But no. Screw that. She had a voice. So she tried again. “Maybe he is worth it.” It came out as a whisper. But he heard her.

“I didn’t want you to give anything up for me. Stopping you from doing that seemed like the most important thing.”

It was hard to know what to say to that. Because he was right. She would have given up anything. She would have been waiting tables with Sadie as her boss, probably, and who knew if she and Sawyer would ever have learned to talk to each other?

He took a deep breath. “Here’s the thing, Evie. I love you. I’ve always loved you. It’s only ever been you for me. I’ve made mistakes. I’ll own that. Sending you away wasn’t one of them. Maybe my method was problematic. I’ve apologized to Jeannie, by the way, but she’s unbothered by the whole thing. But I don’t regret that you went on to school, to travel, and to a career.”

“But—”

He held up a hand—a hand holding a trident, which made her smile. “But you did that, and now you’re back. And it feels like a second chance. I should have seen it as that a year ago. But…I don’t know. It felt like what I had done was irreversible. You doing everything you were supposed to do and then coming back wasn’t in my playbook. And then we…” He looked around, for the first time seeming to register that they had an audience. “And then I should have seen it as a second chance several months ago when…things changed.”

When they started sleeping together, he meant. She chuckled.

“But you had the big job in Toronto. You were leaving again. It felt like if I didn’t put boundaries around what was happening, history was going to repeat itself. I couldn’t be with you—really be with you—and lose you again.”

She wanted to interrupt him, to tell him that he hadn’t been the only one struggling with the boundaries of their relationship. He hadn’t been the only one afraid of getting hurt again. But he wasn’t done with whatever he was trying to say.

“But then I realized that’s all bullshit. That’s just fear. Clara’s gone. She’s grown up. So I can do whatever the fuck I want to do.”

Her stomach dropped. The lightness she had been feeling was gone.

“And what I want to do is be with you. So let’s go to Toronto. I know some people who have connections on the Toronto Police Service. Or I’ll get a security guard gig. Or I’ll harass Clara part-time and become a Little Free Library installer the rest of the time.”