With maturity and age also comes the need to be honest about it too. “I’m not going to play games with him.”

“I’m not telling you to.”

“How is it that I’m thirty-two years old, unmarried, no kids, and I am a fucking mess? Shouldn’t this have been how it was for me in my twenties?”

Delia laughs. “Well, I’m in the similar but slightly more pathetic boat as you. I’m thirty-two and have never been in a real relationship because I’m in love with a man who lives two states away and doesn’t even know I exist. Oh, and it’s been four years since I got laid.”

“You are pathetic.”

She nudges me as we both giggle. “How long has it been for you?”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m a virgin again.”

“That long?”

I nod. “I was sort of dating the pilot, Elliot, a few years back. We would hook up when we were on a flight together, but it stopped when he realized I was never going to be more than casual. He recently moved in with his girlfriend, and she’s fantastic.”

We are about to reach the beach house when Delia’s hand grips my arm. “Jess, you and Gray . . . you were always what people hoped to find for themselves. You loved each other in a really raw and honest way. Do you think that being back here is some kind of sign? Could you give yourself the opportunity at love again?”

I look up at the deck in time to see Melia open the door and rush out, waving her hand at us. I lift mine and allow the unwanted images of a possible future to rush forward. Grayson, Amelia, and I vacationing here. Another comes of us at a school play or hiking to show her the lookout we made ours so many years ago.

He emerges, a coffee cup in his hand, staring at me with such intensity it’s as though he can see into my head.

But the truth comes back, reminding me that this is temporary. I don’t want to live here—ever. Grayson and I have ghosts that will never go away, and I’ve seen firsthand what those do to men.

It causes them to leave.

I look back at Delia, disappointed that wanting something so much doesn’t make it possible. “Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s not a matter of giving myself a chance to love again.” I watch him, hating the words. “It’s that I don’t want to stay here. I want to go back to my life in California. I want to fly again and travel. The real question is, could I give up everything for a chance? And the answer is . . . I don’t know.”

Chapter 12

Grayson

“Yaya, you have to meet my new friend Miss Jessica?”