn’t knocking himself, but he had no idea who Tony Kushner was.

And even that—the two-different-worlds thing—was beside the point. Because if, hypothetically, he could somehow talk her into…what? Dating him? Sleeping with him? The point was, there was no way on God’s green earth that he would ever be able to say goodbye to Evie Abbott again. He wouldn’t survive it. That wasn’t hyperbole. He’d done it once. He could not do it again. If he knew anything with certainty in this world, he knew that. Evie Abbott was the only person he’d ever shown his whole, true self to. She’d been his one shot. His person.

So he needed to remind himself that she was going to leave when her year was up.

He couldn’t go showing himself to her again, only to have her leave again.

He just couldn’t.

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Eve was beginning to think maybe Moonflower Bay did have magical properties. That would explain why the reno continued to clip along so amazingly well—someone had to be casting a spell for everything to be coming together under budget and ahead of schedule like this.

“Whoa.” Maya spun in place in the newly painted dining room the Saturday morning of the Anti-Festival. “They did the crown molding, too.”

“Yeah, I guess they did.” She hadn’t noticed, to be honest. “They” was Sawyer and Jake, who were increasingly on-site offering the services of their carpentry business. She had painted the parlor herself, but they had wrested her paintbrush from her and taken over the rest of the main floor. They hadn’t spoken about the molding, but it did indeed appear to have a fresh coat of bright white that really popped against the very pale blue she’d chosen for the walls.

“Hello, hello! I come bearing pies!” Pearl appeared from the kitchen brandishing her phone. “Look what I found! Adorable mermaid bedsheets, but they’re classy instead of cartoony.”

Eve and Maya huddled around Pearl’s phone, but before Eve could make out what she was supposed to be looking at, a notification popped up and Maya snatched the phone away. “Pearl Brunetta. Are you on Tinder?”

Eve chuckled. She was impressed. She had met her last boyfriend, a few years ago now, at the library. And the one before that had been a blind date arranged by friends. Who was the old lady here, again?