“You shouldn’t feel bad,” he said. “I started all of this without a plan of action. Got everyone involved and excited. Getting Eddie and Alice talking about Annie again. This is why I don’t… This is why I shouldn’t…” He raked a hand through his hair, trailing off when I suspected he wouldn’t have this morning. Before things changed.

“Why you shouldn’t what?” I asked, tucking my feet under me. “Dean, you did the right thing here. I’ve been filming you for a week now, and if you could only see how much everyone loves and respects you regardless—”

“I’m going to take the Vegas job.”

I paused, mouth still open. “You…are?”

He nodded, eyes on the floor.

“The meeting went well, then, I’m assuming?” I said, through a burst of jittery laughter covering up my shock and disappointment. Two emotions I didn’t have a right to express with my own bags packed for a contract I was feeling lukewarm about myself.

“I know it’s a lot to take in. And a surprise. But looks like I need to pack a bag too.”

“For Las Vegas,” I said slowly, trying to picture Dean in a place so different from where we’d grown up was distorting my brain. That and the elephant in the room—that I’d held this man last night as he endured the lingering side effects of his many concussions from the sport he just agreed to represent on television.

“It’ll be an adjustment, like you said. And I’d rather run the steps at the art museum a thousand fucking times than go tell everyone I’m leaving.” His voice was flat and free of emotion. “But after they get used to it, I think they’ll be proud to see me on TV.”

“Of course they’ll be proud,” I said. “Your parents are proud of everything you do. I guess I’m just…” I bit my bottom lip, fingers tapping against my knee. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but did you tell them what happened to you last night? Does it seem like they care about injuries like you’ve been saying?”

Dean cut his eyes back to the floor, the motion spiking through my complicated emotions. “Harry doesn’t care about shit like that.”

I bit my tongue to keep from saying He doesn’t care about your health?

“The producer made some promises about change I think he’ll keep,” he finished. I caught the dip and sway of his tone, and it concerned me more than anything else.

“So I’m leaving. And you’re leaving,” he said, that dark-and-stormy gaze rising back to mine and pinning me in place. “Looks like we might meet at an airport sometime after all.”

“Yeah, looks like,” I chirped. “Wow. I’m, well, I thought you were going to work with Rowan and run the food program.”

Dean swallowed. “He’ll find someone more suited for that job.”