“Then no harm, no foul.” He levels me with a glare. “But I wouldn’t do it again. Boundaries are your friend in this situation. I know you still want to protect her, but the best way to do that is by staying away. She left you—I get that—but my guess is she was just as broken up about it as you were.” He pauses again as if he’s holding back, but this time it doesn’t take any prodding for him to continue. “No one walks away from a million-dollar deal and someone they’re in love with all in the same day without some serious shit going on under the surface. Don’t stir the pot, Ryan. Leave well enough alone.”

Casey’s words roll around in my head for another full week. A week in which I’m so engrossed in Scarlett’s manuscript that I almost feel like she’s with me. Her voice is so clear, so brilliant, so haunting. And reading this time knowing it was her who wrote the words makes it all the more exciting. The changes she’s made to the story based on our emails are even better than what I had originally suggested. The grittiness of the bike elevates everything else in the story and adds realism to her otherwise fragile and airy prose. It incongruously fills the book with even more hope than was there before.

It fills me with hope that Scarlett has found a way to ground herself like she’s grounded the story. That she won’t somehow float away. That she’s filled with optimism, too.

I had planned to do several passes through the manuscript this time, but after I finish my first read-through, I’m itching to discuss it with her about it like we used to—papers strewn about, a light in her eyes as she talked through a particular scene. The way those eyes would go a little wider and she’d gasp just before scrambling off the bed to grab a notebook or her laptop or her phone, whatever was closest to frantically tap out whatever idea had occurred to her.

The way our bodies would tangle with the pages and the sheets, our tongues rolling around words, then around each other. Exploring both until we were spent. Waking up to do it all over again.

I shake my head rapidly. Casey was right. The best way to protect her is to stay away. No matter how much I want to pick up right where we left off, it might bring up too many old wounds. It could stop Scarlett from writing again. And the world needs her words. That, I know for sure.

But when Trina’s name lights up my phone somewhere in the middle of my second pass of page fifteen, I scramble to answer it faster than I probably should.