“Thank you,” I said as he placed a plate before me. He took the stool beside me to dig into his own plate of food. “For everything.”

He gave me that boyish smile I liked too much. “It’s what friends do.”

“And you want to be friends, even though I’m leaving in less than four weeks?”

Swallowing the bite of food he’d taken, Roane nodded. “I do.”

Forcing myself to take a forkful of eggs into my mouth, I concentrated on keeping them down before replying, “Is it because I saved Shadow?”

“What?”

“That you’re going out of your way”—I gestured to the food, but the gesture encapsulated the entire night—“to be my friend?”

Roane shook his head. “It started with that. Now it’s because I like you.”

I snorted. “I got drunk, blurted out nearly my entire life story to a pub full of strangers, and then you had to babysit me all night and hold my hair back while I threw up. Yes, I can absolutely see why all of that would endear me to you.”

Chuckling, he shrugged. “You do have a certain charm, that’s true.”

Rolling my eyes, I pushed the food around on my plate. “I’m a mess.”

I hadn’t meant for those words to sound so melancholy, but they brought about my companion’s intense regard.

“Let me ask you a question.” Roane turned his body toward me. “Why did you really come here?”

My head was pounding, I still felt nauseated and irritable with it, but out of gratitude I indulged a question that had a very complicated answer. At least it felt that way. “If I stayed, I would have spiraled into a depression, and it’s harder to pull yourself out of that black hole than to fight getting sucked into it in the first place. So, I came here.”

“Why would you have been depressed? What are you avoiding feeling?”

“Feeling like a failure. I came here to find some meaning in my life. To find out what I want from my life.”

“Career-wise?”

“That. And . . .” I glanced shyly down at my plate. “And love.”

“In what way?”

Looking up at Roane, seeing the genuine curiosity in his expression, the shyness, the vulnerability I felt about my love life—or lack thereof—eased. “Am I really lonely, or do I only think I should feel lonely because society dictates that I should be in a long-term relationship?”

His brow furrowed and he gestured for me to continue.